Pakistan, June 9 -- Children dribble footballs across the narrow alleys of Pakistan's impoverished Lyari neighborhood, with only days left for the FIFA World Cup 2026 to begin.

The FIFA World Cup will kick off on Thursday, June 11, with co-hosts Mexico playing against South Africa. All men's football World Cup editions between 1930, the inaugural tournament, and the last one in 2022, were held in a single host nation except for the 2002 tournament when Japan and South Korea co-hosted it.

This year marks the first time a FIFA World Cup - men's or women's - will be played across three countries: the US, Mexico and Canada. But in Karachi's Lyari, an impoverished area that has made headlines in the past for gang wars and drug trafficking, F...