Barreling along Route 3 in New Jersey at 70 miles per hour on the opening Saturday of the World Cup, a smudge of red whisked by the corner of my left eye. It took a moment for my brain to process what I’d just seen: a pair of pedestrians wearing Moroccan soccer jerseys, walking where no human should ever be, on the narrow unprotected strip that runs along the highway’s concrete median wall. The pair was headed east, toward the Meadowlands and the stadium where their team was about to play.

I don’t know how these two brave and possibly foolhardy people ended up in the middle of eight lanes of New Jersey traffic, but they must have somehow made it to the match alive, since I didn’t read about them in the New York Post. It would later occur to me that you could see them as a metaphor for this World Cup itself. Dangers whiz all around the tournament, threatening to ruin the fun, and yet it keeps happily marching forward.

During the anxious run-up to the tournament’s kickoff, it was popular to question whether FIFA and its president, Gianni Infantino, might accomplish the unthinkable: putting on a World Cup that sucks. Infantino has been roundly maligned, particularly in the sport’s European heartland, for fawning over the event’s primary host, President Donald Trump, while pumping up its prices and profits and allegedly debasing all that is holy about the sport. The co-hosts of the Soccernomics podcast summed up the case against FIFA in a column earlier this month in the Economist, which was provocatively headlined, “This May Just Be The Last World Cup.”

Here are just some of the unprecedented aspects of “Trump’s World Cup”: it is the first time that a host nation is engaged in an illegal war with a participating nation; the first time that citizens of four participating countries are subject to a travel ban issued by a host nation; and the first time a host nation’s leader has openly threatened to annex one co-host and torn up trade agreements with the other. And although the World Cup stands out as a festival of international travel, American policies on entry to the country, as well as the targeting of immigrants within — not to mention nauseatingly high ticket prices — have given many supporters pause.

Outside of the realm of geopolitics, there was a parallel set of predictions of doom involving the complexities of staging the largest World Cup ever in terms of participating teams (48) and matches (104) across 16 cities in three different countries. Would FIFA’s transportation plan, which required many host-city governments to spend huge sums on mass transit, actually be able to get fans to the stadiums? Would its “dynamic” ticket-pricing strategy and its embrace of online resale markets work, or would fans rebel against the extortionate cost, resulting in matches played in empty stadiums? Would we Americans live up to the low expectations of the rest of the world, both in the competition — the national team’s recent performance had been uneven at best — and as a national audience, displaying our stereotypical indifference to the game everyone else calls football? Would the group stage be any good, considering the size of the field, which included many teams that looked weak on paper?

Before the games began, I wrote a feature for this magazine about Infantino and the decade-long process of bringing this World Cup here and examined everything that was threatening to go wrong for this edition of the tournament. Now that we are over a quarter of the way through the 39 days of play, it’s time to take a hydration break (boooo!) and look at the doomsayers’ record. Here’s one man’s scorecard.

Prediction: FIFA will ruin it

It seems silly in retrospect, but when the tournament began, there was reason to wonder if fans would even show up to watch. Prices were running well over $1,000 a seat for many matches. On the opening night, swaths of the stadium in Guadalajara appeared to be vacant for the late match between South Korea and the Czech Republic. An economist went mildly viral with a social-media post in which he claimed to have discovered a “ticketing shell game,” suggesting FIFA was holding “large, contiguous blocks of seats” that it was about to dump on the resale market. FIFA’s ticketing procedures were so convoluted that the attorneys general for New York and New Jersey issued it a subpoena before the tournament as they investigated whether it was using false scarcity to drive up prices. Who knows if anyone will ever get to the bottom of what was really going on. (FIFA has declined to comment on the ticketing investigation.) But when I attended the first match at the venue that FIFA insists on calling “New York New Jersey Stadium,” between Morocco and the perennial contenders of Brazil, I figured there was only one way to see whether the ticketing strategy had backfired. When I packed my bag, I put in a pair of binoculars so I could scope out empty seats.

So much for false scarcity, I thought as soon as I got to the stadium parking lot. Hours before the match began, a torrent of fans in Brazil’s yellow jerseys were flowing around the high fencing that rings the perimeter of the stadium. When I took my seat shortly before kickoff in the outdoor “media tribune” seating that FIFA reserves for members of the press, the stands were a roiling sea of green and yellow, with smaller patches of Moroccan red.

A graphic on the stadium’s big screen announced that the game’s paid attendance was 80,663, a “full house,” and the only empty seats I could see through my binoculars were a handful surrounding Mattias Grafström, FIFA’s secretary general, in the organization’s VIP box. I presume other leaders of world football were behind him at the box’s bar, toasting their successful test of the ticket market and their projected billions in profit. The match ended in a 1-1 draw but scored a win for the capitalists.

Prediction: Trump will ruin it

The biggest source of uncertainty for this World Cup resides inside the White House, which helps to explain why Infantino went to such extreme lengths to ingratiate himself to Trump. FIFA’s president gave him trophies and awarded him a newly invented FIFA Peace Prize, and he even rented office space in Trump Tower that the organization reportedly doesn’t have much use for — obsequious behavior that has exposed him to ridicule and has even led some lonely reform-minded members of FIFA to call for an investigation of his ethics. But it looks like the friendship of convenience is paying some early dividends. So far, Trump has been the president who hasn’t barked.

The most welcome relief for FIFA involves Iran. By bombing it earlier this year, Trump made the Peace Prize look even more preposterous than it was to begin with and also created a problem for the World Cup, raising unanswered questions about what would happen if Iran’s national team were not admitted to the United States to play its scheduled matches. Trump complicated matters even more by darkly hinting on social media that Iranians ought to skip the tournament in the interest of “their own life and safety.” He later relented, and FIFA worked out a compromise under which Iran is training in Mexico and admitted to the United States for short periods to play games. Iran’s team still has to deal with unusual hassles: It was delayed for hours by security checks at the border before its first match, and afterward, it had to go straight from the stadium to its plane, cutting into its recovery routine. Some members of the team’s delegation were barred from entering the country because of their alleged ties to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the U.S. government has designated as a terrorist organization. But in front of what sounded like a home crowd for its first two matches — both in the Los Angeles area, a center of the Iranian diaspora — the team played through its disadvantages, securing draws with New Zealand and Belgium. They could now advance to the knockout rounds, most likely playing in Dallas, where the atmosphere could be less welcoming.

As the players have commanded attention on the field, the men in suits have moved to the background. Every so often, the TV feed cuts to Infantino, possibly by contractual obligation. (When his bald head appeared on the big screen at the opening match in Mexico City, he was jeered.) And while Trump has found time lately to attend an NBA Finals game at Madison Square Garden and to stage UFC fights on the South Lawn of the White House, he has yet to grace the World Cup with his presence. That is bound to change, though. The head of his World Cup task force, Andrew Giuliani, has said to “expect the unexpected” from Trump, and he is already booked to show up for the final, when the global audience peaks. On Tuesday, Infantino confirmed Trump will be with him to present the trophy to the champion.

So let’s just say Trump hasn’t ruined it yet.

Prediction: Xenophobia will ruin it

There is little doubt that FIFA’s prices and Trump’s policies have had a dampening effect on World Cup–related tourism, which has fallen far short of initial (and probably always unrealistic) projections. And visa-related hurdles have been a very real impediment for fans from some nations, as well as some participants. A referee from Somalia was denied entry. After a heroic performance against Spain, the goalkeeper from the tiny African nation of Cabo Verde told reporters that his own mother wasn’t able to come. (She was issued a visa in time for his second match.) Still, it turns out that if you play it, they will come. “There are far more international tourists than I expected,” Adam Beissel, a sports-management professor at Miami University, said on the phone from Arlington, Texas, last week as he waited outside its stadium for a match between England and Croatia to start. “I thought we were going to see largely just suburban families: You pick up a ticket, knock off work, and go to the matches. I think I personally underestimated how many people would indeed travel from overseas to support their team.”

Beissel is working on a book project that will take him to matches in ten different World Cup host cities. (He wins my award for best research-grant proposal of the tournament.) He said even a country like Cabo Verde, with a population of around 500,000, has been able to count on support from its immigrant communities. “Many people from that island chain emigrated to the Boston area because of whaling and fishing,” he said. “Then they essentially made their way as a unit down to Atlanta,” where they watched their team hold Spain, one of the world’s top teams, to a scoreless draw. Boston, in turn, has been taken over by cheerful Scots. In Philadelphia, one of the most acclaimed host cities, Brazilians and Haitians partied together in the streets after their match.

Though they were outnumbered, an enthusiastic contingent of Senegal supporters showed up for their team when it took on France last week in New Jersey. Before the match, I talked to some of them, wondering how many had actually come all the way from Senegal, one of the four participating nations that are covered by a Trump administration tourism travel ban. “We’re from Paris,” said a young man wearing a green Senegalese jersey and a tangare, a cone-shaped traditional hat. “No, we’re from the Bronx,” said a group of girls wearing headscarves and posing for photos with Senegal’s flag. Other groups were from Dallas and Cincinnati.

Finally, I hit on a distinguished-looking man in dark sunglasses. “I live in Senegal,” he said, “and I hope that Senegal will win 2-1.” Before I could ask anything more, a group of security officers pushed me out of the way and ushered him through a door marked “VVIP.” So whoever he was, he did not appear to have been a typical fan. Another man told me he had just flown in from Dakar using a visa that was still valid from a previous visit to the U.S. When I asked him if he felt welcomed in America, he acted as if he didn’t understand me and conferred with a friend in Wolof. “I think Senegal is going to win today,” he declared before turning and walking away.

Senegal put up a fight but lost to the favorites, who got two second-half goals from Kylian Mbappé. On the way out, I struck up a conversation with Emile Badiane, a Senegalese immigrant who had taken the day off from his job as a UPS driver in Maryland to watch his home country play. “There was no noise in the stadium for Senegal,” he complained. “None of our supporters could come, because of the visas.” The situation was unfair, but it hardly seemed to trouble the jubilant French fans, who spent the match chanting “allez” and singing “La Marseillaise” and cheering on their stars, many of whom are themselves of African descent, a by-product of colonialism.

Badiane told me he would be coming back for Senegal’s next match, against Norway. There, his side was overwhelmed on the field by striker Erling Haaland and in the stands by thousands of Scandinavians, some wearing horned helmets, as they performed a routine called the “Viking Row,” thrusting their arms in unison as if they were powering a longship. (The bit has become a social-media sensation during this World Cup.) Though the weather was stormy, it was a fine night to be an invader if you happened to hold the right passport.

Prediction: Logistics will ruin it

This prediction is actually an evergreen: The last four World Cups have been staged in South Africa, Brazil, Russia, and Qatar, all countries that in one way or another struggled with the capital intensive burden of building stadiums and other infrastructure necessary to host the event, causing much Sturm und Drang at FIFA’s headquarters in Zurich. It is easy to understand why this time around, Infantino decided to micromanage the planning process, taking over the job from North America’s national soccer federations and running the preparations from a command center in Miami. He gained more control over revenues but also acquired more headaches.
In effect, FIFA has had to act as an event planner in 16 separate host sites, each with its own quirks of local geography, infrastructure, and culture. Setting up for a World Cup match at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, which has hosted the final twice before, is a different matter than figuring out how to convey fans by mass transit to an NFL stadium in the middle of a parking lot in an American city where everyone drives. FIFA’s plans also called for each host location to build a central Fan Festival where people can gather to watch matches, a concept that has created a lively atmosphere at prior World Cups in places like Germany but makes less sense in, say, sprawling, steamy Houston.

The most turbulence, though, has occurred here in New York, which is splitting the hosting duties with New Jersey but not the accompanying public expense. New Jersey’s governor, Mikie Sherrill, has fought with both FIFA and her counterparts across the Hudson River about everything from who receives top billing on the marquee (she got one sign on the exterior of MetLife, facing away from the city, changed to read “New Jersey New York Stadium”) to the cost of running trains to the game. For the first match, getting into the stadium parking lot was easy and comfortable — when I caught FIFA’s media shuttle bus at a budget hotel in Lyndhurst, only one other reporter was waiting, leaving around 50 empty seats — but getting out was a nightmare. Many buses were delayed for hours on their way back to the city, and five had to be abandoned when they strayed into the street celebrations that followed the NBA Finals and were burned or destroyed by marauding Knicks fans.

Beissel told me that in the five matches he had attended thus far, he had varying experiences. “Atlanta was well done,” he said, with a festival at the Centennial Olympic Park within easy walking distance of the stadium. Toronto was meh. “The minute the match was over, there was a Blue Jays game,” Beissel said. “I went to the Fan Fest and there was nobody around.” In Kansas City, where the festival was located far from Arrowhead Stadium, there was chaos when mobs of ticket holders tried to board buses at the same time; a traffic jam caused some panicked fans to get out far from the stadium and proceed on foot. “It was like a mini Fyre Festival,” Beissel said. “You’re talking to the guards and they’re shaking their heads and they’re like, ‘We do this every weekend for the Chiefs game until FIFA requires all these changes.’” Still, the stadium was full by kickoff. “Then Messi scored a hat trick,” Beissel said, and maybe that’s all they’ll remember.

(The head of Kansas City’s host committee acknowledged the transportation problems and vowed to “get this right” before the city’s next match, which reportedly went more smoothly.)

From what I have seen here in the New York area, it appears most World Cup fans are so overjoyed to be at the World Cup that they will put up with the kind of indignities they would never tolerate in everyday life. Some are using the added travel time to discover a side of this nation that tourists rarely see. The American Dream mall in the Meadowlands, which is selling $225 parking spaces for the games next door, is enjoying boisterous crowds and some good press, perhaps for the first time in its hapless history. As I talked to Beissel, he told me had been watching with academic interest as foreign visitors discovered a Texas landmark. “Walmart is overflowing with semi-drunk Croatia and England fans,” he said. They were buying cheap beers so they could work on getting fully drunk. And so the World Cup keeps bounding along, seemingly impervious to either frustration or cynicism.

Prediction: Overexpansion will ruin it

True football snobs — the guys who are drinking Guinness and wearing their club-team scarves as they watch the Premier League at 8 a.m. on a fall Saturday — will bore you to death with evidence that the World Cup is not the greatest exhibition of skill. It has been true for a long time that the top-flight clubs in Europe are superior to any national team. But before this edition of the tournament, the conventional wisdom held that by expanding the field of qualifying teams by 50 percent — and thus increasing the number of games it could sell tickets to — FIFA was watering down the competition and creating unwatchable matchups.

Instead, this World Cup has had an air of March Madness about it, with upsets and Cinderella stories. Yes, there have been some lopsided results, like Germany’s 7-1 victory over Curaçao. But the Caribbean nation’s team bounced right back with a stronger performance against Ecuador, and teams like Cabo Verde and Scotland look like they have a chance to advance. Generally speaking, the level of play has looked respectable enough. The African continent in particular looks poised for a breakout and could place a record number of sides in the single-elimination rounds — which have likewise been expanded for this tournament, creating more upset scenarios. The snobs can nitpick about “form” and “quality” and tactical “shape,” but the rest of us love to root against Goliaths.

On the tournament’s opening Friday, I sat next to a group of barflies who appeared to know little about soccer and nothing about Balkan geography who nonetheless lustily cheered on Bosnia and Herzegovina as they fought hard for a draw against Canada. (The ending-in-a-tie part did disappoint them.) Overall, the U.S. TV ratings here have been a smashing success, driven by the audiences who have tuned in to watch the surprisingly effective performance of the U.S. team. Its first match, a dominant victory over Paraguay, was about as widely watched as the highest-rated regular television show of the last year, Sunday Night Football. The U.S. team has already clinched the top place in its group, lifting expectations and putting it in position to make a run into the later rounds of the tournament, which would qualify as yet another major surprise.

The success of Infantino’s inflationary policy led Beissel to make a prediction of his own. “As these smaller football nations perform better on the world stage, I think it’s going to lead to what will be a 64-team World Cup,” he said. Further expansion might take a while, because preparations are already underway for the 2030 World Cup, a three-continent extravaganza that will be staged in Morocco, Spain, Uruguay, and Paraguay, and the 2034 edition, which has been awarded to Saudi Arabia, which might not be able to handle such a large field. But then, under FIFA’s continental rotation system, the tournament could be set up for a return engagement. “There’s really only one option, in one perfectly suited country to host a 64-team expanded World Cup, and it’ll be the U.S.,” Beissel said. By then, Infantino will have reached the end of the line at FIFA, having hit the organization’s term limits, and no one named Trump could possibly be president. Unless?

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  • fifa world cup
  • world cup 2026
  • gianni infantino
  • the beautiful game

Source: New York Magazine