We really are at the insufferable end of the tournament now.
I'm reminded about how when I used to follow American football, I always considered the football season over at the NFC and AFC conference championships. The SuperBowl was such a ridiculous money-grabbing spectacle for non-fans, commercial advertisements, and idiot media coverage from jamokes who knew nothing about the sport to come out with their write ups about false gods and mythologies.
Much the same, though not quite as bad, as the WC final right now. Every article injects "making history" cringe -- as has been a habit of the media a lot in the past year or two, IMO. Now it's just on overdrive. Plus all the usual morons who really don't follow the sport, who boil it all down to "Messi vs Mbappe", etc.
Just wretched.
I thought the games were largely uninspiring, but you can't blame the organisation for that. That's the teams.
I didn't visit the World Cup, but I got the sense there was little negative animosity surrounding the games. Maybe it's the lack of alcohol or perhaps some more violent fans were dissuaded from going to Qatar, because of their legal system. But this was definitely not an entirely negatieve experience.
None of this changes the fact that Qatar:
- were assigned this World Cup through bribery;
- put migrant workers through the harshest of conditions, resulting in the deaths of thousands.
Nothing that happens during the tournament can justify this.
This World Cup was the worst one in history before it ever started.
No question that Qatar was as scammy and dubious as awarding a WC has come. But isn't that the way of world football in general today and not just the WC?
I mean, look at what Juve is going through at the same time right now. If there was ever a reason we should feel the influence of slimy fossil fuel money for players, accounting fudging, and the opportunity if not necessity for fraud, corruption, and unethical behaviors expanding -- it is right this moment.
And it's not just Juve or the WC. It's Newcastle United. It's Liverpool. It's PSG. It's Barcelona having to spin off Messi in the first place.
This WC is just a mirror held up to every other bit of corruption going on in the club game these days.