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9:05am on Monday, 20th July, 2026:
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I was rooting for Spain in the World Cup final, so was glad they won. They're not great in attack, and the only match they impressed me in was the semi-final against France, but they weren't Argentina and that's all I required of them.
Argentina finally fell afoul of their fouling when they had a player sent off. It still took Spain extra time to beat them, but none of that would have been necessary had the referee dished out a yellow card earlier to stop Argentina's tacting of playing dirty before it took hold.
I didn't like the way FIFA handled the tournament:
- 48 teams was too many. The players had to play more games, and long-standing records fell because of this. Is Olise better than Pelé because he provided more assists? Pelé provided his six in a tournament that only had 16 teams, across six games; Olise's seven came from a 48-team tournament across eight games.
- Hydration breaks are a bad idea. They interrupt the flow of play and leave spectators with nothing to do except boo them. They're an excuse for giving US TV channels time to show advertisements. If the weather in a country is such that players will need hydration breaks, the tournament shouldn't be held in that country.
- Overriding red cards without due process is corrupt. Either allow all players who are red-carded to appeal their ban, or don't allow any of them to do so. Don't pluck out an obscure rule and apply it to one player, whose dismissal just happens to have been questioned by the host country's president.
- Extending half time beyond 15 minutes is against the laws of the game. If you want to put on a lacklustre show, fine, you have fifteen minutes for it. The World Cup final is the most-watched sporting event in the world, with maybe a fifth of the global population following it live: it doesn't need to be pepped up by extending the interval with a set of musical performances.
Oh well, we can have another shot at it in 2030.
Meanwhile, perhaps TV pundits can research an alternative to the word "quality". I was sick of hearing it by the end of the tournament.
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Copyright © 2026 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).