Sport and politics, what else is there?

Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does

So, that’s all over then, a new champion has been decided, and it’ll be another four years before we have to worry about it again. No, not the election of a new Prime Minister, we’ll probably be doing that way sooner than four years. I mean the men’s FIFA World Cup, which ended last night, after what seemed like 490 years of group stages, knock-out stages, and controversy.

It’s no good England fans and the media mithering about what could have been, ‘it’ wasn’t, as it turns out, on its way home after all. Who would have thought that Spain, that nation of tapas and tourism, could beat the reigning champions, the mighty-Messi’s Argentina? Most people, actually, bearing in mind Spain are now holders of three shiny cups, having won the Euros and the Women’s World Cup in 2023, as well as being the best team on the field last night.

Had the semi-finals fallen differently would France have beaten Argentina? Maybe. Could England have beaten Spain? Maybe, had they played the game as they did against France, and not the one against Argentina.

What was interesting about the final though was that there was one team which, as the tournament progressed, neither Spain nor Argentina could beat in the standard 90 minutes’ playing time. Spain are deservedly the holders of the World Cup, but the winners of the zeitgeist surrounding the tournament are the players from Cape Verde. A teeny, tiny set of islands in the middle of the Atlantic. To be honest, had they not had that unfortunate own goal, the Argentina game could have gone to penalties and, it could have been a very different story. As an illustration of just how much things have changed for them, look at what happened to Cape Verde’s goalkeeper Vozinha. 40 years old, without a club to go back to. His followers on Instagram which were a pretty respectable 50,000 at the start of the tournament, now number somewhere over 27 million. If, as seems to be the modern way, your social media standing is what defines your success, those are winning numbers.

What does Cape Verde’s experience tell us about things? That you don’t have to be the biggest, the richest or the most famous to get noticed and be successful. I’m shoe-horning a metaphor in here, but Cape Verde’s journey just shows the strength of the little guy. Of the independent merchants in this sector, so many of whom are playing the game in front of them, meeting the challenges the way they want to, with resilience, determination and the way they want to, not the way the wider market dictates.

I’m aware that this is less insightful comment than out-and-out cheesiness, but then cheesiness did seem to be the order of the day. Wayne Rooney has rocketed in my estimation for his spot-on analysis of the Half-Time Show.