"You will be invaded by a horde of barbarians." That's Gianni Infantino's sales pitch for the World Cup, delivered Tuesday night at a star-studded launch party at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum — and honestly, it's the most honest thing he's said in years.
The FIFA President was in full showman mode, kicking off World Cup festivities alongside Will Ferrell, Brendan Hunt, Lance Bass, Robert Horry, and U.S. soccer icons Mia Hamm and Cobi Jones. The tournament opens Thursday in Mexico City before Los Angeles hosts the first U.S. match on Friday — the USMNT against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, with an opening ceremony featuring Katy Perry, Future, and Anitta.
The scale is genuinely hard to wrap your head around
Infantino compared running the tournament to staging "104 Super Bowls" in just over a month. That's the total number of matches across the U.S., Mexico, and Canada in this expanded 48-team format — the first World Cup to feature that many nations, representing a quarter of all countries on the planet.
Los Angeles alone is scheduled to host eight matches, with fan festivals and ten fan zones scattered across the area. Infantino credited the city's status as "the capital of entertainment in the world" — flattery, sure, but also a fair description of what he needs LA to deliver.
"Men, women, children, grandparents, doesn't matter, they will all have their faces colored with the colors of their countries," he said. "They will just want to enjoy and have fun because that's what we want to do with the World Cup — we want to unite the world."
What this means beyond the bunting
The expanded format makes this tournament unlike anything before it. More nations, more fanbases traveling, more betting markets opening up on teams that have never been priced before. Group stage outcomes are genuinely harder to call when half the field has limited recent tournament data.
For the U.S. specifically, Friday's opener against Paraguay at SoFi is a significant moment — home soil, packed house, national pressure. A stumble there would cast a shadow over the whole domestic narrative Infantino is busy building.
"This will be the biggest and greatest FIFA World Cup in history," Infantino said. Whether he's right depends on what happens on the pitch. The party has started. The football begins Thursday.
