10 reasons why the World Cup is the greatest sporting event on Earth
10 reasons why the World Cup is the greatest sporting event on Earth
Most major sporting events do not live up to their names — literally, at least.
Major League Baseball’s World Series apparently envisions a world that only includes the US and Canada. The National Football League’s Super Bowl is only rarely super, as those of us who watched February’s 29-13 snoozefest between the Seahawks and Patriots experienced in real time. (A record FIVE field goals!) The Olympics, despite the Greek etymology of the name, do not take place in or around the ancient Greek shrine of Olympia. And the NBA Finals — I guess yes, they are the last games, though it seems like no one told the San Antonio Spurs that.
But the World Cup (sorry, the FIFA World Cup, as the soccer’s international body repeatedly insists on us calling it) truly is the global sporting event, eclipsing all others. An estimated 5 billion people watched at least some of the 2022 World Cup, and with an even larger field of countries, the 2026 tournament underway now in the US, Canada, and Mexico is primed to be even bigger. And unlike nearly every other major sport tournament — and despite the rivers of red tape and bureaucracy and politics the whole event comes wrapped in — the World Cup is guaranteed not to disappoint.
Let’s count the reasons why:
1) A tie can count as a nation’s greatest-ever sporting achievement
When World Cup debutantes Cape Verde — population 529,600 — tied tournament favorite Spain with a 0-0 draw in Atlanta on June 15, fans of the tiny West African nation must have felt like they had won the entire thing. And then two days later, the Democratic Republic of Congo — one of the poorest countries in the world, currently embroiled in both a deadly civil war and a major Ebola outbreak — somehow deadlocked with fifth-ranked Portugal and its too-handsome star Cristiano Ronaldo 1-1. With results like this even American fans might learn to love ties.
Speaking of Americans…
2) We might actually be good!
The main host nation kicked off its World Cup campaign with a 4-1 drubbing of Paraguay, which might be the single most impressive moment in US tournament history since the Americans “beat” England 0-0 in 2022. (Yes, technically a draw, and yes, absolutely a victory.) With its own Golden Generation of stars like Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, and Weston McKennie, the Yanks might actually be dangerous this time around.
3) But it also doesn’t matter
A big reason why the World Cup is so great is that it gives everyone an excuse to indulge in the most benign forms of nationalism. (Well, the Turks might take it a bit far.) But true fans are there to applaud greatness no matter the color of the kit, especially as the tournament progresses and the pool of competitors gets narrower and more elite. For generational superstars like Argentina’s Lionel Messi, who netted a hat trick at age 38 in defending champion Argentina’s opening match, the World Cup is but a stage, and we are all witnesses to greatness.
4) National stereotypes can be fun
I happened to be taking a 5:27 am train from New York to Boston last Friday, and was mildly surprised to see a quarter of the passengers wearing what appeared to be kilts. It was Scotland’s “Tartan Army,” on the way to Beantown to watch their beloved national side and party while doing it. That might have been in reverse order: One Boston bar said it ran out of beer altogether by Sunday night, selling three times what it usually does on St. Patrick’s Day. (Perhaps it’s a good thing that Ireland didn’t make the 2026 tournament — otherwise we might have a national crisis on our hands.)
Japanese fans, meanwhile, stayed behind and cleaned up after themselves following their side’s opening match in Dallas on June 14. They’ve done it at every World Cup match since 1998, and they even managed to convince NFL quarterback Jameis Winston to help out.
5) It’s truly global, all the way down to the players
The World Cup may be a contest of nations, but the players themselves show just how liquid borders have become. Nearly a quarter of the 1,248 players at this year’s tournament were born in a country other than the one they’re playing for, up from under 9 percent as recently as 2006. In the case of Curaçao, the smallest-ever nation in the World Cup, 25 of its 26 players were born abroad, while Morocco became the first ever side with an entirely foreign-born starting 11.
6) Foreign fans are falling in love with the US. Really.
Being the host of a World Cup means the opportunity to show off to the rest of the world what’s best about your nation. And in the US, that apparently means…ranch dressing. And Waffle Houses. And gas stations roughly the size of Luxembourg. Is it possible that these viral videos of wide-eyed European tourists enjoying the best of middle America are an elaborate psyop? Maybe — but if so, they’re awfully impressive. Just remember that the TSA only allows 3.4 ounces of ranch dressing in your carry-on home, or you may experience a less hospitable side of the US.
7) The history is amazing
This is the 23rd men’s World Cup, and in a little under a hundred years of existence, the tournament has racked up some incredible moments:
- The first-ever goal was scored by a French factory worker who headed in the ball in the snow of Uruguay.
- An Italian official kept the World Cup trophy safe from the Nazis during World War II by taking it out of a Rome bank vault and storing it in a shoebox beneath his bed, until the tournament resumed in 1950.
- Speaking of the trophy, it was stolen before the 1966 World Cup in England, only to be found by a dog named Pickles under a south London hedge.
- During that same 1966 World Cup, North Korea — less than 15 years after the Korean War — somehow eliminated powerhouse Italy in one of the greatest upsets in the history of sport.
8) Sometimes you can lose and still win
Ask knowledgeable soccer fans what the greatest team in World Cup history is, and first they’ll say, “It’s football, not soccer, you idiot.” And then they might name a team that never even lifted the trophy: the 1974 Netherlands side. The team’s “Total Football” style of play abandoned fixed positions, requiring every player to be able to spread out and attack relentlessly. The result was Technicolor against the black-and-white of every other team. Netherlands lost to West Germany in the final, but there’s no doubt which side won the style war.
9) Not even the worst sporting body in the world can spoil things
The Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA, is hands-down the worst international sporting body in the world. Which is saying a lot in a world that includes the International Olympic Committee. How bad is FIFA? Let’s count the ways:
- In 2015 FIFA was the target of a major international corruption case, with US prosecutors charging officials with taking in some $150 million in bribes over the decades. The Department of Justice called the corruption “rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted.” And though its then-president Sepp Blatter was never personally convicted, his 17-year reign finally ended in disgrace, and he was banned from soccer.
- FIFA awarded the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar respectively, with bids that were highly suspicious, as a major report later revealed. The 2018 World Cup came only four years after Russia had invaded Crimea, and the 2022 World Cup was dogged by charges of migrant abuse, including potentially thousands of deaths. Current FIFA president Gianni Infantino pushed for Saudi Arabia to get the 2034 Cup, despite human rights concerns.
- This time around FIFA has been accused of ludicrous levels of price gouging on tickets — though at least Infantino has promised cheap hot dogs as compensation.
So yeah, FIFA is about as bad as it gets. And I haven’t even gotten into the many, many bad things the Trump administration did in the lead-up to the tournament. And yet, from the moment of the first kickoff in Mexico City, none of that seems to matter. Not even FIFA can kill the buzz that is the World Cup.
10) We still have four weeks to go
Most championship games are done in a day (unless it’s cricket). Even the Olympics or Wimbledon are only a fortnight. But the World Cup lasts more than a month, some five weeks when nearly every day has something to watch. And we’ve only just begun.
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