On Thursday, June 11th the 2026 FIFA World Cup launched with a match in Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. The two teams involved were almost irrelevant, so there’s no reason to even mention them in this space. This vital first match, snatched the attention of the world from the never-ending clown show in Washington, DC that always has President Donald J. Trump, as the main attraction.
There’s nothing worse than watching the leader of a country, humiliated and mocked, and yet, totally unaware in real time that he’s being treated in a contemptuous manner.
This happened to Trump on his recent state visit to Beijing, China.
Not only did Xi Jinping not bother to inconvenience himself, by making an appearance at the airport to greet a person who in former times might have been addressed as The Leader of the Free World, every minute the two were on camera together, Xi had the pained expression on his pale mug of someone who is being required by duty and obligation, to endure the presence of a fool.
In this same time space leading up to the start of global football’s biggest event, the World Cup was being savaged online by enraged detractors who feel deep agony with both Donald Trump’s and FIFA’s involvement with the once every four years sports extravaganza.
There were vicious calls for the World Cup to fail, and for matches to be disrupted by protests over the US/Iran conflict, and Israel’s unjustified bombing of supposed Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon. Calls for a boycott were blasted far and wide, and if that wasn’t enough, some users of platforms such as X, Facebook, Reddit, Bluesky, Instagram et all, suggested – without any proof whatsoever– that ICE would be present outside stadiums, waiting to snatch people away and disappear them into oblivion.
Thankfully, none of this has happened. World Cup matches are being successfully held in Canada, Mexico and the USA., even with all of the anger explicitly directed at the United States because of the man/child in the White House.
The local fans and tourists did indeed show up, and although attendance has fallen short of what was expected and hoped for – especially in some greedy American cities – the matches have been wonderfully contested and bars and pubs in all three countries aren’t lacking for excited fans looking to get drunk.
Blind, wondrously drunk.
So, the haters have failed. People who turn bitter against their own country because of the person in the White House do not deserve any love – much less encouragement. Though, only halfway through, as of yet, the FIFA 2026 World Cup may well be remembered, for what has not happened.