It was like the 2012 Olympics, all over again. Weeks of negativity, doom and gloom, followed by 64 games of, mostly, absolute sporting joy. No terror, no hooliganism, no geopolitical shenanigans. In fact, the only notable moment of saltiness was Roy Keane and Ian Wright kicking off in the ITV studio over the latter’s unconditional warmth towards England.
There is consensus - and not just those carried along by England’s uncharacteristic wave of progress - that the 2018 World Cup in Russia has been one of the best, if not the best, in modern times. Who’d have thought it, given the suspicion of brown envelopes that stank up FIFA’s awarding of the tournament to Russia. Well done, then, Russia, or Vlad, or whoever was controlling things.
Not every match, of course has been a zinger but from the very beginning - host Russia's 5-0 demolition of Saudi Arabia - we've been treated every step of the way. By the first Friday night we had the Spain-Portugal match, one of the best internationals I've seen in years, with six goals including a tour de force by Cristiano Ronaldo which virtually sealed his record-breaking move from Real Madrid to Juventus. The following day we had Argentina being held 1-1 by Iceland, and all of a sudden all bets were off as to how the tournament would move forward. And so we went through the group stage, with two or three games daily, each as fascinating in the permutations as the next, including that memorable fixture, in which everyone and everything stopped work to watch Germany go out at the group stage for the first time since 1938.
In a World Cup lacking European footballing aristos like Italy and the Netherlands, we had the likes of Iran and Senegal punching well above their weight, and south and central America gradually slipping away as that region's traditions in international football fell somewhat short, as Argentina and Uruguay couldn't build on their respective legacies as past champions. And, yes, England: perennial underachievers, perennial failures, managed by the individual with "the impossible job" whom the nation collectively fell in love with, ending in fourth place, surviving a penalty shootout, and giving a platform to a squad of young men for whom the next tournaments - the 2020 European Championships and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar - promise so much, at last. This World Cup hasn't, of course, all been about England, but from the exclusively English perspective, this World Cup has profoundly transformed the nation's relationship with its national side. Let's hope it lasts.
Congratulations, of course, must go to France and indeed Croatia, their defeated opponents in yesterday's final. A 4-2 victory for Les Bleus, with a few controversies, a couple of monumental blunders and six goals, it provided something of a microcosm of the preceding 63 matches combined. One of the largest football nations in the world versus one of the smallest, pedigree versus underappreciated tenacity. France are, for me, surprising world champions. I'd been tipping Belgium as dark horses to win, just as many had seen Brazil or Spain as champions once more. France's ascent this time has been quite subtle. While most were focusing on the big guns - especially those who gradually disappeared - France had been getting on with progress. As he does for Chelsea, the diminutive N'Golo Kante was a giant in the French midfield, Paul Pogba demonstrated that without José Mourinho's deadening influence over him he can justify some of the hype that has followed his career, while the 19-year-old Kylian Mbappé underlined preposterously why Paris Saint-Germain made him the world's most expensive teenager indeed the second-most expensive player on the planet.
As such, yesterday's final was a fitting finale. France knows better than most how to celebrate - the scenes in Paris in 1998 are burned in the memory as the most incredible scenes of celebration I've ever witnessed. Even the sight of Emmanuel Macron going nuts, while genial host Vladimir Putin sat, atypically gimlet-eyed, at the final whistle, presented a vision of unfettered joy that perfectly characterised these last four-and-a-bit weeks of football. Whether FIFA has redeemed itself remains to be seen: the whiff of suspicion over how Russia ended up staging this World Cup will never go away, but few will disagree that it has been done in an exemplary fashion. We will have to see if Qatar in four years time will be able to do the same, even if many, if not most, have been proven wrong this time.
No comments:
Post a Comment