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A bit like that final Spanish goal, or maybe, more fittingly, the Argentine aggression, you knew it was coming. After Gianni Infantino had made the customary claim that this was the best World Cup ever – nay, most spectacular – Donald Trump of course went even bigger.
The US president said it was “one of the greatest events, of any kind, ever held.”
Does the moon landing count? The D-Day landings?
You have to wonder what Infantino’s good friends in Qatar, who provide his private jet, think of that. And what about Vladimir Putin?
Since that exact description is guaranteed to be said after every World Cup, it clearly doesn’t have any value, but the wider debate does.
Where does “United 2026” – which doesn’t really roll off the tongue like “Italia 90” or “USA 94” – actually stand in history?
Was it a great World Cup? Was it even… a good one?
There is actually a lot more debate among those who attended than either Infantino or Trump would have you believe, which is why it’s hard not to ultimately lean on the personal – on how it makes you feel.
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So, if you’ll forgive the shift towards something more first-person for the final newsletter of this World Cup, this is essentially a last letter from America.So, how did the World Cup make me feel?
Well, I’m a bit conflicted about that, too.
The first thing to be said is that my grand ambition as a football writer was to regularly attend the biggest games, with the World Cup final the biggest of all – so actually being there is special in itself. This was far from a great final and overall represented a very strange event but… it’s still a World Cup final. You can see it in the emotional responses of both teams. Look at Ferran Torres’ celebration.
It is also such an exciting and invigorating thing to be covering a huge football tournament in another country, since you’re reporting on something that feels like the centre of the world – and that was more true than ever for this World Cup – amid an electric global party.
There was nothing really like just making the short trip to Times Square from our New Jersey base during the group stage and seeing masses of fans gathered together.
That was also true, however, for Nikolskaya Street in Moscow, Copacabana and Soweto.
The sheer scale of this World Cup did dilute that feeling a bit. In a lot of the more spread-out cities, like Kansas City or Dallas, there wasn’t the same sense of congregation.
The scale also had many other effects, and dictated pretty much everything. I’m actually finishing this newsletter on my flight back from JFK to Heathrow, which marks a full six weeks away.
That is a lot. As I write in my tournament wrap on Monday morning, it has also diluted the gloriously self-contained nature of the World Cup.
There was a particular moment when this struck me the other day. I was talking to a colleague about the Brazil-Scotland game, which I attended, and the very conversation made me feel as if that match happened in a different tournament; a different summer.
It’s similar with many of the early stories.
That does affect the rhythm of the tournament, although maybe that is somewhat fitting since it was characterised by a lot of staccato teams.
One thing I would say is that it did feel this World Cup had the right winners, which is important. You don’t want to be underwhelmed by the champions. On the other side, I have found myself wrapped up in a lot of Argentina’s World Cup runs, including this one, for much of the tournament – but their ending was a disgrace. There is footage of at least four Spanish players being physically confronted. It’s sad that this will be what lasts in the memory. It might have come from a final frustration.
Spain were arguably one of only two truly elite sides and maybe even the only one. That did mean that, although they had quite a difficult knock-out run, there was no real Homeric or epic quality to their victory. It wasn’t like the intensity of their first World Cup, in 2010, or even Euro 2024.
They gradually ascended to their level and then were just the best team. Even the hinge tournament moment of that 2-0 win over France was a procession, as reflected in that supreme team goal finished by Pedro Porro.
When you ask those in football or at this World Cup about them, the description is basically just “so good”, “total domination”.
And that’s it. In the end, not even their 0-0 draw with Cabo Verde really mattered to the wider tournament, although it was obviously the first of many massive national moments for the African side.
That draw actually happened just before a press briefing with Thomas Tuchel and he expressed utter shock, as if it said something much bigger about the World Cup.
It didn’t. I’ve written about how the group stage was very entertaining but entirely forgettable.
As one high-profile football figure says, it fosters this sense of the World Cup now as a massive exhibition event rather than the elite sporting competition it’s supposed to be.
A journalist’s experience of all this can be very different, it must be acknowledged. Even though you might think that this is the kind of role where you can finally make a job out of the childhood joy of watching every single World Cup game, that’s not how it works. Unless you’re physically at a match, you’re usually doing something else: chasing a story, speaking to people, attending a media briefing or travelling somewhere.
A lot of matches are caught in passing, getting to watch half-hours here and there and catching up with the key action later.
That didn’t feel as important in this group stage because it was just this wall of football.
So, more than getting acquainted with all 48 sides, we got acquainted with the different nuances of the host cities and their airports.
I think I became a connoisseur of the many different “healthy” granola/yoghurt breakfasts you could pick up in airports. This, yes, is what a World Cup can really be about.
You of course remember the big games you attended, where you were for key moments and the shared experiences with colleagues. But, since this is your life for six weeks, it’s also about the little details.
Security queueing times at airports were exchanged as if it were key info.I like a lot of aspects of the US but was inevitably drawn to the cities where you can walk around, which are largely on the east coast. You would have wanted a more concentrated World Cup in that sense, so that fans could more easily travel around.
I would still say there’s simply nothing like a long walk down Manhattan, even if the best pizza slice I got, maybe a little surprisingly, was in Atlanta.
Being on the road can prove a challenge in terms of staying healthy – which is why supermarkets like Whole Foods were appreciated.
Everywhere was so friendly. That is something to always remember amid the wider politicisation of the World Cup. Americans have an almost disarming openness. Mexicans seemed so grateful to get to showcase their country again. I didn’t get to Canada, which is a pity, but I would always have regretted it if I didn’t get to go to the Azteca.
Covering England did ensure that. Tuchel’s side were actually responsible for some of the more epic games, as well as offering a little bucket list of what you’d want to cover at a World Cup: a huge game at the Azteca, all the more special because it was Mexico; England-Argentina, with all that history, especially how it ended. I’ve now seen Leo Messi live 43, 44 and 45 times, and the last may well have been his final match at the World Cup.
Argentina 3-2 Egypt was probably the best event I attended.
But, outside of those, there weren’t that many epics. There wasn’t much that I regretted not being at, by the end.
The more staggered nature of this World Cup made it feel as if it didn’t rise to the same peaks.
As stated above, mind, the nature of the final does colour that.
There are parallels with USA ’94 in that regard, in how it petered out. Sunday’s final was much worse, although that was almost entirely down to Argentina.This was the fifth World Cup I’ve covered and, in terms of experience, it’s probably up there just behind South Africa and Brazil.
The number of flights was a factor.
In terms of the World Cup overall, I thought it was only good. I don’t think it was better than any of the greats of the past or modern competitions such as USA ’94, France ’98, Brazil 2014 or – as regards the football alone – Qatar 2022.
It’s still a World Cup, though, regardless of what they try and do to it.
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The article above is the lead column from the award-winning Miguel Delaney: Inside Football newsletter.
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