It might not feel like it, even still, just 48 hours out from another World Cup, but the game that binds us, that has provided a sense of purpose, acceptance and even understanding of ourselves, will soon take over once again.
We can indulge in blissful, glorious waves of nostalgia over the next six weeks yet at the same time understand the grimness of the political landscape, all the while freeing ourselves somewhat in the embrace of the game that still enthrals.
The beauty remains. Of course, the innocence for so many was lost long ago but that initial spark to light this lifetime of obsession has not been extinguished.
Not yet.
The excitement and the thrill and the magic of the game endures, despite some of those horrors of the past that feel as pertinent today.
Take, for example, one of the most impactful passages from Jonathan Wilson’s book, The Power and the Glory: A New History of the World Cup.
The chapter Glory In A Time Of Terror details Argentina’s home win in 1978, two years after the military junta has come to power. Graciela Daleo is one of the prisoners from the Montoneros, a revolutionary Peronist movement.
She works in a basement area and, among her tasks, is generating misinformation. Her comrades in the Montoneros “decided to reduce their activities for the duration of the tournament,” Wilson writes.
The author explains how officers would also take prisoners out in cars more often as the tournament progressed to show them how the country was celebrating its success on the pitch. Over a mile away, prisoners could hear when games were played at El Monumental and when Argentina did triumph in the final Daleo was brought out again in a green Peugeot 504. She, too, feels conflicted with the success and is told to stick her head out of the sunroof.
Wilson describes how she begins to weep when a thought hit her. “If I start screaming that I’m a disappeared nobody will give a shit.”
Wilson continues: “[They] sat at a table together, torturers and tortured. Daleo never knew whether the intention was a perverse act of humanity, allowing the prisoners to share the celebrations, or whether they were demonstrating that the mass of people had no interest in their protest.”
So yes, let that passage sit with you for a moment. The cruelty of humankind is unrelenting, and no one is blind to the sobering possibility that such acts could be detailed in another book in the not-too-distant future.
For now, tentatively, we can allow our own cherished memories of the past to wash over us instead, hoping desperately that it will cleanse us of the fears and anxieties that can riddle so much of adult life.
But, you know what, it is also OK to feel like, actually, the prospect of Jordan versus Austria at 2am in San Francisco is not actually an important moment in your life. It is perfectly reasonable to feel like it’s not worth tuning in for when you toss and turn in your bed with whatever stresses might be keeping you awake.
This is real life, yet football supporters know that the game’s best moments can make you feel like you are dreaming, that you have been absorbed by a different, easier reality, one that excites you so much you never want to leave.
Hopefully this World Cup still has an emotional pull that is strong enough to provide even the briefest respite.
You don’t have to let questions about whether Lamine Lamal is truly a symbol of football’s new age dominate your every waking moment as you scramble for your Leap Card or queue for a coffee that is now the price of what you used to pay for a reasonable pit.
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But if you still feel that surge of wonder when you see him do something that is utterly unimaginable for most of us mortals then you know that part of you from childhood remains alive.
Viva España!
Viva futbol!
How often have you heard in the build up to this tournament – as we do for every World Cup – that it is somehow the way in which we measure the passing of time in our lives. Maybe it is the case for some, but is that really true for so many others?
For most of us, football is a daily, weekly, ritual that blends into one so as to feel eternal. It shapes what we do and when we do it, not to mention how we feel. This game provides a constant reference point because it never goes away. Such a thought is appalling to the point of despair.
Football has been the charter of our lives, the memories and bonds formed with some of our loved ones that ensure there can never be an awkward silence.
Instead, when the World Cup comes around it simply feels like a time to indulge, it’s Christmas but with retro jerseys off DH Gate instead of jumpers from Dunnes.
The next six weeks won’t change what is happening in your life, but it has the potential to add something to it. A feint, disposable layer of joy.
Forgive us, but we can also indulge in cliché. Just seeing Brazil’s bright yellow shirts should be enough of a catalyst to make you close your eyes and think of the greats that came
before. If ever there was a coach or man-manager capable of summoning the spirit of those South American Football Gods then it is Carlo Ancelotti.
He lives for vibes and for trophies, but he must also help a country that came to be defined by a beautiful kind of glory find a way to win again. They’re not afraid to win ugly, after all.
Since they were victorious in 2002, though, Brazil have been knocked out in the quarter-finals four out of five times. Are they now international football’s equivalent of the Irish rugby team?
Lionel Messi returns again with defending champions Argentina but it feels like he has conquered every world possible. Naturally, he feels emboldened to simply continue with the supernatural.
France have a depth of attacking talent that usurps all others with a manager in Didier Deschamps who comes alive in such an intense environment.
Spain, as mentioned with Lamal, have the newest saviour of a sport continually facing apparent doomsday.
Cristiano Ronaldo leads Portugal into a sixth tournament but this does not have the glow of a heroic culmination.
Germany will just want to get out of the group, Japan will hope their best crop of players for a generation – possibly ever – can thrive and Pele may look down and think will his prediction of an African winner now come through?
The Republic of Ireland will not be there, of course, and that intense pain felt in the aftermath of Prague might just have regenerated into something more powerful than passive pangs of mild regret by the time the tournament is in full flow.
The thought of what could be happening at home in the days building up to the tournament is not worth thinking about. It feels as though what might have been a generational moment of celebration has been lost. We can but cling to the hope Carla Ward and the women’s senior team can produce one of Irish sport’s greatest moments on Tuesday night.
The 42 will be in the historic Azteca Stadium for Thursday’s opening game between Mexico and South Africa (before journeying around the United States) but just a few hours later in Guadalajara South Korea will play Czechia.
That could have been us. It would have felt like we were centre of the world having previously been in the deepest, loneliest part of the abyss. That’s somewhere between getting battered by England, losing at home to Luxembourg and being outplayed away to Armenia.
We have become used to watching from the fringes, and we will do so again, but that is a feeling that we need to overcome and banish.
Canada, Mexico and the United States welcomes the world at a time when it feels like the latter would prefer to close itself off.
Of all the plotting and the permutations ahead of this World Cup there is one enthralling possibility that is the perfect manifestation of why football and politics will remain intertwined during this tournament.
Kylian Mbappe (left) celebrates with France teammate Michael Olise (centre). Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
The United States celebrates its 250th birthday on 4 July and should Mauricio Pochettino’s men finish second in Group D and Iran also finish as runners-up in Group G then they will meet in the round of the 32 in Dallas on the eve of those celebrations.
The prospect of two countries currently at war facing off highlights a shocking absurdity of where we find ourselves.
Will US President Donald Trump have his White House Ballroom completed by then. Will his administration lean on Gianni Infantino and look to some of Fifa’s sponsors for naming rights so they cash in further on World Cup fever?
The South Lawn, brought to you by Michelob Ultra, has a ring to it. As does the actual White House, by the way, after UFC boss Dana White, another Trump loyalist, secured the erection of an octagon as part of those Independence Day festivities for what has been dubbed UFC Freedom 250.
There is no escape from the vulgarity, much of which has already been detailed, even if the focus will naturally soon become dominated by the storylines of glory and heartache that will consume us on the pitch.
Those expectations are all relative, of course. For some countries, their mere presence on this stage is cause for a national celebration. England expects, again. Sixty years of hurt can now be confirmed as a national condition.
England, like those targeting victory, are preparing themselves for a slow burn to the latter stages, where those initial flickers of excitement for another crack at the trophy are soon replaced by the demands of expectation.
The weather and conditions may be unforgiving for Europe’s elite but with one win ensuring a 60% chance of progress to the knockout stage they have been granted relief in the enlarged format of 48 teams.
With halves effectively split into quarters because of the requirement for water breaks – during which time coaches will be able to gather players at the dugout and provide tactical tweaks – and VAR now deeply embedded, games will naturally feel even more drawn out.
And that’s before there is the possibility of storm protocols delaying games further with teams required to seek shelter before its safe to resume. A playful thought, but could this be the World Cup that never actually ends?
That really would test anyone’s strength of our love for what the game has become.
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A love letter and a lament to football on the eve of the World Cup
WE WILL GET to the football.
It might not feel like it, even still, just 48 hours out from another World Cup, but the game that binds us, that has provided a sense of purpose, acceptance and even understanding of ourselves, will soon take over once again.
We can indulge in blissful, glorious waves of nostalgia over the next six weeks yet at the same time understand the grimness of the political landscape, all the while freeing ourselves somewhat in the embrace of the game that still enthrals.
The beauty remains. Of course, the innocence for so many was lost long ago but that initial spark to light this lifetime of obsession has not been extinguished.
Not yet.
The excitement and the thrill and the magic of the game endures, despite some of those horrors of the past that feel as pertinent today.
Take, for example, one of the most impactful passages from Jonathan Wilson’s book, The Power and the Glory: A New History of the World Cup.
The chapter Glory In A Time Of Terror details Argentina’s home win in 1978, two years after the military junta has come to power. Graciela Daleo is one of the prisoners from the Montoneros, a revolutionary Peronist movement.
She works in a basement area and, among her tasks, is generating misinformation. Her comrades in the Montoneros “decided to reduce their activities for the duration of the tournament,” Wilson writes.
The author explains how officers would also take prisoners out in cars more often as the tournament progressed to show them how the country was celebrating its success on the pitch. Over a mile away, prisoners could hear when games were played at El Monumental and when Argentina did triumph in the final Daleo was brought out again in a green Peugeot 504. She, too, feels conflicted with the success and is told to stick her head out of the sunroof.
Wilson describes how she begins to weep when a thought hit her. “If I start screaming that I’m a disappeared nobody will give a shit.”
Wilson continues: “[They] sat at a table together, torturers and tortured. Daleo never knew whether the intention was a perverse act of humanity, allowing the prisoners to share the celebrations, or whether they were demonstrating that the mass of people had no interest in their protest.”
So yes, let that passage sit with you for a moment. The cruelty of humankind is unrelenting, and no one is blind to the sobering possibility that such acts could be detailed in another book in the not-too-distant future.
For now, tentatively, we can allow our own cherished memories of the past to wash over us instead, hoping desperately that it will cleanse us of the fears and anxieties that can riddle so much of adult life.
But, you know what, it is also OK to feel like, actually, the prospect of Jordan versus Austria at 2am in San Francisco is not actually an important moment in your life. It is perfectly reasonable to feel like it’s not worth tuning in for when you toss and turn in your bed with whatever stresses might be keeping you awake.
This is real life, yet football supporters know that the game’s best moments can make you feel like you are dreaming, that you have been absorbed by a different, easier reality, one that excites you so much you never want to leave.
You don’t have to let questions about whether Lamine Lamal is truly a symbol of football’s new age dominate your every waking moment as you scramble for your Leap Card or queue for a coffee that is now the price of what you used to pay for a reasonable pit.
But if you still feel that surge of wonder when you see him do something that is utterly unimaginable for most of us mortals then you know that part of you from childhood remains alive.
Viva España!
Viva futbol!
How often have you heard in the build up to this tournament – as we do for every World Cup – that it is somehow the way in which we measure the passing of time in our lives. Maybe it is the case for some, but is that really true for so many others?
For most of us, football is a daily, weekly, ritual that blends into one so as to feel eternal. It shapes what we do and when we do it, not to mention how we feel. This game provides a constant reference point because it never goes away. Such a thought is appalling to the point of despair.
Football has been the charter of our lives, the memories and bonds formed with some of our loved ones that ensure there can never be an awkward silence.
Instead, when the World Cup comes around it simply feels like a time to indulge, it’s Christmas but with retro jerseys off DH Gate instead of jumpers from Dunnes.
The next six weeks won’t change what is happening in your life, but it has the potential to add something to it. A feint, disposable layer of joy.
Forgive us, but we can also indulge in cliché. Just seeing Brazil’s bright yellow shirts should be enough of a catalyst to make you close your eyes and think of the greats that came
before. If ever there was a coach or man-manager capable of summoning the spirit of those South American Football Gods then it is Carlo Ancelotti.
He lives for vibes and for trophies, but he must also help a country that came to be defined by a beautiful kind of glory find a way to win again. They’re not afraid to win ugly, after all.
Since they were victorious in 2002, though, Brazil have been knocked out in the quarter-finals four out of five times. Are they now international football’s equivalent of the Irish rugby team?
Lionel Messi returns again with defending champions Argentina but it feels like he has conquered every world possible. Naturally, he feels emboldened to simply continue with the supernatural.
France have a depth of attacking talent that usurps all others with a manager in Didier Deschamps who comes alive in such an intense environment.
Spain, as mentioned with Lamal, have the newest saviour of a sport continually facing apparent doomsday.
Cristiano Ronaldo leads Portugal into a sixth tournament but this does not have the glow of a heroic culmination.
Germany will just want to get out of the group, Japan will hope their best crop of players for a generation – possibly ever – can thrive and Pele may look down and think will his prediction of an African winner now come through?
The Republic of Ireland will not be there, of course, and that intense pain felt in the aftermath of Prague might just have regenerated into something more powerful than passive pangs of mild regret by the time the tournament is in full flow.
The 42 will be in the historic Azteca Stadium for Thursday’s opening game between Mexico and South Africa (before journeying around the United States) but just a few hours later in Guadalajara South Korea will play Czechia.
That could have been us. It would have felt like we were centre of the world having previously been in the deepest, loneliest part of the abyss. That’s somewhere between getting battered by England, losing at home to Luxembourg and being outplayed away to Armenia.
We have become used to watching from the fringes, and we will do so again, but that is a feeling that we need to overcome and banish.
Canada, Mexico and the United States welcomes the world at a time when it feels like the latter would prefer to close itself off.
Of all the plotting and the permutations ahead of this World Cup there is one enthralling possibility that is the perfect manifestation of why football and politics will remain intertwined during this tournament.
The United States celebrates its 250th birthday on 4 July and should Mauricio Pochettino’s men finish second in Group D and Iran also finish as runners-up in Group G then they will meet in the round of the 32 in Dallas on the eve of those celebrations.
The prospect of two countries currently at war facing off highlights a shocking absurdity of where we find ourselves.
Will US President Donald Trump have his White House Ballroom completed by then. Will his administration lean on Gianni Infantino and look to some of Fifa’s sponsors for naming rights so they cash in further on World Cup fever?
The South Lawn, brought to you by Michelob Ultra, has a ring to it. As does the actual White House, by the way, after UFC boss Dana White, another Trump loyalist, secured the erection of an octagon as part of those Independence Day festivities for what has been dubbed UFC Freedom 250.
There is no escape from the vulgarity, much of which has already been detailed, even if the focus will naturally soon become dominated by the storylines of glory and heartache that will consume us on the pitch.
Those expectations are all relative, of course. For some countries, their mere presence on this stage is cause for a national celebration. England expects, again. Sixty years of hurt can now be confirmed as a national condition.
England, like those targeting victory, are preparing themselves for a slow burn to the latter stages, where those initial flickers of excitement for another crack at the trophy are soon replaced by the demands of expectation.
The weather and conditions may be unforgiving for Europe’s elite but with one win ensuring a 60% chance of progress to the knockout stage they have been granted relief in the enlarged format of 48 teams.
With halves effectively split into quarters because of the requirement for water breaks – during which time coaches will be able to gather players at the dugout and provide tactical tweaks – and VAR now deeply embedded, games will naturally feel even more drawn out.
And that’s before there is the possibility of storm protocols delaying games further with teams required to seek shelter before its safe to resume. A playful thought, but could this be the World Cup that never actually ends?
That really would test anyone’s strength of our love for what the game has become.
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2026 world cup Getting closer Soccer