Jonathan Wilson at the Paris Review:
Somehow, between taking the tube on the old Bakerloo line to Wembley Park in 1966 and riding NJ Transit to the Meadowlands station in 2026, I have watched or attended sixteen World Cups. In 1994, the stadiums drew surprisingly large crowds by American standards, but now they are packed even for games that, on paper, don’t sound too sexy. Scotland versus Haiti drew a full house at Boston Stadium. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s triumph over Uzbekistan brought out more than sixty thousand spectators in Atlanta. Despite the exorbitant prices occasioned by FIFA’s dynamic pricing system and the Stephen-Miller-time border restrictions, attendance records have all been shattered. (It should be noted that ICE, though busy hanging around at college graduations, seems to have given the World Cup a pass.) The world’s most popular sport has finally taken hold here and, as if to celebrate that fact, the sport’s brightest stars—Messi, Mbappé, Haaland, and Kane—are shining. The millions are watching and holding their breath.
What’s more, in this tournament of miracles and wonders, the minnows have been shocking the sharks—no team more so than Cape Verde’s, who quickly became the darling, first by tying with Spain and then by giving Argentina a major scare in a game of astonishing sublimity before succumbing in overtime.
more here.
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