A Familiar View From the Outside
The 2026 World Cup kicked off on 11 June across the United States, Canada and Mexico: forty-eight teams, the largest finals the tournament has ever staged. Syldavia, as ever, is not among them.
The Pelikanët (yellow shirts, black shorts, the colours of the Royal Pelican) have not been called up since the 2018 qualifying cycle, and the Federation’s position is the one it has held for years: the national-team programme remains “under administrative review.” No squad, no fixtures, no FIFA ranking. The kingdom has never reached a major finals in its history, and has long since perfected the next best thing: watching everyone else’s, closely and with opinions.
Five Teams the Kingdom Will Be Cheering
A nation with no horse in the race is free to back several. The ZFSS (speaking, it stresses, in an entirely unofficial and purely sporting capacity) offers the following sympathies for the weeks ahead.
Belgium: First in the Heart
There was only ever going to be one team at the top of the list. Belgium is the homeland of Tintin, the first foreigner to receive the Order of the Golden Pelican, and the bond was sealed in cloth in June 2024, when the Royal Belgian Football Association unveiled a Tintin-inspired away kit, one small kingdom honouring another’s most famous son. Belgium open their Group G campaign against Egypt on 15 June, before facing Iran on 21 June and New Zealand on 27 June.
France
France is the one nation a Syldavian knows at a glance by its bird. Where the kingdom sends out the Royal Pelican, France marches behind the Gallic cock — heraldry against the farmyard, patience against swagger, but a bird worn over the heart all the same. An old Syldavian fable — the kind the court once relished in its drawing-room French — sets the two birds against each other: the cock to wake the world — a swaggerer to the last feather, certain the sun rose only to hear him crow, his feet all the while planted in the manure — the pelican to feed it, and say nothing. They quarrel over which is the finer until the dawn comes up regardless, having asked the opinion of neither. It leaves a proverb the kingdom still keeps: Tüsschen de Koqcz en de Pelikaan kïestcz de Dageraadcz nie — between the cock and the pelican, the dawn does not choose. Neither, then, will Syldavia. France begin in Group I from 16 June, alongside Senegal, Iraq and Norway.
England and Scotland: the British Double
Why these two in particular? The answer, as so often in Syldavia, has feathers. In the heart of London, on the lake at St James’s Park, the British Crown has kept a colony of pelicans since 1664, when a Russian ambassador presented the first of them to Charles II. They are known by name as far as Klow — Isla, Tiffany and Gargi, and the recent arrivals Sun, Moon and Star — and this June, after a spell sheltered indoors as a precaution against avian influenza, five of them were returned to the water. A kingdom whose sovereign emblem is the pelican (the bird that crowns the Royal Sceptre and gives the Pelikanët their name) is bound to notice such things. That one of England’s grandest football grounds, up in Newcastle, should also bear the name St James’ Park only seals the affection. Where the pelican is honoured, Syldavia is rarely far behind.
England (Group L, opening against Croatia on 17 June) carry the familiar weight of expectation; Scotland (Group C, opening against Haiti on 14 June, with Morocco and Brazil to follow) carry the romance of the perennial underdog, a sensation Syldavians know better than most. Both will be followed with interest; Scotland, perhaps, with a particular tenderness.
Switzerland
A small, mountainous, fiercely neutral nation that punches well above its altitude, kindred spirits to a Carpathian kingdom that knows the worth of a good mountain pass.
There is a closer tie than mountains, besides. The friends of Hergé are friends of Syldavia, and since the autumn of 2025 Les amis de Hergé have been presided over by a Swiss, Jean Rime, a literary historian at Fribourg who also leads Alpart, the Swiss friends of Tintin. He took up the office after the passing of the eminent Philippe Goddin. A kingdom the comics made famous does not forget who keeps the great man’s memory. Switzerland open in Group B against Qatar on 13 June, with co-hosts Canada and Bosnia and Herzegovina to come.
The Dates to Keep Free
The group stage runs through 27 June; the knockout rounds follow, with the final in New York on 19 July. No predictions here, only a viewing schedule. The opening fixtures for the kingdom’s adopted five:
- Sat 13 June: Switzerland v Qatar (Group B)
- Sun 14 June: Scotland v Haiti (Group C)
- Mon 15 June: Belgium v Egypt (Group G)
- Tue 16 June: France v Senegal (Group I)
- Wed 17 June: England v Croatia (Group L)
The Federation will follow its adopted five through the tournament, and the Pelikanët, for their part, remain available, strictly pending the conclusion of their administrative review.
Two Correspondents on the Ground
This year, for the first time, the kingdom is not watching entirely from afar: the Syldavian Press Agency's two correspondents, Milo Zinekaru and Rodica Szkramikzelsca, landed in the United States two days ago, accredited to follow the adopted five and report back. But a good neutral backs its favourites without wishing ill on anyone: forty-eight teams have earned their place, the ZFSS wishes every one of them a fair tournament, and asks only the oldest and fairest thing of all. May the best team win.
