The Premier League’s spectacle is as big as it gets, but its players know the World Cup dwarfs it all

Our reporter's visit to London showed why English soccer is so popular not just there, but in the United States. Some players there could star in the World Cup, including in Philadelphia.

Gabriel Jesus (left) celebrates scoring a goal for Arsenal against Aston Villa on Dec. 30. He could play for Brazil's national team in the World Cup, including a game in Philadelphia.Read moreAlastair Grant / AP

by Jonathan Tannenwald

Published Jan. 11, 2026, 5:00 a.m. ET

LONDON — You can learn a lot about England’s famed Premier League from watching it on TV or online, given how much coverage it gets in the United States. But as with many things in life, there’s nothing like actually being there.

And in particular, there’s nothing like seeing it in England’s capital city.

Though soccer has helped make cities like Manchester, Leicester, and Newcastle world-famous, London’s scene dwarfs them all.

The English game’s four professional leagues have 14 teams within the city limits, including seven in the top flight this season: Arsenal, Brentford, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur, and West Ham United. Many American fans know them well these days, from the big fan bases of Arsenal, Chelsea, and Spurs to the U.S. national team stars at Palace and Fulham.

But it’s the rest of London’s tapestry that makes the scene so vivid: Millwall in the second-tier Championship, AFC Wimbledon in third-tier League One, and countless semi-pro and amateur sides like 133-year-old Dulwich Hamlet. The Hackney Marshes sports complex in east London has 88 soccer fields, and used to have 135.

On any given Saturday, London’s trains and buses are a kaleidoscope of jerseys, scarves, and hats. Arsenal fans in red head to north London as blue-clad Chelsea fans head south. Fulham fans in black and white walk along the Thames River to 130-year-old Craven Cottage; West Ham fans in claret and blue ride to the modern stadium built for the 2012 Olympics.

A clutch of Norwich City fans who came from afar stood out in green and yellow. Their trip to Queens Park Rangers on New Year’s Day would be rewarded with a 2-1 win, including a goal from American striker Josh Sargent. At the same hour, his countryman Haji Wright was across town with Coventry City at Charlton Athletic.

Just beyond the city limits, an old friend of this reporter checked in as a longtime Watford fan. His Hornets hosted Birmingham City, just before Kai Wagner moved to Birmingham from the Union.

It was fun to watch the scene, but there was serious business at hand. The stretch of games from mid-December through the first weekend of January is the signature time of the season — especially Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. The stretch from Dec. 26 through Jan. 1 is to English football what Thanksgiving weekend is to the NFL and college football.

The action was nearly constant, even though the Premier League played just one game on Boxing Day this year. That gave some extra spotlight to the lower leagues, and they were happy to have it.

There was also another matter on the mind. When the calendar flipped to 2026, it became a World Cup year. All over the world, races are on to make national squads for the tournament, and many of those races will play out on Premier League stages.

How much are players thinking about that right now? A lot for some, not so much for others. But they all know in some form.

“One hundred percent,” said Netherlands forward Justin Kluivert, the son of Dutch legend Patrick Kluivert and a club teammate of U.S. stalwart Tyler Adams at Bournemouth. “Every single game that I’m playing now, I want to show the coach that he’s got to put me in the starting 11.”

It’s necessary to explain here that it isn’t always easy for the media to talk with players in the Premier League, or in European soccer generally. The world’s game hasn’t shared American sports’ long tradition of players meeting the press on a regular basis.

Former Bournemouth winger Antoine Semenyo could come to Philadelphia this summer with Ghana’s national team. He just joined Manchester City in an $84 million deal, and one of his last games with the Cherries was the one where Kluivert spoke — a 2-2 tie at Chelsea. The move wasn’t sealed yet at that point, so it was no surprise that Semenyo went nowhere near a microphone.

Nor was there much from Arsenal’s Brazilian forward Gabriel Jesus when he scored a brilliant goal in the Gunners’ 4-1 rout of Aston Villa on Dec. 30, fueling the league leaders’ dreams of a first Premier League title in 22 years.

The collective neurosis around that mimics what plays out for the sports teams here in Philadelphia.

Three days earlier, Jesus had returned from a long injury absence in a win over Brighton. This reporter was on hand, and there was much talk among journalists and team staff about how badly he wants to make Brazil’s squad — which will play its tournament opener in Philly against Haiti. But alas, we didn’t hear it from the man himself.

Fortunately, another familiar face did stop by. Brighton’s Diego Gómez joined the Seagulls 12 months ago from Inter Miami, and two months ago played for Paraguay against the U.S. at Subaru Park.

Gómez should easily make the Albirroja’s World Cup squad, which means he’ll see the Americans again in their tournament opener in Los Angeles. In this moment, he was annoyed that his well-taken goal couldn’t stop a 2-1 loss, but he was happy to talk with someone who knew of him.

“I’m thinking about what’s coming up here,” Gómez said in his native Spanish. “Then there’s the World Cup, but my head is here at the club. … My thoughts are not on the World Cup, nothing like that. My thoughts are on what’s going to happen here at the club.”

(He did say he watched Miami’s MLS Cup title win, and that he was “very happy for the team because they really deserve it.”)

Then there are players whose World Cup hopes hinge on March’s last qualifying playoffs. Sixteen teams in Europe and six teams from the rest of the world will compete for the six berths left to claim. One will go to a nation that will play superpower France in Philadelphia this summer, and another could go to Jamaica, and subsequently favoring the Union’s longtime goalkeeper in Andre Blake.

Among the European contests is Sweden, whose outside back Gabriel Gudmundsson is a Leeds United teammate of Medford’s Brenden Aaronson. He has a good reason to not have the World Cup on his mind yet: Leeds is fighting to avoid being relegated out of the Premier League.

“No, because I need to focus here — it’s the most important,” Gudmundsson said after watching Aaronson score a big goal against eternal rival Manchester United. “When the time is there, I will be fully ready, of course. But [for] the time now, I have the white shirt [of Leeds] on, so that’s what matters.”

Leeds, unlike London, is a one-team town. It’s similar to Philadelphia in how the local football team unifies the city, even if the kinds of football are different.

But the World Cup unifies the planet, from England to the United States and everywhere else imaginable. Just a few months remain until it does so again.