World Cup Aftermath

2026-07-19

World Cup Fun

Today marks the end of the FIFA World Cup, and I, like many other North Americans, tune in once every 4 years to watch some soccer. However, unlike most other North Americans, I feel compelled to give my unsolicited opinion about this tournament for whatever reason. And if you've read my previous post and are wondering when I'll write about obsession, don't worry, that will happen next week. Now back to our beloved sport of socc- um football, sorry.

One thing I really liked about this World Cup was the additional round and teams. Teams like Bosnia and Cabo Verde really put on a show and captured the hearts of fans, including myself. Watching these teams battle against giants like Argentina and even advance to additional rounds added an element of excitement to the game that having the same giants battle it out does not. Not to say that isn't also exciting, but we'll get to that later. Seeing Canada advance to the round of 16, and then quarter final was also pleasant. I was not expecting them to get far in the tournament, so watching them absolutely destroy Qatar and defend South Africa was a sight to see. Watching them put up a fight against Morocco, arguably the team of the last World Cup, was what surprised me the most. Obviously Canada lost, but the game was closer than the score made it look. What really hurt Canada in this World Cup was the injuries. Several Canadian players got hurt during the play, and Alphonso Davies, Canada's best player, was injured even before the tournament. One thing I know for sure is, even if FIFA expands the tournament to a hundred teams, my ancestral country of India, still would not qualify. Knowing that, I will never be conflicted on who to root for, but also who to root against, which I will now talk about.

The one team everybody hated during this tournament was Argentina, myself included. It felt like the refs and FIFA were completely focused on getting Messi another World Cup victory. Now the debate between Messi and Ronaldo is one people have debated for decades now, but that isn't what I am going to give my uninformed North American opinion on. What I saw were fouls committed by Argentine players ignored, while fouls committed against them resulted in the most severe consequences. Now, people might claim FIFA has too much integrity to bend or break the rules, but I have evidence to the contrary. When Balogun, an English guy who plays for the United States, received a red card in a previous match and was unable to play against Belgium, American president Donald Trump personally called FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, and asked him to reverse the red card. How do I know this happened? Well, the American president gave a whole speech about it, claiming he had never even heard of red cards. Now back to my own North American ignorance, I believe the refs favoured Argentina heavily the entire tournament, and this showed during the final. Argentina performed extremely poorly in this final, with zero shots on goal and a player getting a red card. You might be asking, if the refs were so biased towards Argentina, how come one of their players was given a red card? Doesn't that show that Argentina gets equal treatment to other teams? To that I say, one player was given a red card, but only one. Enzo Fernandez was given a red card due to his repeatedly aggressive fouling but Paredes literally attacked Spanish players after the game was over. This might not come as a surprise, but a man who does something like that was fouling all game long. Enough negativity towards Argentina, let's now give props to one of their players. The goalkeeper, despite a broken finger, played his heart out. Martinez is the only reason Spain didn't win with ten extra goals. He even sent a World Cup record with the number of saves he made, doing so with a broken finger makes it even more exceptional. Sadly, his teammates couldn't put in the same effort.

Now that the World Cup is over, I will do what many other North Americans do. Tune out for 4 years, tune back when it all starts again. And give my unneeded takes on everything going on in the game. For now, my soccer watching days are over, but I look forward to another tournament, with exciting new countries and exciting new players.