The boots were stolen, but the records will remain

The 2026 World Cup already has its heroes, but the media focuses on negative things

The week of the 23rd World Cup is already behind us. And the game itself fades into the background. Or rather, it is relegated to the background. On purpose. Gone are the days when people were only interested in the tricks of Pele and Maradona. Nowadays, even an atmospheric report about a match cannot be sold at a high price. This is how modern sport works. And the current world, in which it is negative characters and terrible events that “hold” the audience, collect views and make money for comrades who snatch (there’s no other word for it) news of all stripes.

Playing ball is a direct reflection of our life. Mirror. The public in the 21st century cannot be particularly entertained with positive football news and stories. They don't capture the imagination. That’s why media representatives describe with aspiration all the scandalous situations that happen during the holiday in North America.

They stole several T-shirts (with autographs), four pairs of boots, half a dozen balls, shirt fronts, plush lions and even a Lego set from the England team from the bus (total damage amounted to 18 thousand euros), so they made a big story out of this, comparing such a “raid” almost with the robbery of the Louvre. And it’s good that Thomas Tuchel’s team defeated the Croats in an excellent shootout (4:2), otherwise we would probably have read stories about how Her Majesty’s “barefoot” subjects Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham, heartbroken, could not tune in to the battle...

...And even before the start of the tournament, the referee from Somalia, Amar Ortan, was not allowed into the United States. The State Department considered that he was associated with pirates, terrorists and other asocial types. Well, they blocked his entry into the country and closed him. In the end, it’s better to be on the safe side, and FIFA promised to pay the offended referee the full fee! But for a week now they have been procrastinating on this Somali “sensation” from all sides. It feels like they’ve put a barrier in front of a referee of Pierluigi Collina’s caliber, and now the whole championship will, excuse me, go down the drain...

A bad (I emphasize, bad) episode happened with the Iraqi national team striker Aymen Hussein, for whom the grand competition began with a seven-hour interrogation at the airport, since border guards “confused a football player with a terrorist.” Bad and unpleasant? Yes! But this has already happened... So what now, remember this every day and attach it to any other incident?

And Aymen Hussein, I would add, did not lose heart: he scored in the match with Norway, even if it did not save the team from defeat.

The national team of Iran demonstrated excellent skills, achieving a draw in the match with the New Zealanders, who, by the way, are undefeated at the World Championships (4 peaceful outcomes, taking into account the three fights at the 2010 World Cup). But sorting out such a secret is by no means a profitable business. But the fact that the Iranian national team can only be in the United States on the day of the match (after the battle they must immediately fly to Mexico to their base) is a box office “epic” in every sense. Again. I do not approve of the behavior of the fair's owners, who act, to put it mildly, inhospitably towards sports visitors. But you can’t push this topic around the clock?

After all, football is going on quite cheerfully and in some places very high quality, although many experts argued that fifty boring and passable meetings await us. Someone will probably object: what about the 5:1 and 7:1 defeats in the matches Sweden - Tunisia and Germany - Curacao, respectively. Yes, this happens too. By the way, after the defeat from the Vikings, Africans helmsman Sabri Lyamushi was fired, who thus got into history: for the first time, a coach was fired immediately after the opening game.

As for Curacao, the numbers on the scoreboard did not fully reflect what was happening on the field. The yellow-blue brigade of debutants did not suffer and did not suffer.

The islanders, coached by the oldest coach in the championship, 78-year-old Dick Advocaat, kicked the ball like they did in childhood. Courageously, sincerely, from the heart. With a dribble and without looking back at your goal. They could have lined up a bus, as the Cape Verdean team did in the battle with the Spaniards, but they decided, as they used to say, to “play for goals.” And there is nothing to blame them for (they were not strong enough). It’s not a fact that they would have managed to pull off the trick of the Cape Verdeans, who competently and accurately defended a goalless draw, fouling only once in 90 minutes. I repeat: once per match! This is a world championship record. Probably for all time. And the 40-year-old goalkeeper Vozinha, nicknamed Granny, who made seven saves, after that duel gained more than 10 million subscribers (there were 50 thousand) on the banned Internet. Of course: this is the oldest goalkeeper to score a clean sheet in his debut World Cup match. But they wrote about it and forgot about it.

But the press just can’t forget the supposedly prohibited gesture of referee Sean Evans... If anyone doesn’t know, this Australian worked for VAR during the Germany-Curacao match. And at the moment of introducing the commands, he allegedly folded his fingers “incorrectly”. And in the end, according to some journalists, he demonstrated a hateful gesture (an inverted “OK” sign), which is used as a symbol of “white power” in far-right circles around the world. The scandal broke out in earnest. The referee himself was simply taken aback when he found out what he was accused of. And he calmly explained that it was an involuntary twitching, adding: “During the match itself, I repeated this movement many times, holding the pen between my fingers...” But this answer from the video assistant did not satisfy many, and away we go...

It’s good that FIFA, despite pressure from various organizations, sided with the referee. Otherwise, you could soon get a prison sentence for hitting the ball incorrectly with your right heel, insulting some sectarians...

Another “sore” topic: the technical three-minute water breaks in each half. Experts are sounding the alarm, calling such a break pure arbitrariness. They say that the nerve and structure of the game are being destroyed. And something is not being violated... Moreover, in these delays, fair play advocates see not concern for the football players who are forced to run in 30-degree heat, but the desire of the tournament organizers to make money on advertising during intermissions (while the artists in spats are drinking water, expensive commercials are shown on TV). What can I say? Mayhem! This has never happened before! But seriously, before they didn’t even add ten minutes to the halves. But we got used to it, and no one died. Besides, during recess you can run errands yourself...

Run away so you don’t miss really interesting and significant things later. And they happened. The most expensive football players of the championship immediately joined the race of scorers - Frenchman Kylian Mbappe and Norwegian Erling Haaland (both worth 200 million euros), who scored a double in matches with Senegal and Iraq. Englishman Harry Kane, New Zealander Elijah Just and American Folarin Balogun were not far behind them. But almost 39-year-old Lionel Messi outdid his colleagues, scoring a hat-trick with Algeria. Amazingly, it turned out to be the first for an Argentinean at the global rallies and a record (no one at the age of 38 years and 357 days has made three accurate shots at the world championships).

It just so happened (according to the calendar) that Messi played in his sixth World Cup before anyone else in history. 20 years passed between his first and last (so far) goal. Moreover, the Argentine upset the son of the great Zinedine Zidane, Luca, who was defending the African goal... And Leo also equaled the German Miroslav Klose in goals at the world championships (both had 16 goals). And it seems that the seventeenth number will not have any business...

41-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo also has a chance to excel in his sixth tournament. However, on Wednesday he and his teammates could not be bothered to defeat the small team of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This team participated in the World Cup back in 1974 (the country was then called Zaire) and lost all three matches without scoring a single goal. But yesterday, the “leopards”, having slowed down the star Portuguese and poisoned a historical projectile in the “house” of Diogo Costa, were the authors of a wonderful sensation. But KriRo, as statisticians calculated, set a certain achievement with a minus sign: in 90 minutes he touched the ball only 25 times (this is his personal anti-record). Handsome himself was brief after the misfire with DR Congo: “This is not the end. But this is not the start we were hoping for.” You can't argue with that.

Let's watch and cheer further.

The first round ended with a duel between Uzbekistan and Colombia on the legendary Azteca. Fabio Cannavaro's team fought well and even managed to equalize the score in the 60th minute through the efforts of Abbosbek Faizullaev, but in the end they fell short of the surprise and left the field on the board (1:3). However, with the current format of the tournament, just one victory may be enough to qualify from the group. And the Italian coach of the Asian team said the following at a press conference: “We will remember this match at this stadium. This is a historical game. And she was useful to us. We will take into account all mistakes."