World Cup 2026 — magical moments amid all the messy stuff

How unfortunate that one of the most exhilarating World Cups in recent history should be marred by the sort of stuff that will linger in the memory much, much longer than the many glorious moments.

The closing scenes at the New York New Jersey Stadium on Sunday felt like a grim fulfilment of every warning issued before the tournament began. In the build-up, the fear was that the spectre of the ultra-narcissist Donald Trump would dominate the tournament, that his official pubic-hair pruner Gianni Infantino would bow to his every ridiculous wish and that heathen Americanism would corrupt the sacred game that we all so love.

In the end, Mexico, Canada and the United States delivered a fabulous World Cup. Navigating those gruelling match times offered a reality check. African fans have long accepted the myth that soccer’s universe revolves entirely around Europe’s time zone. While Europe dominates the sport’s economics, strictly sticking to “our” time orbit means missing out on top-tier football elsewhere.

So, Sunday at the New York New Jersey Stadium. Argentina came into the final after scraping through most of their crucial games. A conspiracy developed that the perennially corrupt Fifa had hatched a plan to gift Lionel Messi his ultimate farewell. He had to lift the trophy to make this World Cup the most memorable, so Infantino ensured the referees would make this happen.

Some strange decisions certainly supported the theory, but it is difficult to believe that the world’s best referees would risk their careers and reputations to burnish the legacy of someone who is already held by the ignorant modern majority in higher regard than Pelé, Diego Maradona, George Best and Johan Cruyff.

So, Sunday at the New York New Jersey Stadium. It was a world away from Qatar 2022. That final — rightly hailed as the greatest ever — was absolute magic because both Argentina and France showed up ready to wage war. It was football on another plane. As The Guardian’s Barney Ronay perfectly captured, it was a match of “grotesque, beautiful, unfathomable drama, a game that seemed to have been written by some mad, footballing deity”.

So, Sunday at the New York New Jersey Stadium. Argentina just didn’t turn up. Anyone reading this would have watched that game, so there’s no need to elaborate on the anti-soccer tactics of the Argentinians. They made this a final to forget.

When they did eventually turn up, after the final whistle, it was to dishonour the beautiful game. They pounced on the Spaniards like frenzied predatory animals. Even their own coach could not stop their crazed punching, wrestling and even attempted throttling of their victorious opponents.

It got worse. As the Spanish team received their medals and prepared to lift the iconic World Cup trophy, the Argentinians moved to a distant end of the field and turned their backs on the ceremony. Worse still, their fans joined in the disgusting display by chanting “Messi! Messi!” as the Spanish captain, Rodri, was announced as the player of the tournament.

And then there was Trump…

It is tempting to ignore the spectacle of the US president elbowing his way into the Spanish team’s victory celebration, but it was too emblematic of his entire tournament strategy to gloss over.

From forcing Fifa to relocate the draw to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — to which this narcissist had appended his name — to openly meddling in a red-card decision, Trump’s relentless intrusions were impossible to miss. A tournament designed to unify humanity for six glorious weeks had the misfortune of playing out in the backyard of modern history’s most divisive political figure.

The sad part is that Trump did not need to employ his bullying tactics to achieve his aims. He may have blatantly bullied universities, law firms, Congress, US neighbours, and the country’s allies over the past 18 months to get his way (and even boasted about it), but there was no need with Fifa. Always ready to do his bidding was Infantino, a man so far up Trump’s rectum that the only visible parts of his anatomy are the tips of his toenails. Having taken over the presidency of Fifa in 2016 with the professed mandate of cleaning up after the corrupt reign of Sepp Blatter, Infantino just got on the same runaway horse of unethical conduct that he was supposed to tame.

He is set to continue enjoying this wild ride for a while, having just been nominated by more than 200 of the organisation’s 211 federations for a fourth term. Should he triumph at next year’s congress in Morocco, he will be on this horse until 2031, meaning that he has yet another World Cup opportunity to prey on soccer lovers’ pockets and make self-serving deals for him and his inner coterie as well as those who keep him in power.

You might ask yourself why and how this man enjoys such overwhelming support, given that almost the entirety of the soccer-loving world believes he is a rascal, and that he is currently facing an investigation following a complaint laid against him at the Fifa ethics committee.

The short answer is that the soccer-loving world does not count. What counts are those suits that govern national associations and regional federations. And those guys, by and large, have the moral compass of an ANC branch member. The more compromised you appear to be, the more loveable you are and the more willing you are to dispense patronage and slip them dodgy dosh, the more electable you are.

Infantino’s wild ride will end eventually, but it will not be because Fifa members will have had enough. It will be because — just like with the demise of Blatter and João Havelange before him — another Infantino will feel it is his turn at the trough. Some believe it might be our very own Patrice Motsepe. They surmise that the man who prizes good governance so highly in his own companies sidles up to Infantino because he, like his brother-in-law Cyril Ramaphosa during the Jacob Zuma era, does so to position himself for the mantle. But is he prepared to be a Havelange, a Blatter or an Infantino? Throw away all sense of morality for the power and the glory of a Zurich throne?

Along for the ride

Whatever happens and whenever it happens, we, the soccer-loving public, will just go along. We will buy the tickets, switch on our TVs to watch games whose rights have been sold for eye-popping amounts to line Fifa’s pockets. Our love for the game and our attention spans will be the mine that keeps churning out gems for those at the helm. We will shout, scream and gnash our teeth, but the wild horse will ride on as our rage is overwhelmed by the enjoyment of watching the men and women on the field do their stuff. Such is the reality.

That doesn’t mean the true custodians of the game should stop fighting for honesty and transparency. Soccer’s ruling class only exists because of the fans filling stadium seats and glued to television screens. We must keep calling out corruption, supporting principled leaders, and fighting systemic abuse. The game can still be reclaimed.

For now, though, let us savour the wonderful moments from World Cup 2026. We cannot forget the bitter ones, because it is those that spur the activism around trying to achieve as much honesty as is possible in these swamps.

And as the tournaments begins to recede, we also take a moment to thank the great players whose nimbleness and grit we will not be witnessing in 2030 – the likes of Sadio Mané, Manuel Neuer, Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and others whose bodies will not be able to carry them to this great stage in four years’ time. They will be missed, but fortunately this World Cup served up an exciting new generation that will carry the torch to Morocco, Spain and Portugal in 2030. DM