Crossroads Podcast: Faith At The World Cup Is Not All Smiles And Hugs

Two quotations in the Dome of the Rock on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount may be of interest to sports fans who are following the FIFA World Cup.

The carving on the outer face of the northwest wall proclaims, in part: “Praise be to God who has not taken a son. ...” On the inside, after a reference to Jesus: “Peace be upon the day he was born, the day he dies and the day he is raised up alive. That is Jesus, son of Mary. ... It is not for God to take a son.”

The World Cup is Planet Earth’s most-watched sporting and cultural event. No one should be surprised that it receives waves of news coverage and that religious beliefs and customs affect some of the drama and tensions. Thus, this week’s “Crossroads” podcast focused on religion news at the 2026 tournament — what was covered and what was not.

In the later category, consider the prayers of the Egyptian national team, offered in an Egyptian Football Association video that drew attention via social media, but not in mainstream news (that I could find). According to translators, the contents are linked to the doctrines carved into the Dome of the Rock. A commentary on the Hungarian Conservative website noted:

Before facing Argentina, the Egyptian players gathered in their locker room for a pre-game prayer (video here). But this was not a generic appeal for safety, teamwork, or sportsmanship. Instead, the prayer consisted of Koran verses condemning … Christianity’s central doctrine: that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. …

They began with the opening chapter of the Koran (1: 6–7): “Guide us to the straight path — the path of those upon whom you have bestowed favor, not of those who have incurred your wrath or of those who are gone astray.”

Mainstream Islamic interpretation has always identified “those who have incurred Allah’s wrath’ as Jews and ‘those who are astray” as Christians.

The team then continued with familiar passages from Quran, recited three times:

“Say, ‘He is Allah, [who is] One… He neither begets nor is born, nor is there to Him any equivalent.’ …

“Infidels are they who say, ‘Allah is one in a Trinity.’ There is only one God. If they do not stop saying this, the infidels will be afflicted with a painful torment.’”

Time for kickoff!

Officials insist there is no ban against members of Egypt’s large, ancient Coptic Christian community (roughly 10% of the population) being on the team, but there are none on the current senior national team, reserve or youth squads. Searches found one Coptic player in recent seasons with Egypt’s Premier League.

Behind-the-scene tensions linked to Egypt’s team clash with the template for mainstream news during this World Cup, which focused on interfaith cooperation and harmony. The headline for one major Associated Press report said: “World Cup squads showcase faith and unity amid deep social divisions at home.”

The news hook, of course, was growing political and cultural strife in Europe linked to immigration. The Pew Research Center has estimated that Europe’s Muslim population grew from 19.5 million to 46 million between 2010 and 2020.

Thus, the AP overture (this is long, but crucial) proclaimed:

While many of the World Cup’s competing nations are wracked by social divisions, some of their teams offer strikingly positive examples of how players from different backgrounds and religious faiths can cooperate closely in pursuit of a common goal.

The phenomenon is particularly notable among Western European teams. … As those societies have increasingly diversified, so have the national team rosters — featuring Christian and Muslim players who are open about their faith.

England’s national squad, for the first time, includes a Muslim player. France’s roster has multiple players from Protestant, Catholic and Muslim backgrounds. Spain’s emerging superstar, 18-year-old Lamine Yamal, is a practicing Muslim. So is Sweden’s Yasin Ayari, who prostrated himself on the field to thank God after the first of his two goals in a victory Sunday over Tunisia — his father’s homeland. …

Does the diversity of the World Cup teams send a potentially helpful message?

“Absolutely,” said Eboo Patel, who — as president of Interfaith America — advocates for religious pluralism and cooperation. “It is symbolic yet also substantive.”

He evoked the images of Christian players crossing themselves, and Muslim players cupping their hands in prayer. Their message, Patel said, is, “My identity really matters to me and it makes me a better soccer player.”

“They score, they each say their respective prayers, and then they’re hugging each other,” he added.

The AP report offered mini-profiles of prominent religious believers competing in the World Cup, with an emphasis on Muslims and Roman Catholics.

However, it contained zero ink about one group of Christian footballers who have made headlines during recent decades — evangelical and Pentecostal believers from Brazil.

That news gap was filled by a must-read Religion Unplugged piece by editor Clemente Lisi: “Brazil’s Latest World Cup Collapse Revives Debate Over Faith and Soccer.” In addition to years of hard-news experience, including religion coverage, Lisi (a journalism friend and colleague) is an international football scribe, including several updates on this book: “The World Cup: A History of the Planet’s Biggest Sporting Event.”

The key: Debates about the faith of evangelicals is an important news hook in Brazil, period, in a nation where soccer may as well serve as a form of mainstream religion, if not a cultural cult.

What does this have to do with evangelicalism? For background, dig into this headline-making 2014 Pew Research Center report: “Religion in Latin America — Widespread Change in a Historically Catholic Region.” A sample:

Historical data suggest that for most of the 20th century, from 1900 through the 1960s, at least 90% of Latin America’s population was Catholic (See History of Religious Change). Today, the Pew Research survey shows, 69% of adults across the region identify as Catholic. In nearly every country surveyed, the Catholic Church has experienced net losses from religious switching, as many Latin Americans have joined evangelical Protestant churches or rejected organized religion altogether.

You can sense aftershocks from this historic, ongoing change in Lisi’s overture:

Brazil’s disappointing World Cup has ignited an unlikely national conversation, with commentators, academics and social media users debating whether the South American country’s changing religious landscape has somehow altered the character of its soccer.

Following Brazil’s elimination from the tournament in the round of 16 against Norway on July 5, a provocative argument has spread across Brazilian and international social media: Brazil’s decline as a soccer superpower mirrors its gradual shift from being overwhelmingly Catholic to increasingly Protestant, particularly evangelical.

The theory, while any lacking empirical evidence, has generated widespread discussion because it touches on broader anxieties about Brazilian identity and culture. The slogan that has become emblematic of the debate — “If we pray like a gringo, then we play like a gringo” — reveals that Brazil’s embrace of American-style evangelical Christianity has coincided with the loss of a uniquely Brazilian soccer culture. In fact, 76% of the 26-player roster were evangelicals.

Yes, powerful evangelical footballers tend to be controversial, especially with journalists (ditto in American politics). Remember Tim Tebow in American football?

For decades, it has been hush-hush that many Christians in the National Football League choose to gather at midfield after games and (#triggerwarning) pray for each other and, especially, for anyone who was injured. The question is whether devout religious faith makes players more emotional, “softer,” judgmental or whatever. Also, it is more controversial for some players to kneel and offer private prayers than it is for other players to kneel and openly pray for racial equality. There is divisive prayer and positive prayer.

Meanwhile, it is also true that Catholic nations have performed very well in World Cup competitions. The success of past Catholic superstars is, thus, compared with evangelicals in the present. Lisi added this:

… [O]nline commentators argued that the carefree personalities associated with past Brazilian stars — like Romario, Ronaldo and Ronaldinho — has been replaced by a more disciplined, individualistic ethos. Some fans have nostalgically contrasted modern players’ public displays of evangelical faith with the lifestyles of these legendary figures, portraying the latter generation as more spontaneous and creatively expressive.

After being eliminated, striker Endrick told reporters: “I even kept talking to God, I thanked him for the opportunity, but it was a moment where I could have done better. I couldn’t do it, but I thank God for that opportunity. Work to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Pedro Rosano, a Brazilian soccer journalist, reacted to the first half of Endrick’s quote, saying he wished Brazilian players had more Catholic guilt and argued that evangelicals are too conformist.

“Players outsource everything to God and take responsibility for nothing,” he added.

If readers are interested in this topic, I would also suggest this Steven Tucker commentary at Crisis, a conservative Catholic website: “A-Trophy of Faith — Brazil’s Catholics Despair Over the Changing Religion of Its Failing Soccer Team.”

How blurred is the line between football, faith and national identity in Brazil? Readers may want to parse this passage carefully:

Optimists might point to the slowing down of Protestantism’s bloom since the previous Brazilian census in 2010, the religion’s growth rate having fallen to 5.2% from 6.5%. According to the census’s in-house demographer, José Eustáquio Diniz Alves, this represents only a temporary stay of execution, however: previously, Alves had forecast Brazilian Catholics would be replaced as the main religious majority by 2032.

Now, thanks to the slight slowdown, this seems likely to happen in 2049 instead. Tellingly, Alves chose to illustrate this with a soccer metaphor, referring to Brazil’s worst ever World Cup defeat, 7-1 in a semi-final game against Germany in 2014. “According to my previous projection, the Catholic Church would lose 7-1, by a landslide. And it turned out that the Catholic Church [only] lost 1-0.”

Yes, I think this is another example of an important religion-news story linked to the World Cup, even if — like the prayers of the all-Muslim Egyptian team — it does not fit the glowing interfaith narrative that has guided Godbeat coverage in 2026.

Football is emotional. Religion is emotional. This is another case in which not all of the emotions have been joyful.

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