Hope, joy, exuberance, uncertainty, anxiety, agony and defeat: These emotions, in their rawest form, are on display during the World Cup.
You can find them on the field, of course. But they may be better observed by looking somewhere else: at the spectators.
When it looks like you’re on to the final:
When you score your first-ever World Cup goal:
When you get the game winner that’s sure to put you through to the knockout stage:
And when the referee says, no, you didn’t:
When it looks like the dream may be ending:
And when it definitely has.
Filming fans is a delicate art, honed to perfection over the years by television producers and camera operators. During games, their cameras are trained on the crowd, scouring for just the right fan.
“You want people who are naturally excited, disappointed, unhinged, happy, ecstatic, and you want to be able to capture that naturally,” said Fred Gaudelli, the executive producer for NBC’s NFL coverage.
When those moments are captured, they are pure magic.
“A single face in close-up can move you more than the scoreboard,” said Dr. Francisco Zamorano, a neuroscientist who studies the brain’s reaction to watching sports. “You don’t just see the person — you simulate their mind and catch their emotion.”
To get a complete view of fans’ emotions throughout the 2026 World Cup, The Athletic watched, tagged and analyzed more than 200 hours of Fox’s game broadcasts. In all, we identified more than 2,000 cutaways over the course of the tournament.
Below, a tour of the emotions that dominate the World Cup.
Anxiety
One of the most universal expressions we identified across hundreds of hours of footage was of fans coping with the moment by putting their hands on their heads.
In the closing moments of a game you needed to win, but things haven’t gone the way you hoped:
Or when a game-tying goal is overturned:
Or when you’re trying to cope during a penalty shootout:
“Hands on head” is the embodiment of frustration, stress and anxiety.
Hope and prayer
When the game is not going your way, you may need to appeal to a higher authority.
If you need two goals in eight minutes:
If you’re in a penalty shootout:
Or if it’s VAR time:
Not all of these scenes are actually prayers, but they do share the same expressions: hands clasped or covering mouths, thinking, hoping, wishing, worrying.
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The joy of a goal
Forty-seven out of 48 teams got to experience this moment at least once during the 2026 World Cup.
When Cape Verde scored its first goal of the tournament,
When England finally tied the Democratic Republic of Congo to keep its World Cup hopes alive:
When Argentina started its comeback against Egypt in the Round of 16:
This is the good stuff.
Exuberance
When the camera lingers for just a bit longer, we sometimes catch a glimpse of pure ecstasy.
A fist pump becomes a hug.
Eyes go wide. Motor functions become unpredictable.
Beverages take flight. No one cares.
Jumping, screaming, hugging, crying. It is like witnessing a religious experience.
Frustration
Why didn’t you just …
Score that goal?
Did you not see where to shoot?
Often in these cases, the hands are doing the talking. There is exasperation, and what could have been.
The end
Winning the World Cup becomes an impossibility, at some point, for 47 countries.
When you won’t make it past the group stage:
Or when you’re eliminated in the Round of 32:
In the Round of 16:
In the quarterfinals:
Or in the semifinals. (You were so close, weren’t you?)
The fans who were once at their highest highs in the beginning are often the ones at their lowest lows at the end. This only makes for better television.
The spirit that lives on
Yes, almost everyone goes home a loser, but the World Cup is, by and large, a very happy place. On average, for every sad clip shown on the broadcast, we counted about five happy ones.
See you in 2030.