The World Was Meant to Meet

Airbnb ran a commercial all summer with a line I cannot shake: the world was meant to meet. Six words, maybe the best thing anyone wrote about this tournament, and nobody at FIFA wrote it.

It is all over now, and I already feel a certain emptiness. Thirty-nine days, forty-eight nations, one hundred and four matches, sixteen cities, three countries and 6,810,966 people through the turnstiles, double the record set here in 1994. Whatever else the summer of 2026 was, it was the largest sporting gathering this continent has ever staged, and some of it happened ninety minutes up the road in Atlanta. We will not see its like again for a long time.

The Bronze, the Ache and the Row

You already know where my heart sits. England went to Atlanta on July 15^th and lost a semifinal 2-1 to Argentina, leading with less than twenty minutes to the end. The name of Lionel Messi was linked to both goals, the winner arriving in stoppage time. I watched it with my head in my hands, like a man at a funeral.

Then three days later in Miami, in a match nobody wanted to play, England beat France 6-4 in a game many are calling the most exciting of the entire six weeks. Declan Rice scored inside three minutes. Bukayo Saka took a hat-trick. Jude Bellingham dribbled past three Frenchmen to end it. Ten goals, the most in any World Cup match since 1982. It was ludicrous, and it was our best finish since 1966. The funeral may be premature. Third is not first, however. Sixty years of near misses are not redeemed by a bronze medal in Florida. But I have supported this team long enough to take the medal and the ache together and call it a good summer.

Norway gave us the thing I will remember longest. Twenty-eight years away, and they arrived, beat Brazil 2-1, reached a first quarterfinal, and then thousands of strangers sat down on the ground and pulled imaginary oars. Nobody thought history could repeat itself, but oh, it most surely did. The Viking Row travelled from Norwegian stadiums to Times Square, to escalators in Boston, to a PGA fairway, to the floor of the Norwegian parliament.

And one man refused. Emil Lappen, sitting with his arms folded amid a sea of rowing countrymen, explained to Sky News that the celebration was derivative of Iceland’s thunderclap and historically inaccurate. Vikings, he insisted, did not row like that. I adore this man. A continent in ecstasy, and one Norwegian defending the archaeological record. That is humanity in a single frame. Integrity and authenticity matter as much in FIFA football as they do in all of life.

That was the tournament’s real gift. Not the goals, or even the matches, but rather the festive nationalism, the way to celebrate the human tribe and still love our own. Flags worn as capes rather than weapons. Cape Verde and Curacao arriving on the biggest stage and belonging there. Whole nations awake at four in the morning. For six weeks the world met, and mostly it liked what it found.

The Americans

And so, what shall we say of the host nation and its team, as FIFA 2026 recedes into history? As for the team, the United States entered ranked sixteenth and lived up to it. They came through the group, and their round of 16 tie with Belgium became the most-watched soccer match in American history before it turned into a 4-1 defeat in Seattle.

We should be honest about what preceded it. Folarin Balogun’s red card debacle was one of the low points and shadow realities of the World Cup. When Infantino got lobbied and the card was suspended, Belgium (indeed, everyone) was outraged and so was I. Belgium won by three, which is its own commentary.

But the team and the nation can stand tall, alongside Mexico and Canada, in staging simply a fabulous tournament when we met and being wonderful hosts in the process. Except for Boston. Someone had failed to bring enough supplies to the party, and the Scots decided that they would drink the city dry as a result.

Will this beautiful game of football be lifted in the public mind permanently because of the wonderful hosting and the exciting USMNT? Partly. The last time the U.S. hosted in 1994 was supposed to convert America and instead built a league, slowly, over thirty years. The question was never whether Americans would watch in July. They did, in record numbers. The question is on a wet Tuesday in October. That will remain to be answered in due course.

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

Lionel Messi, at 39, the oldest outfield player ever to start a World Cup final, scored eight goals, took the Silver Ball, and walked off at MetLife in tears. Cristiano Ronaldo, in a record sixth World Cup, became the first man to score in six editions, then went out to Spain in Dallas, also weeping. And Harry Kane, our ‘Arry from England, will be thirty-six when FIFA 2030 kicks off. I wager that England is not going to let Harry leave the room just yet with Messi and Ronaldo.

And then there is the photograph. In 2007, for a Barcelona charity calendar, a twenty-year-old Messi bathed an infant from Mataro named Lamine Yamal. On Sunday night that baby, nineteen now, collected a winner’s medal on the same field. The game hands itself on whether we are ready or not. Yamal consoled Messi in his arms, as Messi had done nineteen years ago to Yamal. The world is meant to meet, and sometimes in the strangest of ways.

Only a Team Wins

Kylian Mbappe won the Golden Boot, broke the all-time World Cup scoring record, and flew home short of even the bronze. Messi took the Silver Ball and lost. Spain conceded one goal all tournament and sent its Golden Ball home with Rodri, a defensive midfielder whose job is to make other people better.

And of course, Spain had Yamal. Spain was not about Yamal. Even as the rest of the world is wanting to make a rock star and icon of Yamal for another four world cups, I suspect the Spanish Football Association is too clever to fall for that idolizing. Eleven players who each knew where the other ten were standing. Sometimes Spain seemed a bit boring. That’s what winning teams do, without glamor or stars or magic. Just hard determined and skilled grit, as a team. After 30 years inside institutions, I would put that on a wall: rock stars collect accolades, but only a team wins the thing.

The Closing Ceremony and the Dawn of FIFA 2030

The presentation was, candidly, an odd tableau: Infantino, President Trump, President Sheinbaum, Prime Minister Carney and assorted dignitaries in tailored suits, booing audible beneath the confetti. The best-dressed men on that field were soaked through, grass-stained and shaking. They had earned the light and that light shines on the path to FIFA 2030.

In 2030 the centenary tournament goes to Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with three opening matches in South America, where it all began in 1930. Europe and Africa, united in celebrating a flat green field and a round ball, and two teams seeking to enthrall and win. I will be seventy. My wife and I will find a screen, and we will be there in every way that matters. Our children are already telling us to forget the screen and start the process of finding tickets for the next magical moment for humanity. It will be across the Atlantic and it will bring between now and then all the joys and heartbreaks of this very special and beautiful game. Our children are right. We need to be there.

Thank you for allowing me to share my passion with you these past six weeks. I did so because the world was meant to meet. And, meet again we shall.

Christopher Blake is president of Middle Georgia State University. He is a passionate supporter of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, and the men’s and women’s national football teams of England and the United States.