From May 25 to June 8, the Kings World Cup will be held in Mexico, an international 7-a-side football tournament bringing together football personalities from around the world, surrounded by dozens of anonymous players. This tournament is a global extension of the Kings League, a Championship built on a similar model and organized first in Spain by Gerard Piqué as well as other former players, such as Iker Casillas or Sergio Agüero, and several streamers .
Launched in 2022, this league has been a great success, going so far as to fill the Camp Nou for its final. It was thus able to be adapted the following year into a Latin American version, the Américas Kings League, integrating teams from numerous Spanish-speaking countries and the United States.
This month will therefore take place a first “World Cup” in this format with special rules (goals counting double in the last two minutes of each half, temporary exclusion in the event of cards or even the possibility of using ” secret weapons” once per encounter). Ten Spanish teams, ten teams from the Pan American Championship and twelve teams from the four corners of the globe will seek to win the title.
Hazard, Totti or even Nasri on the pitch
Each team presents ten players chosen by one or more selectors, to which it can add up to three specific players, most often former professionals. For this first edition, which has Zlatan Ibrahimovic as president, many prestigious names have already been announced: the Italian team will, for example, include Radja Nainggolan and Francesco Totti in its ranks, the latter also being co-selector.
Eden Hazard will be present in the Belgian team, alongside his little brother Ethan, 20 years old, player in the Belgian 4th Division. Former futal star Falcao will be part of Furia FC, one of the two Brazilian teams, coached by Neymar, still not recovered from his injury and absent from the Copa America. Rio Ferdinand, coach of the British team, chose to call Jermaine Pennant, former Liverpool player, as well as his own brother Anton, who notably played for West Ham.
Argentines Nico Gaitan and Mateo Musacchio will play with Spanish teams, coached respectively by Kun Agüero and Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos. The Ukrainian team will be made up of many former internationals such as Andreï Pyatov, Evgen Konoplyanka, Andreï Voronin and the Croatian Darijo Srna, all coached by the legend Andreï Chevchenko.
German Mario Götze and Colombian James Rodriguez also took charge of a team representing their country. On the French side, the team, selected by the streamer AmineMaTue and trained by the coach-streamer Saïd from the media PiedsCarrés, will be named Foot2Rue, a reference to the famous cartoon. Samir Nasri and Jérémy Ménez have already confirmed their presence, and a third name should soon join them. Everyone will seek to win the trophy of this first edition of the Kings World Cup, the final of which is scheduled for June 8 at the BBVA stadium in Monterrey.
