Football has long functioned as a medium for promoting the conjuncture of belonging and the nation state. This conjuncture is sustained by a grammar of racialized difference, intensified when players of colour are in the spotlight during international sporting events. However, subsequent phases of globalization and migration have played a pivotal role in transforming the collective imagination on and beyond the pitch. What if a post-national world exists, yet remains elusive because it is as unfamiliar to us as we are to it? Consider the football fields of Berlin, Naples, or Paris, where the younger generation carries hope, naivety, and a genuine love for the game into the future. But how does this hope, this naivety, this love fare when faced with the hostility of a world fuelled by racism and nationalist ideals? This was notably echoed across social media following the victory of the German U-17 team in the 2023 U-17 World Cup, which for many commentators simply wasn’t ‘German’ enough. In a time when fascism is on the rise, how can we make sense of these thwarted hopes? And if belonging is both made and remade in stadiums, in fanclubs, and on the screen, could football provide an arena for practicing acts of belonging beyond racialized difference and the nation state?