Two Manchester United teammates are about to become temporary rivals. Tyler Fletcher, Scotland’s teenage midfield call-up, and Noussair Mazraoui, Morocco’s seasoned defender, will face each other at the 2026 FIFA World Cup, a tournament sprawling across the United States, Canada, and Mexico this summer.
From injury replacement to World Cup stage
Fletcher was called up to Scotland’s 26-man squad on May 31, 2026, replacing the injured Billy Gilmour.
On the other side of the pitch, Mazraoui brings considerably more experience. The Moroccan defender already started his nation’s World Cup opener against Brazil. Morocco, coming off their historic 2022 World Cup semifinal run, entered this tournament with serious expectations, and Mazraoui has been central to their defensive setup.
Where football meets the blockchain
Sorare, the NFT platform built on Ethereum, operates a fantasy football game where digital collectible cards are tied directly to real-world player performances.
Mazraoui’s World Cup opener against Brazil already demonstrated this dynamic in action. When he was substituted during the match, it sent ripples through the Sorare marketplace, where traders holding his cards had to recalculate their positions based on his reduced playing time and performance metrics.
The Sorare model and why World Cups matter
Sorare’s model is straightforward in concept. Players earn points based on real match statistics, and those points determine the value and utility of their corresponding NFT cards.
The 2026 tournament, hosted across three countries with an expanded format, means more matches, more players, and more data points feeding into platforms like Sorare. That’s a larger surface area for trading activity compared to previous World Cups.