---
title: "American World Cup makeover leaves soccer facing a battle for its soul"
description: "The 2026 World Cup sparked a shift in soccer’s identity, blending American entertainment with traditional gameplay, raising questions about its lasting impact on the sport’s future."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "IDENTITY CHALLENGE"
author: "Reuters"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/reuters/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-07-20-american-world-cup-makeover-leaves-soccer-facing-a-battle-for-its-soul/"
published: "2026-07-20T11:34:31"
updated: "2026-07-20T12:10:50"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 1455
---

# American World Cup makeover leaves soccer facing a battle for its soul

> The 2026 World Cup sparked a shift in soccer’s identity, blending American entertainment with traditional gameplay, raising questions about its lasting impact on the sport’s future.

By Reuters · Published 20 July 2026, 13:34 SAST · Updated 20 July 2026, 14:10 SAST

## Key points
- The 2026 World Cup has introduced an American twist to soccer, raising questions about the sport’s future identity and commercialisation.
- Innovations like mandatory hydration breaks, championship rings, and extensive half-time shows signal a shift towards a more entertainment-focused model.
- Controversial refereeing practices and political influences, including a notable link between Fifa President Gianni Infantino and Donald Trump, sparked debate over governance and integrity in the sport.
- The tournament’s legacy may ultimately hinge on its newly established precedents, setting the stage for how soccer evolves leading into the next World Cup in 2030.

## Content

The 2026 World Cup may ultimately be remembered less for the identity of its winner than for the question it left hanging over the game: How much of soccer’s American makeover will survive once the tournament leaves North America?

From mandatory “hydration” breaks that effectively split matches into four quarters to championship rings, a half-time show and an ever more tightly packaged entertainment product, Fifa embraced elements of the US sporting model with enthusiasm.

Some of those innovations will probably be remembered as novelties of an American-hosted tournament – while others may prove harder to dislodge.

![World Cup-US makeover](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/wTx3GM949mhQJ6lnIlXv4kZLF8I=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/GettyImages-2286790623_635529.jpg)

*Enzo Fernandez of Argentina takes water during the final. (Photo: Marvin Ibo Guengoer - GES Sportfoto / Getty Images)*

The mid-half breaks, brought in throughout the competition regardless of whether conditions strictly required them, were introduced by Fifa on player-welfare grounds in a tournament played through the heat and humidity of a North American summer.

Once established, they also created something football has traditionally resisted: two scheduled interruptions in the middle of each half. For coaches, they became tactical timeouts.

For broadcasters, they offered natural windows that could one day carry enormous commercial value. But for supporters accustomed to soccer’s continuous rhythm, they made matches feel increasingly divided into four quarters.

That is where the legacy question becomes more pertinent. The breaks are likely to be discussed for future World Cups, not least because player welfare offers Fifa an obvious rationale for retaining them and because the commercial potential of fixed mid-half pauses will be difficult for the sport’s decision-makers to ignore.

Yet any attempt to normalise them globally would meet resistance, particularly in Europe, where soccer’s relative freedom from stoppages remains one of the characteristics supporters most fiercely defend. Uefa has said it will not bend its rule that hydration breaks cannot exceed one minute.

The tournament therefore became a test case for how far Fifa is willing to reshape football in the image of the market in which it is being played. The answer is: quite far.

![World Cup-US makeover](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/WuosSIHSgb7p-gv0EvUvKKiiXd8=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/GettyImages-2286795682_292216.jpg)

*Shakira and Burna Boy perform during the half-time show the Fifa World Cup final. (Photo: Lars Baron / Getty Images)*

### **Blurred lines**

Winning team Spain received championship rings, a tradition imported directly from North American sport, while the showpiece final itself featured a major half-time entertainment production that has drawn obvious comparisons with the Super Bowl and led to a 27-minute interval, shooting past the sacrosanct 15-minute half-time period.

Neither changes the absolute fundamentals of the game. But they contributed to a sense that Fifa was no longer merely bringing the World Cup to the United States but increasingly adapting the World Cup to American sporting culture.

There was an irony in that. Across the tournament, American cities experienced much of what has always made international soccer distinct: vast travelling support, flags filling city centres, supporters singing for hours before and after matches and national teams carrying a sense of identity that no franchise model can easily reproduce.

The United States appeared to be absorbing the culture of football. At the same time, Fifa seemed intent on absorbing the culture of American sports entertainment and projecting it to fans worldwide.

The tournament was also unavoidably political, with Fifa President Gianni Infantino’s close relationship with US President Donald Trump becoming one of its defining off-field themes.

![World Cup-US makeover](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/qrOVWwrHUswgUhYyiyLgXHEpZeI=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/GettyImages-2286811745_512418.jpg)

*US President Donald Trump and Fifa President Gianni Infantino hold the Fifa World Cup trophy. (Photo: Dan Mullan / Getty Images)*

To critics, Infantino’s proximity to Trump often went beyond the diplomatic courtesies normally expected between the head of a global sports body and the leader of a host nation.

The controversy surrounding Folarin Balogun’s disciplinary case brought those concerns into especially sharp focus after Trump publicly praised Fifa’s handling of the matter following his own intervention.

Fifa said its judicial bodies acted independently and autonomously, but the episode reinforced an impression among some that the line between football governance and political influence had become uncomfortably blurred.

### **Refereeing debates**

The tournament’s inevitable refereeing controversies added another layer of unease. Officials were asked to enforce a game operating under new rules and interpretations while also managing familiar pressures over consistency, player protection and the growing influence of technology.

The result was a World Cup in which debate often moved beyond whether one decision was right or wrong and towards something more fundamental: whether the laws of the game had become too complicated for players, coaches and supporters to understand in real time.

New interpretations were meant to bring greater clarity and consistency, but the tournament frequently demonstrated how difficult both can be to achieve.

![World Cup-US makeover](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/anf6h6tj4Aa_KPinb2ngr8a9U_I=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/GettyImages-2286809868_953252.jpg)

*Spain captain Rodri lifts the World Cup. (Photo: David Ramos / Getty Images)*

VAR remained central to major decisions, but technology did little to eliminate argument. On some occasions it merely shifted the argument from the referee’s judgement to the interpretation of slow-motion images and technical language.

That was compounded by a wider atmosphere of suspicion around officiating, with conspiracy theories amplified on social media and referees often unable to answer back.

Fifa refereeing chief Pierluigi Collina dismissed allegations of bias and said match officials ​operated with complete independence.

Daily Maverick Connect

What defined the 2026 World Cup for you?

[JOIN THE DEBRIEF](https://connect.dailymaverick.co.za/t/lets-debrief-the-2026-world-cup/3892)

On the pitch, the expanded 48-team format produced a mixed verdict. There was more football, more countries and more opportunities for nations previously not included in the sport’s biggest event.

The expanded knockout phase gave the group stage additional jeopardy, but the sheer scale of 104 matches made this World Cup feel less like a concentrated festival and more like a vast sporting season squeezed into a matter of weeks.

That size suited Fifa’s commercial ambitions and the geography of the hosts, but whether it improved the sporting product is more debatable.

The tournament still delivered what World Cups always do: new heroes, fallen favourites, national heartbreak and moments that cut through the noise surrounding the event.

Its most lasting legacy, however, may not be a match or a champion, but the precedent it has created. The real test of that will come at the next edition in 2030.

### **Takeaways from the tournament**

Here are some takeaways from the tournament, which was co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico:

- A new, expanded format of 48 teams meant more matches, more goals, and more records broken. But ultimately, it was dominated by the usual suspects, with all four semi-final places won by Fifa’s top four ranked teams – Argentina, Spain, France and England.
- There were, however, a couple of fairytale runs – Cape Verde won over supporters’ hearts after the debutant band of journeymen professionals and raw ​youngsters held Spain and Uruguay to draws and forced Argentina into extra time. Norway entertained audiences with their “Viking row” and made it to the quarterfinals for the first time ever.
- Before the tournament, worries over visas, guns and a lack of local interest had made many global fans sceptical of the US role in hosting. But ultimately supporters found a warm welcome from Americans in what became known as the Great American Sleepover. Social media was filled with cross-cultural posts of Americans embracing the traditions of visiting supporters – even morning bagpipes –≠ and Europeans discovering the delights of free soda refills.
- Men’s soccer in co-host Canada has for years struggled to take off at the higher levels, but the team’s progress to the last 16 signalled that may be changing, with investment in the sport accelerating and games attracting record crowds.
- By contrast, soccer is well established in Mexico. Stadiums were (mostly) packed and fans euphoric, especially when Mexico played. But Mexico’s first World Cup knockout win in 40 years led to four deaths in crowd crushes as fans celebrated, and there has been little sign of long-term benefit to the economy.
- US fans were frustrated that their team again exited at the round of 16, with Trump’s controversial intervention in the suspension of a red card from the previous match for their leading striker making little difference in the end. But once all the hype died down, one fact remained: the team performed in line with expectations.
- There was considerable outrage over the high cost of stadium tickets compared with previous tournaments. Enough people were willing to pay, attendance numbers indicated. But increasingly, going to the World Cup is something only possible for affluent fans or the obsessive.
- As well as the working class, supporters from countries facing visa restrictions were shut out of the World Cup. Diasporas and Americans lending their support helped make up the numbers in the stadiums, at least in part.
- Fifa rules ban political displays in stadiums. But when they happened, there was no immediate response from authorities and the show went on. **Reuters/DM**