48 Nations. 48 Artists. One World Cup. Behind-the-Scenes Look at Our Most Ambitious WC Project

You haven't seen your cover completed with the Sports Illustrated title on yet, is that correct?

Not yet, no, not yet, I'm very excited to see that.

I'm excited to see it.

Alright, let's see it.

Oh wow.

Oh, OK, that looks cool.

Oh, nice.

Wow, that's so exciting.

I love it.

Well.

That's great.

It's everything I was hoping for and much more .

It's already World Cup fever here in the Sports Illustrated studio, and it is the best tournament on Earth.

That's the, the most exciting, uh, tournament that ever existed.

The World Cup is about joy, it's about excitement, it's about passion.

It's the greatest tournament on Earth for any sport, by the way, it's everything, Dan.

If there were no World Cups, I wouldn't know in which year we are.

I basically mark out my life by World Cups.

It's hard to describe the energy.

The vibrancy, all the different fans, everybody mingling together, like, you know, a proper football carnival.

It's just one of those things that you look forward to for like the entire year leading up to it.

There's a lot of storylines.

Yeah, it's just a, it's a wonderful time.

This World Cup coming up in the US, Mexico, and Canada is the biggest in history.

So we here at Sports Illustrated have created our biggest ever series of covers.

48 covers for the 48 teams taking part.

I actually was directly contacted by an art director at Sports Illustrated.

Now Stephen called me and tell me about this project and I was in from the start.

It's incredible.

Yeah, uh, Steve Scallaki, the creative director, is, um, either a complete masochist, um, or a genius.

I'm, I'm going with genius on this one .

I'm Steven Sklai, the creative director of Sports Illustrated.

Um, for the 2026 World Cup preview, we reached out to artists around the world to pair an artist with each team represented in the expanded 48 team roster.

Uh, we use the FIFA guidelines of birthplace heritage and places lived to basically qualify an artist for each national team.

The biggest challenge was finding 48 illustrators connected to all the teams in the World Cup when the artists have a.

Direct connection with these communities and cultures, um, the rest kind of like kind of flowed seamlessly.

Other artists focused on like familiar scenes that they would see around town.

I even had an artist kind of pitch an idea and then just walk outside, snap a picture and say see.

I wanted to represent something in life and something honest, the atmosphere I see around me all the time, it's um something different than, for example, tourists see.

Just this scene.

Brings me a bit of happiness.

It just reminds me of childhood, you know, getting the ball, kicking it against the wall, getting your friends out.

Completely.

We are at an era where people are staying inside and, and when you see these kind of scenes with kids as adults all playing together, that's something quite emotional and that we need to to to enjoy as well.

Senegal cover, you can see a very kind of warm palette.

I think perhaps maybe a sunset.

You know, all kinds of families, friends crowding around.

I think you get that feeling, it brings a lot of joy.

I love the cover because nothing brings people together like football, and this is reflected uh there in such a nice way.

Also this idea that I have uh the boy standing on the crates that's kind of the speak to like the next generation of football players and, you know, I'm thinking, oh, I will, I will be next, and, and I can aspire to that.

That's a nice one.

That is a nice one.

The volcano as well too.

The sharks.

I like this one the most.

Those sharks, they represent the country.

They are on the shirt of Cabo Verde, and you don't know what can happen with them because that would be their first World Cup, and never underestimate what a shark can do.

Mumbai is a battle cry like Mumbai, let's go.

Let's go fight.

Let's go win.

Oh, OK, this is a cover, isn't it?

This is a beautiful cover actually.

This is my favorite so far.

This one's sick.

Dominating in the middle with the bicycle kick that sent them to the World Cup.

I love Scottish football culture.

It does a really good job of.

Uh, of really capturing that sort of Scottish sense of humor, it makes me smile, and actually I think most Scottish fans, they'd be thinking , OK, I, that's a, that's a pretty fair reflection of a great tournament.

Of course the World Cup is about superstars.

At first when I set out the project, uh, I think the true joy of the tournament is how it stems, uh, it stems away from that and just brings communities and cultures together.

Of course with some teams you have, you needed to include the superstars with Yamal in Spain.

Holland and Norway.

Messi in Argentina.

We have also Maradona that for me that I'm a little bit older.

It's #1, but Messi in the last few years, all everything he did for Argentina, he's equal to Maradona right now and being his last, uh, his last World Cup, uh, It's a huge deal.

What I like as well, you see the fans, and it almost is a little nod towards the scenes in Buenos Aires after the World Cup win .

It was the biggest football celebration of all time with 5 million fans in the streets of Buenos Aires.

A lot of fans like climbing to to try to be on top of traffic lights or bus stops um or or anything.

I think pure joy, pure happiness.

That was really unbelievable.

The Christian Pulisic US one, this is one of the examples with er the main player.

There's several of them, um Erling Harland.

Uh james Rodriguez, there's a few iconic players who are part of the current setup.

For us, a lot of times, we put all the hope onto like our one star player when every given time, whether that's Landon Donovan, like, like whoever that is at any given time.

Um, right now it's definitely Christian Pulisic.

S There's a lot of pressure on his shoulders, and I think again.

I think that's what the artist is going for here, where actually, he is, as you say, Captain America, he needs to like.

Really step up for them and for his nation.

Oh, that's a beautiful cover as well too.

Look at that, that's like, that's very like it's like clip art almost, right, you put all these things, but it comes together really, really nicely.

Johan Cruyff right in the middle as an icon.

They could make this just completely orange, and I think I would love it.

I, I love to see the, the fans er wearing orange.

I, I love the color, it's also so unique.

I think it's great pro project, and I think I'll see a lot of colorful, uh, bright, amazing designs.

I think it's huge for us that we can showcase that many different people.

Um, and it's great that the sport brought that together for them.

So as illustrators to be celebrated in that way that, you know, the World Cup is happening, uh, there was this project to, to include art and artists and to put them forward in that way, is also really special.

I think the significant thing about this project and the amazing thing about this project is that the artists are from that particular country.

I think that's a huge storytelling win.

It's just a such an interesting window into the, the excitement around um each, each country's team, and I think I'm just really excited to see all of these together and see like all these different perspectives on this, this massive like expanded field and this crazy summer that we're gonna have.