Win, lose, or draw – which is exactly what England did against a superb Ghanaian defence last night – Ozone’s Football Faithful audience remains highly engaged with wrap-around match-day coverage of the Three Lions’ second group stage game at the FIFA World Cup 2026. While the disappointing 0-0 draw may not have been easy on the eye, the attention of the UK’s football fandom was fixated on Ozone’s Audience Connection Platform once again.
Although England struggled to convert 79% possession, 328 completed passes and 19 shots (compared to Ghana’s two) into a second tournament win, daily audience numbers and engagement across the Ozone platform enjoyed positive growth. Yesterday’s daily audience was up 10% compared to the day before, with page views rising by 5%. However, it is worth noting that a history-making Lionel Messi also made headlines after bagging a brace on Tuesday against Austria, causing his share of voice to increase by almost 50% week-on-week.
Match-day audience peaks in the evening
While our Football Faithful audience numbers remained high throughout the day-consistent with trends seen across the tournament to date-engagement really came to life in the evening. According to our hourly data, at 7pm BST, during the build-up to the 9pm kick-off, the Football Faithful audience was almost 50% higher than at any other point in the day.
Once the match kicked off, the audience grew to double the hourly average. Engagement sustained this peak level through half-time before settling at almost 50% above average at the full-time whistle. Ultimately, the evening crowd came and saw, even if the Three Lions failed to conquer the Black Stars. Regardless of the result, England’s support – and interest in the World Cup – remains significantly high.
Yesterday’s top-performing content included pre-game build-up, post-match analysis and minute-by-minute match reports – the latter being particularly notable given that 85% of our Football Faithful audience engage with the Ozone platform via mobile. Footy fans also showed significant interest in the celebrities attending the match, such as Sir David Beckham, Stormzy and Jeremy Clarkson, with Clarkson going viral for giving away his tickets to the England fans who found him in Boston.
Group-stage outlook
England continues to dominate the overall share of voice among our Football Faithful audience, reaching 3.6m users – a 12% increase compared to last week. Meanwhile, the share of voice for Group L rivals Croatia has risen following their 1–0 win against Panama, the team England will face next at 10pm BST on Saturday, 27 June. There’s no doubt, England fans will be urging the team to secure a statement victory against the Central American side to lay down a marker ahead of the Round of 32 knockout stage.
For Scotland, win, lose or draw tonight against Brazil, we’re anticipating equally high audience engagement across Ozone’s audience platform. Come on you Bravehearts!
The Stateside story so far
For our Football Faithful – or should that be Soccer Superfans – audience Stateside, the FIFA World Cup 2026 has been a massive source of entertainment and national pride, with the USMNT (the US Men’s National Team, for the uninitiated) already progressing to the knockout stages after two impressive group-stage wins. According to Comscore data, Ozone reaches more than 75m US Soccer enthusiasts a month, which will no doubt rise during and immediately after the final on Sunday, 19 July.
Our own data shows that the tournament’s first two weeks have seen our Soccer audience and their engagement levels (measured in Soccer page views) jump to 2.5x higher than the 2026 weekly average. Since the World Cup kicked off on Thursday, 11 June, our average daily US Soccer audience has been 80% higher than pre-tournament benchmarks, with USMNT match days driving that audience to more than double.
We’re expecting audience and engagement levels to rise again when the USA take on Turkey in their final group D match on Thursday, so watch this space for more insight into the summer’s biggest sporting event.
