Spain won the World Cup. Haaland became a global obsession. Cabo Verde's 40-year-old goalkeeper Vozinha turned into an internet icon overnight. And somehow, across 104 games spread over six weeks and three countries, the most bloated men's World Cup in history didn't collapse under its own weight.
That's genuinely impressive. It didn't have to work, and mostly it did.
What actually made this tournament land
FIFA president Gianni Infantino, never one to undersell a moment, claimed "over 6 billion people" watched from home and said football needed to "invent new vocabulary" to describe the success. Which tells you everything about the man and nothing useful about the tournament.
Strip away the hyperbole and the picture is still striking. Palestinians in Gaza — sitting on rubble — watching Egypt vs Argentina in the round of 16. A small Kansas town called Lawrence fully adopting the Algerian national team as their own. The Dutch Oranje walk taking over Texas. Mexicans outnumbering every other fanbase in virtually every North American city. These moments weren't manufactured by a marketing department. They happened because football, when it's actually on, pulls people toward it.
NYU sports diplomacy expert Dr Lindsay Sarah Krasnoff framed it well: sport doesn't create world peace, but "once you interact with someone through sport, you understand a little bit more about them." Iraq qualifying for a 48-team World Cup matters because for thirty years the Western press only associated that country with war. Showing up in group stage football changes something small but real in how a nation is perceived.
On the pitch itself, the expanded format held up better than the skeptics predicted. No catastrophic blowouts dominating headlines, genuine underdog stories, and Curaçao — the smallest nation ever to qualify — scored their first World Cup goal. The days with six matches were exhausting even for the committed, and some games were utterly forgettable, but the classics were genuinely classic.
The phone call that won't go away
Then there's the part the positive glow can't quite cover. Donald Trump, president of one of the three host nations, publicly admitted to calling Infantino to ask for Folarin Balogun's suspension to be overturned. FIFA said the process was handled independently. The investigation is still ongoing. Neither of those facts cancels the other out.
That's not a minor footnote. A sitting head of state called the governing body of the tournament his country was hosting to request a favor for a player. The fact that it became a brief controversy rather than a prolonged scandal says more about the news cycle than the seriousness of the act.
Ticket prices kept the diehards out of marquee games and filled seats with tourists and corporate guests. The atmosphere inside some venues felt closer to a Super Bowl than a World Cup — polished, well-organized, and occasionally lifeless. Mandatory hydration breaks were a reasonable call in 40-degree heat in Miami. They were farcical in air-conditioned stadiums in Atlanta and Dallas. FIFA's broadcast-driven decision to schedule marquee kickoffs in afternoon heat to suit European TV windows put player welfare second. These aren't small complaints.
What North America does with this next
For Canada and the USA, the real question starts now. Canada made the round of 16 — their best-ever result — and watched in record numbers. MLS is already trying to convert the tournament's commercial energy into domestic viewership. Their stated ambition is to become one of the world's top five leagues. That's a long road, and signing one Messi every decade won't be enough to get there.
The non-traditional football fans who caught the buzz in their host cities — curious, excited, swept up in the atmosphere — are the actual target. Whether they tune in for an MLS match in October is the real legacy test, not the attendance figures from July.
CONMEBOL president Alejandro Dominguez has already floated a 64-team format for the 2030 World Cup in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay, citing the centenary as justification. FIFA hasn't confirmed anything. But the 48-team model made money, so the direction of travel is obvious. At some point the tournament stops being a tournament and becomes something else entirely — a six-week football festival where the group stage is largely irrelevant for half the field.
The football did what football does. It was the best part of all of it, as usual. That just means the rest of it — the politics, the pricing, the power games — gets to come back into focus now that the final whistle has blown.
