Ivana Knoll has 2.9 million Instagram followers.
Croatia’s official national football team page has around 2.4 million.
It is not the most important fact about the 2026 World Cup. It might be the funniest.
The 33-year-old model, who first went viral at the 2018 World Cup and has been appearing at major sporting events with some regularity ever since, is taking Dallas on 17 June.
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The night England plays its opening tournament match, she will host an after party at the Ctrl Room.
Tickets, Times and the Fine Print
Entry starts at £12.58. Paying £24 skips the queue.
Doors open at 10pm, the event runs until 2am, and anyone hoping to get in needs to be 21 or older.
England and Croatia fans are both on the guest list – which, given the group stage, means at least one set of supporters will have something to process.
Knoll announced the event to her 2.9 million Instagram followers directly.
“The World Cup after party in Dallas,” she wrote.
“Right after the first game, we celebrate together at Ctrl Room, Dallas. Dallas… see you after the match.”
From F1 Paddocks to a US DJ Tour
Dallas is one stop on a wider DJ tour Knoll is running across the United States around the tournament.
The former Miss Croatia has been leaning into the latest wave of attention – thanking fans for helping her go viral again after a Sky Sports camera operator caught her in the paddock at May’s Miami Grand Prix.
The clip spread quickly. These things tend to with her.
Since Qatar 2018, Knoll has built an audience by showing up at football tournaments and generating a reliable number of British tabloid headlines.
It has turned into something of a career. She now has more followers than the national team she is ostensibly there to support – which says something interesting about celebrity, or just something about Instagram, depending on your tolerance for this sort of thing.
Why It Matters
Knoll is not a creator in the conventional sense, but her trajectory maps something the creator economy increasingly runs on: presence at live events converting directly into audience growth and paid appearances.
She goes viral at a World Cup; she does a DJ tour of the host nation.
The pipeline is clean, and it doesn’t require a content studio or a posting schedule. Just cameras and the right outfit.
As the 2026 tournament generates a new wave of content opportunities across three host nations, influencers and sporting fixtures who can credibly attach themselves to the moment stand to gain audiences that would otherwise take years to build.
What to Watch
Whether the Dallas party becomes a recurring fixture across the tournament depends on how much attention England – and Croatia – attract in the group stages. Knoll tends to show up where the cameras are.
On 17 June in Dallas, the cameras will absolutely be there.
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