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This was supposed to be the World Cup that went smoothly.
Eight years ago, the World Cup was held in Russia and was marred by human rights abuses, tragedies in stadium construction and rampant corruption in the bidding process — and that was before the invasion of Ukraine led to the country’s ban from international competition. Four years ago, it was in Qatar, where even more human rights abuses and corruption may have arisen, with the bonus that it was so hot that the tournament had to be moved to the fall, which is not when the World Cup is supposed to take place. But this year, with Mexico, Canada and, for the first time since the 1994 event that launched soccer’s popularity in the country, the United States playing host, all was supposed to be normal and fun. We were the ones who would get this right.
It has, uh, not turned out that way. Iran’s team is practicing in Mexico and still not sure it will be allowed to enter the U.S. There are worries of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement presence at American venues. Tickets are so expensive that the president himself — just a few months removed from his FIFA Peace Prize — says he wouldn’t pay for them. (Saudi Arabia’s team is actually giving out free tickets to its matches.) The U.S.’s first match, a signature event of the tournament, hasn’t sold out. This whole thing is being run by Rudy Giuliani’s kid. It’s a mess, and it hasn’t even started yet.
It’s all led to wide concern that the whole thing will be a disaster. That stadiums will be empty. That protests will overwhelm the games. That Donald Trump will make some sort of spectacle of himself on the world stage. (Again.) That this opportunity — one American soccer fans like me have been waiting their entire lives for — will be squandered. And it might!
But I dunno. It also sounds plenty familiar.
I’ve been writing about sports my entire life, and one thing never changes: Every time there’s a major global event, whether it’s the World Cup or the Olympics, people foresee a nightmare. That the venues won’t be ready, that the host country will botch everything. And then, once the events begin, everyone stops paying attention to any of that and just enjoys the games.
I covered the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014, where they poured money into an amusement park that wasn’t even finished by the time the Games closed, an Olympics during which Russia literally invaded another country, and if you were inside the venues or watching on television, none of that made a lick of difference. Sports make it all fade away.
This is especially true for the World Cup. No matter what’s happening outside the stadium, it has a tendency to vanish on the pitch — for better or worse. I spoke with Roger Bennett, author of the new book “We Are the World (Cup)” and an unofficial host/hype man/fan in chief of this World Cup (he and his podcast “Men in Blazers” will be doing a Madden Bus-esque road trip throughout the tournament called “Match Day Live!”). He expects us all to get caught up in the event as much as we always do.
“The second a ball is kicked, the second Messi takes the field, the second Brazil is in those golden jerseys, the second England shows up with their profound signature mix of insecure arrogance … the cognitive dissonance kicks in and the rational drumbeat just evaporates because we’re all caught in the thrall of the emotional,” he says. “The world is kind of caught in a global eclipse that sweeps the entire planet.”
The World Cup field has expanded this year from 32 to 48 teams, which will make more money for FIFA (the reason the move was made, of course) but will also help keep global interest strong, particularly for teams that might be in danger of elimination early in a smaller field. (Looking at you, USMNT.) It is also full of compelling personalities, from aging brand names such as Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo to budding superstars like France’s Kylian Mbappé and Spain’s Lamine Yamal.
And more than anything, it is simply the World Cup itself, the one event — really, including the Olympics — that captures the interest of every corner of the planet, from the fjords of Norway to the deserts of Egypt to the outback of Australia. This is the event that everyone on earth will be looking at, at once. That can be scary, of course, particularly when, well, the tumultuousness of the U.S. maybe doesn’t have us looking our absolute best. But that has its advantages too: The tournament is so compelling that it can make all that ails it, and you, briefly fall away.
Maybe you can’t afford a ticket. Maybe there will be times you’ll want to wince. Maybe some things will go very wrong. But it’s still the World Cup, and it’s just a very, very hard event to screw up. No matter how hard you might try.
The post The World Cup is a mess. It’s going to be great anyway. appeared first on Washington Post.
