I just noticed that some articles are using Roman numerals to refer to the starting eleven players. Has that always been a thing, or is it new this year? Take this article, on the ESPN website, about South Africa defeating South Korea, which includes a reference to a controversy over the South Korea starting XI.
That seems like an odd place to use Roman numerals, but maybe that’s how it’s always been and I just never noticed.
I’ve never seen that, neither in American, British nor German media.
Bayern sometimes uses the XI thing on their gameday social media posts.
I don’t read no steenking Bayern social media posts… 
Don’t make me search through BMG posts! 
It’s common in schools in the UK, or at least it used to be. The first XI in football or cricket, and the first XV in rugby.
In German, we usually write it out as “Erste Elf” or “Startelf”. Well, except for Bayern…
I was thinking earlier today that I didn’t like the pre-seeding of all teams in the Round of 32. For instance, Group E 2nd Place plays Group I 2nd Place on Tuesday the 30th. I thought that a better method would be to seed all teams after the Group stage, so that the best-performing team would be seeded #1 and would play the #32 team.
But after further reflection, I realized that it would be impossible to do that, unless there were several days off between the Group stage and the Round of 32. Otherwise, you might have a team that’s had one day off playing a team which hasn’t played in a week.
I still don’t think I like the way the seeding is structured for the knockout rounds, but I have no idea if there’s a better way to do it.
Ah gosh, dammit, that’s why I don’t follow social media, not even BMG’s.
I told you not to make me do it!
But you first had to make the effort…
The truth is oot there!
Ah, SA is only manageable because they banned all the zarzuelas.
Vuvuzelas
I’m sure I’ve seen ‘XI’ in a professional football lineup context many times in the UK.
I knew I had it wrong, but misGoogled it because it turns out zarzuela “sheet music” is a thing.
Now don’t let anyone get the idea to compose a symphony for vuvuzelas. 
If you have never seen the amazing (but less well known now) comedian Dave Attell having an entire audience play “Hot Cross Buns” on recorders, (which anyone can do instinctively) it is well worth your time to Google it if available. Incredibly funny, sez I.
Seen in Bluesky:
Scotland - Brazil:
