The Rest Is Football

"The Rest is Football."

"Presented by Oura."

It's the eve of the 2026 FIFA World Cup

in the United States

to chase their own American dream are the biggest names in football.

And here they are.

Legend on the pitch, Alan Shearer,

and legend off the pitch, Micah Richards.

Here we go.

- Yes, this is fantastic. - Let's… Let's have…

Let's have a tour of our studio.

This is the bar area where you'll probably spend a bit of time,

but not now, Micah, please.

Just a little bit?

And then this is our main set, as you can see here.

- We've been spoilt. - We'll be doing a lot

of our chat in there.

- Oh, wow. - What do we think? What do you think?

This the ball from your day?

No, got no laces in.

Oh, spring chicken there.

So we'll be doing a lot of stuff from these sofas,

nice and comfortable.

What's up here, Gaz?

Erm, they're the stairs.

- And that's… - Oh, Mexico World Cup.

I wonder why that was planted there.

Course, he knows what he's doing, doesn't he?

Yeah, yeah.

I think I played in that World Cup, didn't I?

- - Right, come here.

We've got bit of, erm, table football.

We've got a darts board over there, Micah…

Oh, hey, we're missing Netflix.

We're not missing Netflix, Netflix is right…

God bless America.

- - Go and have a chuck of the darts.

- Oh, come on. - You any good?

- I'm… No, I'm rubbish. - Go on, one dart.

- Okay. - Just one dart?

- Just one. - One dart.

Bullseye. Here we go. Whoa.

- Fifteen. What does that even mean? - Fifteen. I'll take it.

- Not bad, not bad. - Let's sit down. Come and sit down.

- Oh, this is… - This is our area

where we can chat, erm, to our roving reporters,

- Rob Jones and Alex Alger. - Come on.

This is lovely.

Are we all comfy?

- Very. - I'm ready, yeah.

Well, let's go.

Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Football with Micah Richards,

Alan Shearer and me, Gary Lineker.

We're going to be here every day in the heart of Manhattan,

looking down on Times Square,

the spiritual centre of New York City.

Great to be here, boys. Excited?

- Brilliant. So good. - It feels good. I can't wait.

- World Cup… - We've been talking about it for so long,

- haven't we? - World Cup's magical, isn't it?

I mean, to be doing it here, though, you know, it's just, it's beautiful.

I'll tell you what surprised me.

We went out and we did a bit of filming for the opening.

- Hmm. - And everyone knows you here, Micah.

Well, you know, sort of a big deal around these parts of the world.

No-one recognised Alan and myself at all.

Have they any idea in this country who won the Golden Boots?

Oh, right, here we go. We've just started.

Old news, that, innit? Old news.

- Old news, old news. But, I mean… - Big name in New York city, aren't you?

Well, you know. Don't like to mention it.

World Cups, I mean, they're… they're the big business.

I mean, once it starts, once it gets underway,

we get to the knockout stage,

and it… there's something special about it.

- Unique. - Yeah, it's so special.

I think what's great, though, is in America, obviously,

Canada, and Mexico, the fans here don't get enough credit

in Amen… in America.

And I just feel like the atmosphere at the stadium's gonna be amazing.

- I can't wait. - You think so?

- Yeah, definitely. - Yeah.

- Can't wait. - Yeah.

Can't wait for that, er, for the first game.

It'll be brilliant, erm…

Might be a little bit of a slow start, I think,

because of the different format, but…

er, oh, yeah, we're just all excited.

- More teams in it than ever before. - Yeah, yeah.

We've got an extra round of knockout matches,

which I think is perhaps the positive, not necessarily

for the players, but I think for the fans,

'cause when the jeopardy kicks in at that point.

Yeah, but not just that.

I think, as though, it's 'cause we're in Europe all the time,

or England, and we're always there at the World Cup.

So we look it through a different lens.

Think of all these teams, it's the first time

being at the World Cup.

The fans get to enjoy that.

Yeah, I just think it's great to see.

Well, you've been enjoying yourself, Micah,

as professional as ever.

Well, I was doing my notes last night, rehearsing as…

- as usual. - Is this how you do

your notes in rehearse? Let's have a look.

Come on, the boys!

What an iconic song. Always brings the energy.

Had a beer, had we?

Had a couple of beers.

I think we had a couple.

But you really don't give a tuk-tuk, do you?

You boys were enjoying it as well, not just me.

- Oh, yeah. - I was getting into the spirit.

- It's really important to start well. - Yeah, we gotta start well.

I have to tell… I have to tell everybody that you ran down the street

after the tuk-tuk, the Thomas tuk-tuk, which is what they commented

to the England manager,

but, erm, and we're thinking, what the hell are you doing?

I just thought, because what was it, a taxi was saying

twenty-five minutes, and a walk was saying forty minutes,

so I was saying, let's get in a tuk-tuk now.

It's great. World Cup's coming up.

Now, slightly more serious issue.

There's been, I mean, I've covered and been at many World Cups,

many, many, and there's always concerns

before the start of the tournament.

You know, you could go back, 2014 in Brazil,

erm, when there were demonstrations on the streets

about the amount of money they spent on stadiums rather

than perhaps their infrastructure and health service, etcetera.

Skip forward four years to Russia.

They'd previously invaded Crimea a few years before,

so there are issues around that and concerns.

In Qatar, we talked about LGBTQ rights and perhaps the corrupt nature

of getting the bid in the first place.

And now this World Cup here in America,

I mean, there are a lot of concerns, I think, erm…

We've seen a referee, haven't we?

Somali referee not allowed in, Omar Artan,

which has caused outrage,

I think, right across the board,

social media, etcetera, erm, and there's a quote

from Gianni Infantino actually from August 2025, where he said,

"I think it's important to clarify this.

There is a lot of misconception out there.

Everyone will be welcome in Canada,

Mexico and the United States for the FIFA World Cup next year.

We are working exactly for that."

It's an awful look, it's a terrible look, as you say, yes.

We always have discussions, erm, before World Cups,

but I think there's been…

there's certainly been more ahead of this World Cup

than I can remember, whether it's a situation with, yeah, with the referee,

whether it's the ticket prices and pricing real fans out

of going to the biggest tournament in the world.

I just think it's an awful look and yeah,

it's not right, not at all.

And some of the teams coming,

I mean I saw a really interesting image actually

of Spain arriving I think in Mexico and they were greeted

with a musical band and it was joyous

but some of the nations, you know,

they've been kept a long time at immigration,

had their luggage searched on the runway

and It's concerning, Micah.

Yeah, it is concerning.

Because it's supposed to be super inclusive.

Well, that's what we're talking about.

We love talking about football, don't we?

And it feels as though we're all having to talk

about the politics beforehand.

Imagine taking that dream away

from the referee who's worked for this moment.

Named referee of the year in Africa last year.

So, he's… he…

And to have it stripped away from you, it just doesn't feel right.

Financially for him as well.

I mean, terrible.

It's just… It's just… It's not a good look.

And I think as though something needs to be done now.

- And I… - Well they need…

Do you know what they need to do? They need to go to VAR

and overturn that decision.

They need to do something.

- They need to do it quickly. - Okay.

Er, well, it's not just us three this summer.

We've got loads of amazing guests joining us

from "Super Frank Lampard",

Harry Maguire, didn't make the England squad,

but he's made ours, and Maya Jama.

Who did he play for?

And we've got two reporters out in the field bringing us the action

from the heart of the tournament.

A new member of the TRIF family,

Rob Jones, will be in the England camp throughout.

So let's go and chat with him to see what he's been doing

and what's going on so far.

England have based themselves just outside Miami.

Rob, you've been there for ten days.