Men Are Lonely. The World Cup Just Showed Us What They’re Missing

In the current friendship recession, no group is struggling harder than young men.

Consider that today:

• • • The share of American men with no close friends has risen fivefold since 1990, according to research from the Survey Center on American Life at AEI.
    • Gallup’s research this year found American men aged 15–34 are among the loneliest people in the developed West.
    • 1 in 5 single men say they have no close friends

Against this backdrop, this summer’s FIFA World Cup provided an incredible counterpoint to the epidemic of male isolation and loneliness.

When FIFA President Gianni Infantino unveiled this year’s tournament brand, “WE ARE 26,“ his pitch was explicit: the tournament’s purpose was to “bring people together.”

This year’s tournament drew a record viewership that was 70% male — so overwhelmingly, it was men FIFA was bringing together.

None of this is new.

Sports have always given men the occasion and the license to come together, talk easily, and connect in ways that the rest of daily life doesn’t allow.

Advertisers picked up on this message too — that the game was a medium for connection, hanging out, and community. AT&T’s “Knock on the Block” spot skipped the stadium entirely for something smaller: a real family, in a real neighborhood, knocking on doors to invite people over for

 the match. Lay’s built its entire “Most Epic Watch Party” campaign around the idea that the group chat and the engagement around the game were the real product. Adidas cast Messi, Bellingham, and Lamine Yamal in a film called “Backyard Legends,” built on the premise that connection starts in the driveway, not the arena. These brands weren’t selling snacks or phone plans. They were selling an excuse to hang out and come together.

But what made this World Cup especially powerful in terms of male friendship was how visible the friendships among the players themselves became. Social media shorts, reels, and posts gave fans an inside look at those relationships — the clear joy and close bond between Spain’s Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams, or Yamal and his Barcelona teammate Pau Cubarsí, both just 19 and playing together since their academy days.

Or the friendship between Norway’s Erling Haaland and England’s Jude Bellingham — the two stars of this summer’s tournament, each leading their team into the knockout rounds. Bellingham (Real Madrid) and Haaland (Manchester City) were once teammates and have since played against each other in the Champions League — but it was their friendship, both during this tournament and before it, that showed up in clip after clip, article

after article, describing them as the “bromance of the ages.”

It’s the joy and the collective delight these players get from each other, both on and off the pitch — that was the more powerful draw.

Culturally, we’re saturated with images of the solo man — the grinder, the isolated competitor, the man measured against the group rather than inside one. What stood out this tournament was the sight of men being unguardedly happy in each other’s company — tackling each other in celebration, ribbing each other on camera, choosing each other’s company when no one was making them. It’s a small thing. It’s also a rare one. Most of what passes for male camaraderie in public life is performance — banter with an edge, bonding built on competition. This was something else.

Yes, the FIFA World Cup comes with its own complications. And a month of watch parties doesn’t undo decades of eroding institutions that used to make male friendship easier to come by. But for a few weeks, it also gave men a shared language, a shared room, and — maybe most importantly — an excuse to show up for each other and maybe re-remember the joy that comes from connection and friendship.

This is the pattern I keep coming back to: men don’t lack the capacity for close friendship. They lack the occasion. That’s exactly what the Tribe of 12 framework is built to fix — not by waiting for the next World Cup, but by naming the specific roles in your life that need an occasion, a structure, a reason to show up.

If this is a pattern you recognize — in yourself, your partner, your son sign up for the free newsletter, The Dispatch, which goes deep on these issues each week.