2026: Will there ever be another year like it?
Surely not for reigning Wimbledon champion Emma Raducanu, whose season looked like going down as a long string of medical time-outs until that magical Saturday afternoon in July.
And surely not for Donald Trump either, who went into the year as the holder of just one utterly meaningless Fifa award but comes out of it now with a whole pile of them, adding to the inaugural Fifa Peace Prize he received back in 2025 with an inaugural Fifa Oscar, an inaugural Fifa Pulitzer, and an inaugural Fifa Mrs Joyful Prize for Raffia Work.
As Trump himself said of his trophy haul: “It is beyond the numbers that we thought were possible.”’ Indeed. But didn’t so much of 2026 feel that way?
The year in football
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It finally happened. The years of hurt evaporated in the New Jersey heat, the “Boys of ’26” assumed instant immortality, and filed for ever now in the memory-bank of the nation is the image of England captain Harry Kane thoughtfully wiping his hands before presenting the World Cup trophy to President Trump.
Since then, though, it’s been interesting to watch the countrywide elation of the summer morph into something else. After the collapse of communism and the reunification of East and West Germany, liberated Easterners found themselves experiencing a desire for some of the stringencies of their former existence. “Ostalgie”, they called it. Post-World Cup, we’re seeing something similar among England fans: a longing for the comfort of the old, miserable certainty: what analysts are terming “Allardycia”.
Accordingly, with Thomas Tuchel having instantly departed, his work done, and with Martin O’Neill’s “relaxed-fit” caretaker period over, the FA now finds itself under some pressure to appoint a head coach who could genuinely lead England backwards. That almost certainly means an English candidate, but it’s noticeable that, when repeatedly asked about his interest in the job, under-pressure Manchester United manager Ange Postecoglou doesn’t ever explicitly rule himself out. Watch that space.
The year in curling
As so often in a Winter Olympic year, sports which utterly gripped the nation in February soon after didn’t. Freestyle snowboarding, for instance. In late February, you rarely met anyone who couldn’t identify a tamedog front flip with a melon grab. By Easter, though, nose-roll 360s were barely cropping up in conversation. “What would make curling stick?” The question has baffled our greatest minds since time immemorial.
The year in boxing
Following his late-2025 defeat by Anthony Joshua, the YouTuber Jake Paul embarked on a run of further self-endangering mismatches, each of them more wildly popular than its predecessor, losing fights that no one thought he could possibly win against Tyson Fury, both the Klitschko brothers at once and finally, in the traditions of silent comedy slapstick, a falling piano. No real belts for any of this, of course, but Paul’s team are thought to be negotiating for him to compete as soon as possible for the currently vacant inaugural Fifa World Heavyweight Loser title, scheduled to be gifted shortly by Gianni Infantino to an as-yet undeclared recipient. Though technically meritless, the belt appears from leaked photographs to be gold and enormous and to have alarming outstretched hands all over it, and it would at least be something.
The year in Formula One
Of all the sports that followed boxing in the direction of headline-generating pro-am spectacles this year (darts, snooker in the form of The Great British Break-Off, and rugby league among them), it was elite motor racing that arguably paid the dearest price. One understood the decision: people seem to like watching amateurs have a go at something after a two-week crash course even more than they like watching dedicated professionals do so. Consider how it went for Tuchel: with that World Cup win for England, he found grudging respect. But only with that tango to the Bee Gees during the Strictly Come Dancing quarter-finals did he find love.
However, for Formula One the plan badly backfired, literally. The record shows that Oscar Piastri ultimately pipped Naga Munchetty to the top of the podium. But there were no winners on that regrettable weekend of carnage in Belgium. “Crash course” doesn’t begin to describe it. Far from gaining leverageable profile, the sport went backwards – much like Ed Sheeran, in fact, who obviously should never be allowed near a Formula One car again.
The year in tennis
Raducanu aside, has the sport ever known a tougher year? Initially a trickle, the number of players following Aryna Sabalenka and Carlos Alcaraz by switching codes and going over to padel, on the basis that it’s “just more fun”, and also “easier”, now threatens to become a flood.
Hard to know what tennis can do in 2027 to reassert itself, except possibly ring up Roger, Rafa and Andy and ask them if they’d ever consider coming back. Restoring the line judges at Wimbledon this year obviously wasn’t enough.
The year in podcasting
Who knew the breakout star from Gary Lineker’s Netflix deal would be, not Gary himself nor even Micah Richards, but Alan Shearer, whose Alan Shearer Live! US TV show launches shortly, promising guests, music and “a bright, new shake-up for the late-night format”. It just goes to show how, when it comes to life in general, and sport in particular, prediction is an absolute mug’s game.
Illustration by Philip Lay