The 2026 World Cup jointly organized by the United States, Canada and Mexico reached a climax on July 19, with Spain triumphing over Argentina in the final game of the tournament. Spain deserved to win with its unique brand of collectivist style and teamwork, shing through collective effort rather than individual brilliance, which could not be matched by any of the other major teams taking part in the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall, the World Cup was a success, albeit with some serious qualifications. A record number of 48 nations participated over the course of five weeks. The overall quality of football was high and there were many exciting games, especially in the later knock-out stages of the tournament, despite difficult weather conditions and long travelling distances between different match venues. Top players in the world such as Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, Erling Haaland, Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, and Mohammad Salah among others were all present and made their mark to make the competition immensely enjoyable. Indeed, some of the key matches in the tournament, notably the third-place final play-off between England and France proved to be more exciting than the Spain-Argentina final, which proved unexpectedly one-sided. Argentina versus Egypt, Norway versus Brazil, Mexico versus England, Morocco versus Brazil, Argentina versus Switzerland were examples of other exciting games that are firmly rooted in my memories. It was also striking to observe that mid-ranking football nations such as Norway, Switzerland, Morocco and Egypt had highly successful world cup campaigns, which raised excitement among their home funs as well as the broader public at large. Smaller nations such as Cape Verde, DR Congo and Cura\u00e7ao also made great contributions and earned widespread respect. Indeed, the two key contenders, Spain and Argentina, struggled against tiny Cape Verde in the earlier stages of the competition. Cape Verde was ironically the only team that Spain could not beat during the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stadiums were full and displayed colorful scenes. Large numbers of people actively and joyfully supported their own national teams, whilst also enjoying football on a larger scale, not confined to their national boundaries. In a world dominated by aggressive and militant nationalism(s) accompanied by widespread violence and conflicts, it was nice to observe a largely peaceful atmosphere where supporters from both sides could sit together in a peaceful manner and enjoy a football game collectively. Hence, from a progressive, globalist perspective, the latest World Cup had many positive features, which outweighed its negative elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a deeper level, the fixed nature of nationhood,\u201d or of belonging to a single \u201cnation,\u201d was also challenged by the fluid nature of national identity displayed by many of the key teams participating in the World Cup. Take Micael Olise, one of the most creative attacking players of the recent era, as a vivid illustration of the fluid nature of national identity. Olise\u2019s father is Nigerian, his mother is French Algerian. He was born and raised in England currently plays for Bayern Munich in Germany. He could have played for several different national teams, but ultimately chose to play for France, despite reportedly having a limited command of French. There are many other examples of successful players with multiple identities. Several key players in the Moroccan national team, for example, could have chosen to represent France and, indeed, some of the players in the current Morocco team, such as the promising young player Ayyoub Bouaddi, have represented France at the youth level. Germany, which was one of the disappointments of the competition in performance terms, could be considered yet another example of a national team composed of highly diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. Again, from a globalist perspective, the presence of many individuals with overlapping identities could be a unifying force across the world, which helps to overcome sharp national divisions and boundaries. What seems to matter more is the notion of \u201cshared identity\u201d or a sense of \u201ccommon experience\u201d irrespective of ethnic or religious origins. Clearly, this is a contentious issue, which deserves serious consideration, especially in a world dominated by the far right and strong anti-immigration sentiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The benign side of the World Cup, with the tournament proving to be a genuine spectacle, was also counterbalanced if not totally overwhelmed by a series of negative elements. The negative side was perhaps inevitable given that the World Cup took place right at the center of the \u201cTrumpian world\u201d, with the US President Donald Trump finding ample opportunities to make his presence felt both before and during the tournament. Even before the start of the competition, the FIFA President Gianni Infantino, felt the need to present Trump a FIFA \u201cPeace Prize\u201d, at a time of a major and ongoing war on Iran. During the tournament, Belgians were shocked and angry over FIFA\u2019s rule-breaking decision to reinstate a red-carded USA player, Folarin Balogun, at Trump\u2019s request. During the final game of the competition, Trump tried to impose himself during the Spanish players\u2019 post-match celebrations. Trump tried to occupy the center stage in the celebrations, exactly in the same fashion as he had done during Chelsea\u2019s post-match celebrations after the final of the FIFA Club World Cup, played in the same stadium almost a year ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a broader level, other instances of racism, corruption and inhumane behavior could be identified. Visa restrictions limited the participation of both officials and supporters from many countries, as many individuals failed to enter the US. The maltreatment of the Iranian team also deserves a special mention. The Iranian team was allowed to enter the US and play their matches. However, after each match, they had to leave immediately and return to their locations in Mexico. Overall, Donald Trump could not fully capitalize on the World Cup, despite his major efforts to reverse his waning popularity in the face of an increasingly unpopular war in the Middle East on the path to the midterm elections in November. It was perhaps fitting in this context that Spain, a country which has been deeply critical of US actions in Gaza and Iran, with the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez playing a key role in the process, would ultimately win the World Cup right at the heartland of the Trumpian world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The 2026 World Cup jointly organized by the United States, Canada and Mexico reached a climax on July 19, with Spain triumphing over Argentina in the final game of the tournament. Spain deserved to win with its unique brand of collectivist style and teamwork, shing through collective effort rather than individual brilliance, which could not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":275,"featured_media":17100,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[486],"tags":[653,772],"class_list":["post-17097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-international-politics","tag-sports-politics-relationship"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17102,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17097\/revisions\/17102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}