Professor reveals why England's World Cup crowd sounds so different vs other nations

The cultural intricacies of football fan chanting have been dissected by Professor Andy Molinsky on TikTok.

As the 2026 World Cup deepens with the Round of 16 tomorrow (July 4) - England are up against the Mexicans early hours next Monday - all eyes continue to be on the 'greatest show on Earth', but just forgetting the actual sport for a second: why does each group of supporters have their own singular sound?

Well, according to Professor Molinsky, it's just pure national expression - some fans like to get loose while others are well-drilled and relentless machines.

"You're probably watching the 2026 World Cup, and maybe you've realised the same thing that I have: the way a country's fans cheer tells you something about that country," he told the camera in a social media clip.

The Professor of Organisational Behaviour and International Management first highlighted Scandinavian countries like Iceland and Norway, which execute thunderclaps and Viking rows as one complete 'organism'.

"Thousands of people, one sound, perfectly synchronised, no chaos, no breaking rank," said Molinsky, before turning his attention to the Brazilians.

"When I was at the Olympics in Atlanta a long time ago, I remember the Brazilian fans; drums, singing, moving, multiple rhythms happening at once, it's loud and coordinated so everyone's sort of adding their own thing.

"German fans, very different. There's much more structure, call and response, organised chants, symmetrical, methodical in a sense."

On England, the TikToker mentioned how our 'old songs' and 'melodies' keep us connected to our history, while the Argentinian masses 'spend weeks creating massive displays out of coloured cards' and Japan's fans 'cheer hard but only at the right moments' before cleaning up their litter in the stadium.

"None of these are right, they're just different ways of essentially expressing the same thing, that we are together on this," argued Molinsky.

"You've got the tight cultures who have synchronised cheering, everyone does the same thing at the same time. The loose cultures have people layering on their own expression into this sort of collective moment - it's messy, but it works. And hierarchical cultures have leaders starting chants and followers joining.

"So your cheering style is essentially a Rorschach test or a fingerprint of your culture in a sense. It shows what you actually value when you're not even thinking about it, you're just sort of in the moment celebrating."

Maybe it's best he didn't cover the painfully unimaginative USA chants...