The World Cup has never been just a football tournament. Even if we don’t realise it at the time, it tends to reveal something about us. In Germany 2006, it was all about Baden-Baden and the WAGs: the shallowest point of that celebrity-obsessed age. For more romance and happier memories, go back to Italia 90. Pavarotti bellowing ‘Nessun dorma’, Gazza blubbing, Maradona weaving his magic, Roger Milla hip-wiggling the corner flag.
Italia 90 was the last gasp of the old order: modestly paid players with mullets and perms; heaving terraces; the USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia playing their last tournaments. And yet also the birth of a glitzy new era: around the corner were Sky TV, the Premier League, all-seater stadia and – gradually, insidiously – money, money, money everywhere.
Gaudy, political, over-commercialised and crass, there’s been little of beauty in the run-up to this tournament
Which brings us to Fifa World Cup 2026, held in the USA, Mexico and Canada. Gaudy, political, over-commercialised and crass: even football’s hardiest boosters would concede that there’s been little of beauty in the run-up to this tournament. Perhaps that’s fitting for a World Cup hosted by Donald Trump.
Ticketing has been a fiasco of overpricing and incompetence, which will lead to unnecessary gaps in the group stage crowds. The Trump administration’s generally laudable attempts to restrain access to the US still threaten to spill over into secondary consequences for attendees of all types, and certainly the Iranian squad and management (some of whom have served in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), not to mention the poor, put-upon Haitians.
Then there’s Trump’s wince-inducingly transactional relationship with Fifa boss Gianni Infantino, or ‘my friend Jaany’, as he calls him, making him sound like a mid-level New Jersey mobster. Infantino’s fawning presentation of the ‘Fifa Peace Prize’ to Trump last December has made a monkey of satire.
The debate as to whether politics should stay out of sport remains as contentious as ever. Those critics of Fifa, and there are plenty, point to a system for selecting World Cup hosts that prizes geopolitics above suitability, let alone any attempt to preserve the original Corinthian intentions of the competition. All this is true, and not to be gainsaid.
Yet despite the best attempts of Fifa, Infantino and Trump, the tournament will probably be a success, even if a qualified one. It was the same with Russia and Qatar, the previous two iterations, in 2018 and 2022. In the run-up, both events were festooned with terrible publicity. Yet once the football started the negativity fell away and eyes turned to the game itself.
So what does the next month or so have in store? Well, first, it’s worth noting from a British perspective that Scotland will be joining the party, just as they did back in Italia 90. Back then, the Tartan Army fell to Costa Rica and Brazil. The Scots have never been past the group stage in eight tries – wonderfully, this time around they play Brazil again, in Miami on 24 June. A tough task, but this is not a vintage Brazil side and it’s not impossible to imagine Scotland making a game of it.
In probability, though, their key matches will be against fellow minnows Haiti and African champions Morocco, a good side but hardly unbeatable. Scotland players for the notebook: Napoli midfielder Scott McTominay, ex-Liverpool full-back Andy Robertson, 43-year-old keeper Craig Gordon and Aston Villa playmaker John McGinn. Lawrence Shankland is a reliable goal poacher at Scottish Premiership level, but it remains to be seen how he fares in these rarefied environs. Goals look like they might be a challenge for the Scots, who are managed by the former Chelsea defender Steve Clarke, so expect them to try to keep matches tight.
No such attacking deficiency is -expected from England, who have a glittering array of world-class talent. From Harry Kane of Bayern Munich (nearly 40 goals this season in the Bundesliga) to Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham; from Barcelona’s Marcus Rashford to Arsenal’s Rice, Eze and Saka; from Man City defenders Marc Guehi, John Stones and Nico O’Reilly to Villa’s Europa League winners Konsa, Rogers and Watkins, coach Thomas Tuchel has an embarrassment of riches. Not only that, but (famous last words) for once England’s leading men are free of serious injury.
It would be a major shock were England not to progress from their group to the knockout stages. With Luka Modric now 40, Croatia aren’t quite the force of the previous decade, while Ghana and Panama sit outside the game’s elite nations.
The leading contenders are not invincible. Bookmakers have Spain as the 5/1 favourites – conditions are likely to suit a team that is outstanding at ball retention. France are second favourites and – if Mbappe, Dembele, Cherki and Olise are on form – the most likely to blow other teams away. Their defence, though, is far from impregnable.
Just ahead of Argentina and Brazil in the betting market sit England, the third favourites. After a clutch of near-misses in recent major tournaments, cognoscenti criticism (and mine) was that, as a coach, Gareth Southgate lacked the killer instinct to make the big in-game calls. Think back to the Euros in 2021, when the Three Lions had Italy reeling in the final at Wembley, only to revert to back-foot play and end up losing, yet again, on penalties. Tuchel, a German, has a well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness that could make the difference this time.
Either way, at least our lot will be there. Which is more than can be said for Italy, whose failure to qualify for a third successive World Cup has prompted finger-pointing to rival anything the English media came up with back in the decades when we suffered similar humiliations. Yet as Azzurri fans watch on resentfully, perhaps they can let minds drift back to the beautiful summer of 1990 when the World Cup came to their country, and they showed the rest of the world how you really do these things in style. All that feels a long time ago now.
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