World Cup

"When I made my way to the other end of the drive-through, he said, 'Are you that guy from the video game?' And I said, 'Actually, yes I am.'"

By Hayden Bird

June 13, 2026 | 9:58 AM

5 minutes to read

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One of the most recognizable voices in world soccer is actually a Massachusetts resident, though he’s on the road a lot of the year.

Derek Rae, one of Fox’s World Cup play-by-play commentators (and the voice of the EA Sports FC video game series), has had a local residence of some kind since moving to Boston ahead of the 1994 World Cup, during which time he worked with the local organizing committee.

It led to an unlikely pairing, as Rae — an Aberdeen, Scotland native — has a decades-long relationship with the area. Asked what recommendations he might have for his fellow Scots as they descend on Boston for the 2026 World Cup, Rae said that his natural inclination was to recommend non-Scottish things to explore.

“I’m a little bit sentimental because when I worked for the World Cup in 1993-1994, I lived right in the North End on Prince Street,” he told Boston.com in a recent interview. “I still have very fond memories.

“I used to walk to work every day. Our office was across the City Hall Plaza there at Government Center. I would walk the seven or eight minutes across there. So the North End is quite dear to my heart,” he said. “I told Scotland fans, ‘Yeah it’ll be crowded, but you can’t really go wrong in the North End. You know, Caffè Paradiso, Caffè dello Sport, places like that. You’ll enjoy yourselves there.”

Rae also personally vouched for Santarpio’s Pizza in East Boston, and recommended taking a day trip on the ferry to visit the North Shore.

Chasing a dream to Boston in 1994

His knowledge of the region started as just a dream in the buildup to the 1994 tournament, the first to be hosted in the United States. Having worked as a broadcaster during the 1990 World Cup, Rae eventually found a role with local officials in media relations.

“My job was to basically organize the entire media operation for that to get everything ready for [the World Cup],” he explained. One of his biggest tasks, however, was dealing with a skeptical local press.

“There was considerable hostility at that time,” he said of the response to the World Cup coming to Boston. “So my job was essentially not just operational, but it was also sort of a public relations job.

“I think we did convert some people,” Rae concluded. “I think once the event came, people said, ‘OK, now I get it, now I see what you’re talking about and why this is just on a different level.'”

After ’94, Rae opted to return to broadcast journalism rather than stay on the organizing side.

Still, it remains a foundational event for him.

“On the operational side, I learned an awful lot about how the USA works and how it works differently in comparison with what I knew in Europe,” Rae said. “It was a great experience.”

And amid the 2026 World Cup’s pre-tournament issues, Rae admitted he was a little perplexed that no one reached out for advice.

“And you know, I was slightly disappointed to be honest that none of the organizers of the current World Cup thought maybe there’s a guy who was the press officer in ’94,” he noted. “Maybe he has some learnings from then that we can pass along. I never heard from anybody at all on the organizational side.”

But as he looked beyond the 1994 World Cup, Rae now had an official tie to the region.

“I met my wife here around that time,” he recalled. And as she’s a North Shore native, they eventually bought a home in the area. Even as Rae’s career in soccer broadcasting expanded — he currently spends much of the season in Germany and the U.K. working for multiple networks — the family kept the home in the North Shore.

“It’s a really nice place to be able to come back to and chill out for a little bit between events and get ready for the next one,” he said. “The Boston area has really — since those early days with the World Cup in the early ’90s — been a big chunk of our lives.”

Being the voice of a video game dynasty

One of the most popular sports video games of all-time remains EA Sports’s soccer franchise (previously known as the “FIFA” series, now known as “EA Sports FC”).

Rae got the role as the official play-by-play commentator of the video game series in 2018 after a tryout. The effect it’s had, he explained, has been both incredible and occasionally humorous.

“I was very privileged to be invited to be part of it,” Rae said of joining the annually-released game.

“I think for a lot of people of a certain age, maybe a younger age group, that’s what they know me as,” he noted. “They know me as the video game guy, the voice of the video game.”

“I remember a couple of years into it going to a drive-through in one of the towns here in the North Shore, and there was a gentleman on the other side, who got chatting with me,” Rae explained. “And when I made my way to the other end of the drive-through, he said, ‘Are you that guy from the video game?’ And I said, ‘Actually, yes I am.’ He asked me, ‘What are you doing here?’ I told him I live here. He said, ‘The video game guy lives here?'”

Scotland’s Boston-centric return to the World Cup

One of the earliest indicators most Bostonians had that the World Cup was getting going was the rapidly growing presence of Scottish fans around the area as the tournament started.

Rae, who first recalled watching Scotland at the 1974 World Cup as a child, was thrilled to see his native country back on the sport’s biggest stage for the first time since 1998.

“There’s an entire generation, the generation below mine, that has not known Scotland at a World Cup,” he explained. “So this is brand new, and I think it’s why so many Scots have have decided to make the trip to the USA, specifically to Boston for summer, because there’s been a 28-year hiatus.”

“I think Boston has struck it lucky having Scotland,” Rae said. Though acknowledging his bias, he pointed to the most recent 2024 UEFA European Football Championship, hosted in Germany (where Rae spends a lot of time during the season doing commentary). Scotland qualified and sent a huge group of fans to Germany.

“German fans were very excited about Scotland coming, and Scottish fans were voted the most popular fans at that tournament by a number of different polls after the event,” Rae said.

“There are still people in Germany who talk about how great it was, and the color Scotland brought and the personality, and it just was a very good fit. I think it’ll be the same for the Boston area.”

The only problem for Rae? He’s going to be navigating a rigorous broadcasting schedule that will take him elsewhere (he will be on the call for four games in the first week). And while Rae noted his excitement to once again call World Cup games — he’s now worked every World Cup since 1990 — it does mean he won’t be around Massachusetts to experience the “Tartan Army.”

“The funny thing is that my country is coming to Boston, but I will see precisely none of that.”