Prince William turns 44 on Sunday, June 22. He is spending his birthday week at Royal Ascot, where he appeared in the carriage on Wednesday in a suit with a flower in the buttonhole, looking as he generally does, which is like a man who was raised to appear at Ascot and has made peace with it.
Earlier that morning he sent England a good luck message for their World Cup opener against Croatia in Dallas. “Good luck to England ahead of their first World Cup group match tonight! Here’s to a great tournament ahead.” Signed “W,” because he is a man who has a royal cipher and uses it even for football messages, which is either the most charming thing about him or a minor eccentricity depending on your feelings about royal ciphers.
England won 4-2. Harry Kane scored twice. Jude Bellingham scored once. Marcus Rashford, who was omitted from the Euro 2025 squad entirely and has had a year that journalists have described using the phrase “difficult personal circumstances,” scored the fourth goal and celebrated with what appeared to be genuine relief. It was England’s first group-stage World Cup win in proper time since 2018, a period that included a semifinal loss, a final loss on penalties, a quarterfinal loss, and another semifinal loss. England have spent eight years finding inventive new ways to lose from promising positions. They did not do that on Wednesday.
William is the president of the Football Association. He has been President of the FA for the entirety of England’s recent tournament heartbreak era, a fact that nobody brings up at Ascot and that he is presumably aware of. He sent the message. England won. He turns 44 in four days.
England still have Ghana and Panama. Then the round of 16. Then the quarterfinals. The pattern reasserts itself eventually.
When the future king’s best week involves a football message, a carriage procession, and a 4-2 win in Dallas, is this what inheriting a country looks like?
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