Opinion
2026 World Cup was a tournament for the ages
Beky Beaton / Lehi Free Press
I’ve been around football – or what we in North America are pleased to call “soccer” to distinguish it from that other game with the weird “ball” with pointy ends that we play around here – my entire life.
I’ve seen the sport from every angle: player, coach, director, parent and now grandparent, reporter and yes, even official, for a (thankfully) short time. I’ve participated in hundreds of matches in one way or another and watched thousands more.
The point is, I’ve seen a lot of soccer in my day, and this FIFA World Cup was absolutely the best such tournament in my lifetime, period.
Let’s start with the expanded format, from 32 teams to 48 for the first time ever. There are occasions in sports when widening the field does not improve the product, but in this case, it was an unequivocal success even though it took 5 ½ weeks to decide the winner. Here’s why.
To begin with, teams from countries which may never have had a chance to play under the old format had the opportunity to experience the full pageantry this time. They got to dress in their artfully-designed kits, saw their giant flags unfurled, and sang their national anthems at the top of their lungs.
There were 11 countries ranked outside FIFA’s world top 50 which qualified in their regional events to send teams to the tournament, and some of them did rather well, all things considered.
Four actually advanced to the knockout stage. Two – South Africa (#60) and the delightfully surprising Cape Verde (#67) – finished second in their groups. Bosnia & Herzegovina (#64) and Ghana (#73) were the other two. All of them lost in the Round of 32, but that’s beside the point.
Why does this matter? These teams got to play four games in the World Cup, the world’s premier single-sport event, in front of thousands of people and millions of television viewers. For them, the victory was just getting there, and it gave their home countries a welcome injection of unified national pride.
A wonderfully-crafted spot that Fox ran during their mostly-excellent broadcasts endeavored to explain why soccer is the world’s most popular sport – “all you need is a ball,” the narrator said. That means that children anywhere can play it, and those children grow up. Some of them get to be very good.
Translation: Disadvantaged countries whose teams could never compete in most big-time sports – where extensive resources are needed from the very beginning to ensure success – can manage to field a group of players who can give the big boys a run for their money.
Cape Verde is the most extreme example, and a popular candidate for the “people’s choice” award at this World Cup. This is a country with a population of about half a million, far fewer than the number of residents in just Utah County.
Their team was mostly professional players from the many strong European leagues, but they still had ties to this tiny island nation in one way or another, and they gave a very good account of themselves. I couldn’t help but be pleased for them and their fans back home.
There’s another point to be made as well. Of the commonest team sports played around the world, soccer is the most unpredictable. The better team doesn’t always win. That makes it exciting because everyone rightfully believes they always have a chance, and they play accordingly.
Many World Cup matches had surprising results or went down to the final few minutes, especially in the earlier stages. That made for great fun, along with watching the wildly partisan fans in the stands.
Most of the sport’s biggest stars were at the top of their games as well and it was a privilege to watch them, especially Lionel Messi, whose genius at the “beautiful game” was on full display even at age 39 and will forever be part of the lore of this tournament, even without the ending he wanted.
In addition, while it’s true that the teams of the three host nations all went out in the round of 16 – not what they were hoping for – it’s important to remember that they all exceeded their seeds in getting that far and it was awesome to see them playing before enthusiastic home crowds.
Some of the intro pieces and ads that ran in conjunction with the tournament had some very meaningful messages in this time of international tensions and they reinforced the value of sport as a bridge-builder, an important contribution in its own right.
Then there was Norway, ranked No. 31 before the start of the event, which became the unquestioned Cinderella team of the tournament in reaching the quarterfinals and a fan favorite with their “Viking row” and joyful exuberance on the pitch.
That team’s showing launched their imposing striker, Erling Haaland, into global superstardom. At age 25, he should be around for a while, along with a host of rising stars we got to watch during the tournament’s run.
And finally, we did end up – for the first time in World Cup history – with the top four ranked teams in the final stages, traditional powers all. They gave us two fantastic semifinals, a painful but entertaining third-place game, and a final where the best team in the tournament did claim the ultimate prize.
Yes, there were questionable politics, ridiculous ticket prices, controversial calls, too much flopping, surly behavior, inevitable disappointments and so on. But by and large, the officials did a good job, the players performed at the highest level, and the spectacle of a truly global tournament was realized.
In the world of sports, it doesn’t get much better than that.
