Is it Healthy to Obsess About the World Cup?

  

I admit, I’m obsessed. It’s summer, I thought about taking the week off, then decided to write about what’s really interesting me these days. That would be the World Cup. The decline and fall of Western civilization can wait a week or two.

I have no wish to talk down to my readers, some of whom are quite soccer-savvy, but most are casual viewers at best. It’s those ambivalent Americans that I’d like a word with.

I’ve been watching World Cups every four years since the nineties, which for an American in my age group has been, shall we say, lonely. But this time it’s happening in this country, and the country seems to be responding. We’re looking at a genuine multicultural phenomenon, Trump-free so far.

But I’m more interested in the games themselves, and World Cups past have tended to be more about the theatre than the soccer. Not so this time. The matches so far have been as good as the theatre, and there’s no shortage of theatre, right on the field.

Because we are witnessing an astonishing display of athletic talent, including arguably five of the best players of all time, and they’re all playing in the same tournament. All of them are at the top of their game, even those who should be retired by now. All of them are firing on all cylinders. Any one of them could take his team deep into the tournament.

Here they are, in the order in which they made their opening statements. As the group stage ends and we enter the knockout round, remember these names:

Lionel Messi. Known to crossword junkies the world over, Messi is more than just a five-letter word for “soccer god.” Aged 39, supposedly over the hill, he has scored six of Argentina’s eight goals so far. This brings him to seventeen World Cup goals for his career, which sets a new record, though it’s a record that might not last the tournament.

Argentina won the cup four years ago, which was supposed to be Messi’s final bow, but not so fast. Actually, “not so fast” explains his game these days. He tends to stand around in the middle of the pitch, watching and waiting, apparently doing nothing. Then suddenly, like magic, he materializes near the goal at roughly the same time as the ball, with predictably devastating results. All of his goals have been typical Messi, and the team around him knows exactly what to do, which is get him the ball, early and often. He even has a teammate, Rodrigo De Paul, who is known as “Messi’s Bodyguard.”

Kylian Mbappe. A megastar for France since he was 18, Mbappe at 27 is lightning fast, a gazelle with a lethal eye for goal. He has hammered in four goals as of this writing, and if Messi’s record falls during this World Cup it will most likely fall to him.

Mbappe’s debut season with his club, Real Madrid, was problematic on a number of levels, yet he still scored 42 goals, which is shocking. Questions will persist about his fit with that club, but when he plays for France, he’s virtually unstoppable.

Both Mbappe and Messi are playing with perhaps the best of the teams in the tournament — they played against each other four years ago in the final. So both are likely to get a lot more chances to score. That’s great news for those of us watching them.

Erling Haaland. Long term, over the next few World Cups, Messi’s goal record should eventually fall to Norway’s Haaland, the new kid on the block. He is simply the best pure goal-scorer anyone has ever seen, and he has obliterated records everywhere he’s been. So far he has four goals, all of them beauties. His problem is that his Norway team, while pretty good, is not at the same level as the other elite squads. So he could get knocked out of the tournament early. And it’s not a given that Norway will qualify in 2030 or 2034. If it does, we can assume that record is doomed.

Harry Kane. My personal favorite player, I’ve followed Kane closely his whole career. His profile is the lowest of the five, which isn’t to say that it’s low. He is one of the most celebrated players in the game, but flamboyance and controversy are not his thing. For years, he has been quietly redefining the center forward position, spraying Mahomes-like passes all over the field when he’s not scoring prodigiously himself. At 34, he is in his prime and getting better all the time. The England team he plays for is good enough to win the Cup.

Cristiano Ronaldo. A man who needs no introduction, except maybe for a few Americans who wouldn’t know the names Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, or Lebron James, either. Ronaldo probably won’t go down as the greatest player in history, but he’ll be a close second to Messi, and it will be a long way down to third. He’s as flamboyant as Kane isn’t.

That said, he’s now 41, plays his club soccer in Saudi Arabia — in a well-financed minor league under the auspices of Prince Bone-Saw — and he came into the tournament as something of a problem for an excellent Portugal team. On the one hand, he continues to score goals with amazing consistency. On the other hand, he regards playing defense as optional, and somewhat beneath him. Still, leaving him out of the lineup is almost unthinkable.

In the first game, he basically disappeared, which sent the world’s soccer press into a frenzy of speculation as to whether he’d be benched for the second game. He wasn’t, and he was brilliant. His two goals were masterpieces, and it was quite clear that he was conceding nothing to Messi. If he keeps it up, and if Portugal can play to its potential, we could see him late in the tournament. He’s a big-game player, and he’s hungry — the World Cup is the only thing he’s never won.

Needless to say, there are other sensational players, some of whom are only now announcing themselves to the world. Folarin Balogun is a good example.

I’ve now written several times about Balogun, and now that we know the U.S. team will be moving to the knockout round, we know we’ll be seeing more of him. He is already attracting interest from major European clubs, so we’ll see how much his stock rises over the next week or two.

That said, he is not likely to go too much farther in the tournament. While there is a certain giddiness about the U.S. team’s performance so far, the bubble will inevitably burst. Yes, they are the best American team ever, and yes, they’ve been a joy to watch, even when they lost the meaningless game to Turkiye in the last minute.

But the teams they beat, Paraguay and Australia, were not that good, and Americans who are casually tuning in and thinking “Wow, could we really win this thing?” don’t quite understand what they’re up against. They don’t get either the level or the depth of talent on the elite teams the USMNT will have to beat. There isn’t one American, except possibly Christian Pulisic, who would make the national team of France, Argentina, England, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, or Germany. Balogun, good as he is, is not yet at that level.

Dark horses do not win the World Cup. It has only ever been won by eight countries, who more-or-less take turns lifting the trophy. One of that handful, Italy, didn’t qualify this time around, a catastrophe still rippling through the Italian diaspora.

So while I certainly hope I’m wrong, reality should soon set in for the Americans. I look for these guys to make a good showing in the knockout round, but my expectations are not high. Making it to the quarter finals would be astonishing. Getting to the semi-finals would be seismic. Getting to the final simply will not happen.

And anyone who thinks Bosnia-Herzegovina will be a pushover tomorrow night has never seen Edin Dzeko play. Go ahead, look him up.