No muppets can spoil my World Cup memories but I’m not ready for goodbye

Are you over the World Cup? Have you seamlessly moved on: packed down the wall chart, dug back into Netflix for that series of the West Wing you were again rewatching, stopped being triggered by a FIFA-branded Coke can?

I respect your level-headed attitude. But I’m behind on this. As far as England are concerned, I’m still in the bargaining stage. Harry Kane said before flying home for him England’s third-place finish ‘hurts even more than other years, because everyone believed we were going all the way.’

And England’s progress to very nearly the final game was a huge reason why I loved this one – spoilt as England fans are these days, regularly going so deep in major tournaments. Not much can match the explosive rush of happiness after each win.

Then comes the increasing tension as the next game approaches, filled with hours spent scouring internet rumours, injuries denied or confirmed, and then the complicated release of the next game, before it starts again.

The 4am victory against Mexico in my local pub was one of the greatest memories I’ll ever make watching football. But it’s not all about England.

That’s why the World Cup is wonderful. The underdogs become top as Cape Verde held Spain, Uruguay and then very nearly Argentina. Scotland clutched onto their 5% per cent chance of progress to the knockout stages until it became barely a sliver and even then they believed.

Proudly retelling their stories of drinking Boston dry. Nine teams from Africa made the knockout stages, with Egypt on the brink of an historic quarter-final before Argentina remembered that wasn’t the plot.

France took out Morocco to make the semis – their forward line wowing all. Shock and awe up front concealing their fragile midfield, until a masterful Spain unpicked them to make a final it was a struggle to enjoy. Not only because England weren’t in it.

WWE is a vibe the leader of the US likes, so perhaps that’s where Argentina’s Leandro Paredes and Enzo Fernandez took inspiration in the final. In their historically blunt performance – taking no shots of any kind until extra-time – Argentina did not put on a show but perhaps we can be overly critical if we don’t recognise what they themselves knew: that Spain were too good to be played on their own terms. Lionel Messi is not a whole team.

Hydration breaks negatively affected the flow of the final perhaps more than any other game as they were teamed – for the first time in history – with a half-time interval lasting 27 minutes and 19 seconds.

You know the rest of the innovations visited on the 2026 Fifa World Cup, they were hard to avoid: political interference for annoying red cards, no help for the top Somalian referee denied entry to work, tickets priced to outrage not sell, special restrictions for the Iran team, special slots on broadcast for the man in charge, Gianni Infantino.

His favourite world leader apparently decided on Tuesday that football is too small for his talents and he should be running the United Nations next. The UN is welcome to him, though I have some concerns about how he’d take to the brief.

I’m sorry to be writing about Infantino or the US president at all, because they are not the point.

I have loved this World Cup and am bereft now it’s over.

I’m left with a sense of unease at what changes Fifa considers themselves free to make to the most-loved sporting event in the world and what further challenges to sporting integrity the governing body will make, if unchecked.

But in many ways this World Cup reassures. No matter what is done to it, football shines.

The game delights! People meet. And a team that is a collective wins it all.

And it was nice to see the Muppets, though it would have been better if they could have got off the podium before new world champions Spain’s trophy lift.

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