Has World Cup all been a bit ‘meh’? Where’s the giddiness, people? | OneFootball

The World Cup has not gripped everybody; we are waiting for everybody to get a little giddy after Lionel Messi arrived.

Hopefully England will get people going; mail us at theeditor@football365.com

When you go will you send back…A Letter from America

In homage to Alistair Cooke’s weekly “Letter from America”, a weekly commentary of topics in America, which ran for decades, I thought I would try something similar for the World Cup, so far.

It’s all been a bit “meh” so far. A couple of watchable games but most games consist of one team ceding possession and employing the low block. Perhaps this is not surprising as over a third of all the nations in the world are competing, which begs the question, why have qualifying rounds at all? Is it any wonder games are not fully sold out.

I realize FIFA sold its soul years ago but this World Cup exemplifies everything wrong with the pursuit of the might dollar. Tickets are either exorbitant or seats go unfilled. Ads below the Scoreboard, Hydration Breaks used as a means for more advertising. Then we have just about every American company, who probably couldn’t spell “soccer” running appalling ads trying to connect to the masses. David Beckham going to Home Depot? I would really like to know if anyone buys anything from these companies because they are the “official sponsor of the World Cup.”

At lease the rest of the world does not have to put up with American color commentators and pundits. Perhaps the prize clown is Alexi Lalas, who seems to be a hybrid of shock jock and a Crusty the Clown. I will never complain about Gary, Jamie, Roy, etc. ever again!

Closer to the field, the standard of refereeing has been much better than the EPL. I am sure their increased power, such as time clocks, etc. is definitely helping but it does sort of put our EPL referees to shame.

It remains to be seen if the standards will improve as the rounds progress. I fear that come the Quarters, teams will be exhausted. We still have a month to go! Adidasmufc (Portugal to beat France in the final)

Them’s the breaks

Excellent goal by Mbappe, who timed his run perfectly to beat the hydration break. Dave H, Bucks

Asterisk this World Cup

I’ve read a few emails which are against drinks breaks at the World Cup and I agree and I also have a question. I’m pretty sure that the laws of the game allow a drinks break for up to 1 minute. The drinks breaks are 3 minutes (presumably for advertising). Are there any readers who can clarify. If I’m right then this World Cup doesn’t count and should have an asterisk. If it’s not playing within the laws then they may as well make other changes, bigger goals, bicycle kick goal counts double, score from your own half, there’s 3 goals etc. David

Drinks breaks are here to stay because money

All this talk about the merits (or not) of hydration breaks has got me thinking about whether they are here to stay or not. I think they are here to stay, and the reason will be TV money.

The TV rights to Premier League are worth more if hydration breaks are mandatory. If it costs £100m to broadcast the Premier League for an entire season, with 2x uninterrupted halves of 45 minutes per game, then it will cost, say, £150m per season to broadcast that same season with the hydration breaks. That’s 2x more 3 minutes advertising spots, per game, for every game. The additional advertising revenue will push the cost of the rights up.

And conversely, if the Premier League absolutely insist on having 2x 45 minutes halves of uninterrupted coverage per game, then it will reduce that £100m price down to £75m, because TV stations have had the taste of hydration breaks due to this World Cup.

I think next season we should still likely have the 2x 45 minutes halves, as deals are in place already. In the 2027 season we have the likes Paramount joining the fray for the Champions League. I can see that adopting these hydration breaks. The Premier League will be next. Sky, who will be desperate to keep the rights they already have will have no choice but to factor hydration break advertising revenue in to their bid if they want to stop Paramount, ABC, etc… winning the next Premier League tender. Dale May, Swindon Wengerite

It all comes back to Arsenal eventually…

Well done to Arsenal – the 7th wealthiest club in world football for inspiring Cape Verdi – the 67th ranked team in the world with a population of 0.5 million.

Now that is a team who are entitled to park the bus. Shunt – LFC

Bale v Salah?

So I was chatting to my mate about all time Premier League elevens and I made the comment that Bale was a much better player than Salah. Salah just has longevity and a better club side. Stick Bale in that Liverpool team and the assists and goals would be more. That’s obvious isn’t it? Right? Or am I being mad? Rob, Dorset

Dixon copying Lawro not the best idea

Hey guys, writing here ahead of the England v Croatia game.

Dixon is getting a lot of justified criticism from people during this World Cup. I think he’s made the massive career mistake over the past few years of imitating Mark Lawrenson while covering England games.

Utterly miserable, acting as if everything that’s happening is either awful, mundane, or just beneath him. Just basically bringing everyone down and killing the vibe. If he’s still the main co-comms at the next tournament, ITV will have dropped the ball. I mean, they already have.

But it also reminds me of when Lawrenson and John Motson were nearing the end of their comms partnership: Motson, who was a true devotee of the game, had clearly been watching old school footage at the time and spoke about how one of the England players reminded him of *insert some obscure footballer from 1931 who literally nobody in the audience had heard of*. Lawrenson basically treated him like his elderly Grandpa and shrugged it off, and his bosses decided to cut Motson loose not too long after.

Right now, I’d take Motson over Lawrenson. And I’d advise Dixon about emulating Lawrenson. Phil, Manchester

If it looks like racism…

“World Cup Ruined By Woke” is not a claim I’d go for when one of the three hosts is ruled by the Orange Baby, who had his Christian crusaders invade one of his country’s (and FIFA’s) guests at said event. For no apparent reason other than to drive up the cost of living for everyone on the planet.

Obviously then, to the tofu-eating Wokerati, when a white man pops a white supremacist, he’s popping a white supremacist sign. Any one with an anti-woke (almost literally “anti-aware”) agenda says that any concern about this is insane. This is World Cup discourse in 2026.

Now I certainly lean closer to the former – love tofu, not gonna lie (as well as steak before you start moaning) – but I agree that from what we know, FIFA have made the right call at this point. We just don’t have the context to know why the fella has made a very deliberate looking upside down ok sign, purely by chance, apparently. And even if he has it was created as a joke, as the internet will tell you.

Two things though. Firstly, whilst it was created as a hoax to trick said wokerati (tofu eating or otherwise) it was not only created as a hoax to goad liberals (the opposite of liberal being….). So successful it was, it was then adopted by increasing “right-leaning” people, right up (or down?) to actual white supremacists.

However, there are other uses of the sign and additional context is required to know the true intentions of the user. All this is – which William failed to mention, he was so keen to set off his anti-woke pistol is also available on the internet (see the ADL website for more information, the page is surprisingly balanced.)

Overall I think FIFA got this right but we shouldn’t forget the context that this is happening in a country where an overtly white supremacist government currently rules (you can argue that point I suppose, but adverse arguments are weak). White supremacist symbols are also often subtle by design – it used to be that white supremacy was bad after all – so it is entirely possible that Evans knew exactly what he was doing here in a land where this is increasingly permissible. I will just reiterate that I agree with the way FIFA have dealt with it in this occasion.

I wonder if the anti-woke brigade would be so kind to Mohammed Mohebi after his questionable celebration yesterday. It certainly looked to me like he was pretending to shoot the crowd. Given his country’s fight against his hosts, the context is there. But he says that’s not what he meant to do…. Ashmundo (why can’t we all stop being dicks to each other?)

Dear Joyless Fans…

I understand that the more liberal among you don’t like this thing called democracy.

This is not an email to discuss Plato’s “philosopher kings” but simply to point out that the majority of Americans who cared enough to vote, did so for the “Orange Hitler” and the majority of Brits who cared enough, did so for Brexit.

You might not like being in the minority, it might consume your soul with unhappiness and rage, but please don’t take it out on football.

I couldn’t care less where the World Cup is. It could be in a liberal utopia like Canada (it sort of is), a corrupt narco state like Mexico (ditto), an orange dictatorship (ditto again), North Korea or an alien planet with horrific alien rights abuses (assuming gravity and air composition mirror those on Earth). I’d even watch it if it was in China.

Please lighten up and keep your misery to yourself.

It’s the World Cup for fcuks sake.