{"id":710830,"date":"2026-06-18T05:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T05:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/710830\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T05:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T05:09:10","slug":"the-world-cup-so-far-surprisingly-excellent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/710830\/","title":{"rendered":"The World Cup so far? Surprisingly excellent"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a long-standing World Cup tradition that by the end of the tournament, when the television montages provide glorious two-minute summaries of a whole month that makes everything look wonderful, generally gets forgotten.<\/p>\n

It comes about five days in, when the presenter turns to the pundits and \u2014 almost breaking conventions of sport broadcasting \u2014 asks something like, \u201cIs it fair to say we\u2019re still waiting for the World Cup to really\u2026 burst into life?\u201d This is generally followed by pundits saying that, with a bit of luck, things will pick up once Brazil (or sometimes Argentina) have played.<\/p>\n

But no-one has said anything like this about the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n

Even putting aside the various off-field stories which have understandably dominated the build-up, there were several reasons to think that the tournament might, at least initially, be a little arduous. This is the first 48-team World Cup, which means quality is reduced and third-placed sides progress, perhaps encouraging safety-first football. The climate was considered an issue. The threat of empty seats<\/a> would compromise the intensity. This was surely a slow burner?<\/p>\n

Get free access to the most comprehensive World Cup coverage in The Athletic app<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instead, after the first round of group matches \u2014 all 24 of them \u2014 the realistic conclusion is that the football has been as good as could reasonably be expected. There have been great games, great stories and great players underlining their place in history. Every day has given us something.<\/p>\n

This also is the first World Cup hosted by three separate nations, and it would be unreasonable to judge the success of this format after one match when the arduous journeys are yet to come. But this essentially provided a handy boost to the tournament. Regardless of which country the tournament takes place in (perhaps with the exception of Qatar) a good share of the energy comes from the hosts. Usually, this is on the opening night, and then things settle down.<\/p>\n

But with three different hosts nations able to start the tournament with a bang, the exuberance had more longevity. The atmosphere in Mexico City for Mexico\u2019s 2-0 win over South Africa<\/a> looked fantastic. Canada couldn\u2019t win, but at least sparked celebrations with a late equaliser against Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/a> Then the United States provided a performance even their biggest supporters couldn\u2019t have expected, featuring slick interplay and some fantastic goals in a 4-1 destruction of Paraguay.<\/p>\n

There have been several very good games \u2014 and, arguably more crucially, no terrible games. The most testing game thus far, Ghana\u2019s 1-0 win over Panama,<\/a> produced a stoppage-time winner. With so many more games, perhaps there is more opportunity for something to happen.<\/p>\n

The most telling match was maybe New Zealand and Iran\u2019s 2-2 draw.<\/a> These sides are not going to win the competition. They probably won\u2019t make the round of 16. It was the fourth game of the day, and felt like an obvious opportunity to switch off, recharge and go against the next day. But those who gave it a go discovered it was thrilling, energetic, end to end and full of great goals.<\/p>\n

The only 0-0, as it happens, was possibly the most thrilling game of the lot, as Cape Verde held on for a momentous goalless draw against European champions Spain. So far, the underdogs haven\u2019t been completely out of their depth, and in defeat have provided some great moments.<\/p>\n

Why Cape Verde and Spain’s draw was a shocking upset<\/p>\n

Felipe Cardenas<\/p>\n

Of the other outsiders, Qatar snatched a late equaliser against Switzerland. Curacao were thrashed by Germany,<\/a> but even they had their moment when Livano Comenencia made the score 1-1. Similarly, Iraq made it 1-1 against Norway, Jordan hit an equaliser against Austria and DR Congo levelled against Portugal. Uzbekistan scored against Colombia. OK, only Congo hung on. But these haven\u2019t been pure also-rans.<\/p>\n

And then, at the same time, the individual superstars have turned up. Tuesday was the best day for this: Kylian Mbappe hit two goals and we started to wonder whether he would end the tournament considered the World Cup\u2019s best player with a third starring tournament. Later, Leo Messi hit a hat-trick<\/a> to remind everyone he remains a world-beater.<\/p>\n

\"Lionel<\/p>\n

\n Three goals for Lionel Messi means he is the leading goalscorer of the first round (Tom Weller\/picture alliance via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

In between, Erling Haaland scored twice for Norway. Football is increasingly consumed through individuals rather than teams \u2014 maybe in the U.S. in particular \u2014 and the top players have, thus far, delivered. Personally speaking, having been in Dallas for two great games \u2014 Japan 2-2 Netherlands and England 4-2 Croatia \u2014 I\u2019ve been delighted by the attacking intent and the constantly changing game state.<\/p>\n

Of course, this is only the first week of action. Tournaments are remembered based upon the quality of the matches at the business end of the competition \u2014 in particular the final \u2014 and the identity of the winners. The 2002 World Cup took a while to get going, but the final ended in thrilling fashion with popular winners, so we remember it fondly. Euro 2004 was largely very enjoyable, but many found Greece\u2019s defensive-minded approach dull, so it\u2019s rarely spoken about these days.<\/p>\n

But so far, this tournament has been excellent. This hasn\u2019t been a World Cup for dipping in and out of; for skipping games that look like foregone conclusions.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re always told that the World Cup isn\u2019t about football, it\u2019s really about fans, about culture, about internationalism. Well yes: but it also is about football. And the football rarely starts off as entertainingly as this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a long-standing World Cup tradition that by the end of the tournament, when the television montages provide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[40001,23,15665,1246,6793,15106,165064,941,103,150785,27459,301974,37523,247700,7983,4122,28970,9333,113962,594,6797,24808,23627,6090,801,14945,26792,3471,29567,93265,27986,6802,25136,3,6803,1767,56529,35381,4042,15275,131,9121,26737,403,5705,1866,3662,6804,13646,91316,12807,21,19,22,20,36455,25,47812,24,73754],"class_list":["post-710830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-algeria","tag-america","tag-argentina","tag-australia","tag-austria","tag-belgium","tag-bosnia-herzegovina","tag-brazil","tag-canada","tag-cape-verde","tag-colombia","tag-congo-dr","tag-croatia","tag-curacao","tag-czech-republic","tag-ecuador","tag-egypt","tag-england","tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","tag-france","tag-germany","tag-ghana","tag-haiti","tag-international-football","tag-iran","tag-iraq","tag-ivory-coast","tag-japan","tag-jordan","tag-mexico-mens-national-team","tag-morocco","tag-netherlands","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-norway","tag-opinion","tag-panama","tag-paraguay","tag-portugal","tag-qatar","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-scotland","tag-senegal","tag-soccer","tag-south-africa","tag-south-korea","tag-spain","tag-sweden","tag-switzerland","tag-tunisia","tag-turkey","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-uruguay","tag-us","tag-us-mens-national-team","tag-usa","tag-uzbekistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}