It’s time for football and footballers to take the power back from Infantino and Trump
The world is crying out for a World Cup built on romance and magic
The 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup final is scheduled for Sunday, July 19th in the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey - a location if not the old venue that will bring back so many happy memories for Ray Houghton and for so many Irish men and women and, maybe, some not so happy memories for John Sheridan.
But that’s a story for another day. And we have many football days to come this summer when we can celebrate Ireland’s own World Cup journey in all its glory and even the occasional goriness.
Instead, today’s story is all about the start of another World Cup romance, the four yearly celebration of our collective love affair with the greatest sporting event on the planet as the greats of world football and many others get ready to serve up a 48-team feast across Mexico, Canada and the United States of America.
Romance today, or so they tell me, often starts with the download of an app, a look at a screen and a decision to swipe right or carry on looking.
But that’s not how a World Cup romance should be, even if the remote control unit is going to be equivalent of a swipe left or right for most of the country as RTE broadcast all 104 games live across one or other of their many platforms.
They are to be commended for that by the way - even if I doubt anybody will watch all 104 matches live and in their entirety.
A World Cup romance should be more Mills & Boon than Tinder, more West End musical than Hollywood blockbuster, more sweep you off your feet than a flick of the wrist and a swipe right or even left, if there is such a thing.
I want this World Cup to flirt with me, to court me, to remind me of the first time, to remind me how it used to be.
I want the football over the next 38 days to force me to remember that thrill of 1974 when the television flickered into life and World Cup football came all the way from West Germany, a million miles away or so it seemed in the pre-Ryanair days.
I want a tournament that reminds me why I looked up Haiti and Zaire on the Atlas in my primary school, why I questioned how there was a West Germany and an East Germany, why I told anyone who would listen that Gerd Muller was the greatest goalscorer in the world.
I want football to be innocent and invigorating and essential once again. I want to see players I have never heard of, and from countries I have never even seen on a map, woo me and captivate me and make me want to support them.
Naively I know, but I just want the good old days back again, when football was played over 90 minutes with just one break, when the referee was the man in charge and when the commentators like Jimmy Magee, all on his own, turned a black and white picture into colour and made me feel like I was sitting alongside him.
This World Cup probably won’t tick any of those boxes. We know every player worth his salt even before a ball is kicked in anger. We know the story of every country that is going there, even the smallest ones like Curacao and Cape Verde, with our own Pico Lopes on board.
We know the fairytales before they are written because we live in an instantaneous world. And we know that Infantino and Trump will do their best to make this all about them and not about the football played on the pitch.
But that can’t stop us dreaming, that modern day reality can’t quell our hope for inspiration when Mexico and South Africa kick-off tonight or when Spain, I suspect, lift that trophy in New Jersey on July 19th.
Nobody can tell us not to dream, not even Trump himself. As a 10-year-old in 1974, watching a World Cup I would actually remember properly for the first time, I never even questioned why Ireland weren’t on that stage. I was just too enthralled by Brazil and Argentina, by Haiti and Zaire, by Scotland and Poland, by Muller and Lato to even think about my national team.
That was the power of football in an age of innocence. If this tournament can offer that same dream to any young boy or girl experiencing World Cup magic for the first time, it will be a success.
If Messi or Ronaldo, Olise or Yamal, Haaland or Mbappe can inspire the new generation then all the ills of the football world can be forgotten for the 38 days and 104 matches at least.
That’s the magic of the World Cup. Always has been and always will be, no matter who is in charge. Let’s hope it lives up to the billing.