Nashua North students prepare as the 2026 World Cup is coming to America

With the world cup around the corner, students from Nashua High School North are ready to see their countries, favorite players, and teams go against each other on the world's biggest stage. For many students, it's a chance to see the likely stars that Europeans watch in stadiums all the time.

After asking students and faculty who they were excited to see in the upcoming world cup and what makes them excited, most replied with European and southern american countries.

Suvan Bista, a 12th grader at Nashua north, replied that England would be the exciting side to watch as they have many exciting young talents like Cole Palmer, Jude Bellingham, Reece James.

Sebastian Arango , a 12 grader at Nashua north, also replied that he's excited to watch the young talents but for the Spanish side as they have a team average age of 22.  Some exciting young talents from the Spanish side are lamine Yamal, Pedri, Pau Cubarsi, and Fermine Lopez.

Students and faculty agreed that they were most likely to support teams that represent their home country.

Cole Rutledge , North social studies teacher, said he was going to support the United States and is excited to see what they can do, with Christian Pulisic as their guy; he's the type of player to put a team on his back. But he also will be supporting Argentina in hopes of Messi being their top player if he plays.

Arango replied that he will support Colombia because that's where he's from. He believes that James Rodriguez will be their most impactful player as he already established himself as a legend for the national team and had great success recently as Columbia have already qualified for the upcoming world cup.

When asked how they think the young talents like Lamine Yamal, Desire Doue, and Estevao will perform at their very first world cup, Most agreed that the young talents will play exceptionally.

Bista believes that they will perform great, as all the talents have proved themselves for their clubs. Another thing he added was that the players will be great role models for young talents showing that age doesn't matter even when competing against the best of the best.

Arango claimed that the young talents will shine in the upcoming world cup as they all have already shown to be crucial for their clubs on big stages.

One of my deeper questions on the 2026 world cup was how did people think Kiliyan Mbappe would perform after his tough loss in the finals, four years ago to the Argentinian side. As Mbappe  has performed outstandingly in back to back world cups.

Bista thinks that Mbappe will perform exceptionally well, as he has been performing great at Real Madrid this season.

Another thing he added was that the French team was based around Mbappe so he had no other choice but to perform for his national team.

Rutledge believes that kiliyan mbappe is one of the best players in the world right now so he has no choice but to perform great. Rutledge also questioned, ¨who knows they might meet Argentina in the final again¨

Last question posed to interviewees whether they would be attending this upcoming world cup as it is hosted in America.

Bista says he would like to go to one of the games even though he knows tickets might not be promised as they might be too pricey. But even then if he can't, he still hopes to go outside of the stadium as the vibes there must feel great.

Rutledge claims that he and his family have been planning for the past twenty years for the world cup to come to America. He plans to attend 2-3 of the 6 games being played at the Gilet stadium this summer with his family.

With the 2026 world cup being hosted in America, and bringing exciting talents from all across the globe to face off in one of the biggest competitions ever, it brings excitement to even communities like Nashua north where many students can at least hope to attend a game.