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The 2026 FIFA World Cup quarter-finals are underway, and England’s lineup for their clash against Norway has been confirmed, with Manchester United duo Marcus Rashford and Kobbie Mainoo named among the substitutes. The match kicks off at 22:00 local time on July 11 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.
England earned their spot here after a 3-2 victory over Mexico in the Round of 16, a match where both Rashford and Mainoo sat on the bench without seeing action. Now they’ll be waiting in the wings again as England’s starting XI takes on a Norway side anchored by Erling Haaland.
The biggest stage in sports, and crypto’s quiet absence
The 2026 edition has been notably quiet on the crypto front. No major token partnerships tied to specific matches. No NFT drops around player lineups. No blockchain-based ticketing headlines breaking through to mainstream coverage. Searches related to digital assets or the crypto sphere revealed no links to the players or the game itself.
The 2022 World Cup in Qatar was a different story, arriving during the tail end of crypto’s last bull cycle when fan token platforms and NFT marketplaces were spending aggressively to plaster their logos across every available surface. FTX’s collapse, which happened just weeks before the 2022 tournament, cast a long shadow over the entire category.
Fan tokens and the sports crypto landscape
Platforms like Socios built their business model around selling team-branded tokens that give holders voting rights on minor club decisions, seeing massive engagement spikes during previous World Cups. These tokens, typically issued on the Chiliz blockchain, would surge in trading volume whenever their associated national teams advanced in tournaments. Chiliz is still operating and fan tokens for various clubs and national teams are still tradeable.
Sports betting meets blockchain
Blockchain-based prediction markets and decentralized betting platforms have grown substantially since the last tournament cycle. These platforms let users wager on match outcomes using crypto, often with lower fees and more transparency than traditional sportsbooks. The winner of England vs Norway advances to face either Switzerland or Argentina in the semifinals.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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