Sport never takes a moral position. The deserving team don’t always win and neither do the fairer ones. Possession doesn’t always translate to goals. Flukish strikes sink dominant sides. Somehow we escaped all that on July 19. Somehow a red wave from Europe, which resembled most faithfully the idea of team, tied together like beads in a necklace, are owners of the trophy. Somehow justice prevailed.
Winning this Cup should be hard, but this was a slog. One team had an eloquence, the other was purposely inarticulate. Spain spoke in calm lyrics, Argentina in moody grunts. At one point it seemed it was 11 against one, the single Argentinian not being Lionel Messi but goalkeeper Emi Martinez, who nobly defended his net like a winged creature might its nest. Imagine if Argentina had taken it to a penalty shoot-out. Actually, let’s not.
No sport can promise the gripping finale, for this is the unscripted allure of competition. Rafael Nadal once tamed Roger Federer 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 in a French Open final but even that never felt as dispiriting as this. Somehow we thought, two glittering Cup nations, a kid with winged boots, a footballing Yoda at 39, Ethan Hunt and Odysseus in the stands, something heroic had to be in the offing. Mostly we found villains in blue and white.
We’re sleepy now, hungover, tired, frustrated, yet part of me is already missing the Cup which refreshes us like nothing in sport can. It reminds me the tournament itself is always bigger than a final and what we’ll take with us is not Argentina’s abysmal 32 per cent possession, but tiny clips of wonderful film which will play in our brains forever.
The 308 goals, some of them so heartbreakingly late, which made us levitate from our chairs. The fabulous flexing of unknown nations. The thank-you letters left behind by teams in dressing rooms. The acuteness of Thierry Henry’s analysis. The grin of Erling Haaland, as if to say didn’t you know that goal was coming.
Michael Olise on the balletic move. Bagpipe-playing Scots and inconsolable Brazilian fans. Goalkeepers stopping balls like Superman catches bullets. Egypt worn down by injustice. All of this we’ll remember instead of an over-long mid-game final show which felt like sacrilege. At half-time, we only pee, discuss substitutions, rehydrate, strategise, and I am just talking about fans.
My friends (many of them aren’t even devoted sports fans) and I spent a month sending WhatsApp messages scurrying across borders at 2.30am. Not for anything else, not for so long, do we do this. And this is also how the Cup won, in the way it woke people, brought them to this game, and always reminded us of its reach (a ball made it to the International Space Station).
The best of Cup football, told often through tales of immigrants shining for their new nations, somehow managed to subdue the worst of football, like a US President inserting himself into a red card debate. Skill dribbled past politics and talent outsprinted Gianni Infantino’s tastelessness. It was close but football prevailed.
I like that the game is hard in part, forearms in backs, jerseys pulled like leashes, close dances in the box during corners, shins examined, but there’s a line. Argentina danced on it for weeks, rugged and cussed and indefatigable and unstoppable, and then in the final, even after the whistle, they slid over that line into ugliness. They brought nothing beautiful of football to football’s biggest day.
Spain brought composure and control, the ball zinging off the boots of their players like a pinball machine. This is the nation of Salvador Dali and Picasso, but more importantly it is the land of Xavi and Andres Iniesta, professors of space, watching and applauding the exploration of their successors. Spain had to win. For football’s sake, the pretty had to tame the petty.
One fleeting image, of a few seconds, remains with me from the final. Lionel Messi, 39, sitting alone on the grass, genius spent and subdued. Then he sees Lamine Yamal, 19, approaching, and gets up and they embrace. It is an acknowledgement of talent, a recognition of struggle, an everyday act yet on this day feels more filled with meaning. A young phenom has come to pay respect. An old hero has risen to return it. Football’s uncomplicated beauty is always its saviour.
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