The 2026 FIFA World Cup is here, and someone had to ask the question: which of the 48 competing nations is the Ohio State Buckeyes of international football? Two answers keep surfacing — Spain and France — and both cases are more compelling than they first appear.
The case for Spain
Spain enters ranked second in FIFA's world rankings and is among the frontrunners to win the whole thing. Ohio State enters most seasons in roughly the same position — pre-loaded with expectations, stacked with talent, and carrying the weight of a fanbase that treats anything short of a title as failure. Sound familiar?
The talent parallel is hard to ignore. Lamine Yamal is to Spain what Jeremiah Smith is to the Buckeyes — a generational player who makes every game feel different. Rodri runs the operation the way Julian Sayin is expected to run Ohio State's offense: quietly, efficiently, and without much of the spotlight his teammates absorb.
There's also the frustrating losses column. Spain got bounced from the 2022 World Cup in the round of 16 by Morocco on penalties — a result that felt impossibly flat for a squad with that much quality. Ohio State dropped a CFP quarterfinal to Miami that left Buckeye fans asking similar questions. Both teams have the talent to win everything. Both have found ways to make exits that sting harder than they should.
Manager Luis de la Fuente came up through the ranks before landing the biggest job of his career with La Roja in December 2022 — not entirely unlike Ryan Day inheriting the program in Columbus and spending years proving he belonged at that level. The parallel isn't perfect, but the arc rhymes.
Spain won Euro 2024. Ohio State won the CFP after the 2024 season. Whether that's a meaningful omen or just a coincidence depends on how superstitious you are. Either way, La Roja are currently priced among the tournament favorites, and those odds are worth watching as the group stage takes shape.
The case for France
France's argument is less about aesthetics and more about expectation. Les Bleus don't just enter tournaments hoping to compete — they enter them expected to win, and anything less opens a full national inquiry into what went wrong. That is the Ohio State condition in football form.
The roster depth is almost offensive. Kylian Mbappé. Ousmane Dembélé, FIFA's reigning Best Men's Player. William Saliba at the back. Désiré Doué coming off the bench. Transposing Jeremiah Smith, Julian Sayin, Kenyatta Jackson Jr., and Chris Henry Jr. onto that squad requires almost no imagination at all.
And yet — the scrutiny. France gets louder criticism in defeat than most nations get in victory. Are they playing the right system? Is the manager maximizing what's available, or just managing? Is the talent being used or wasted? Ohio State fans have asked every single one of those questions at some point in the last five years.
- France: loaded roster, elite ceiling, one bad knockout game away from a crisis
- Ohio State: loaded roster, elite ceiling, one bad knockout game away from a crisis
The comparison writes itself. France's odds to win the World Cup are typically shorter than their recent tournament performances justify — which is also a reasonable description of Ohio State's preseason College Football Playoff futures most years.
Both answers work. Spain is the stylistic twin — the passing, the flair, the maddening inconsistency in big moments. France is the structural twin — the expectations, the scrutiny, the sense that talent alone should be enough and somehow never quite is. Pick your poison.
