Friday evening, we were so, so close to the kind of World Cup history that inspires legends and leaves scars. Cape Verde, population 590,000, ranked 64th in the world, took defending champion Argentina and the immortal Leo Messi all the way to within sight of anything-can-happen penalty kicks.
Yes, Argentina eventually hung on to win — that’s what Argentina does — but when you give the Almighty a nosebleed, you’ve done something right.
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FIFA’s expansion of the tournament from 32 to 48 teams hit the fútbol world with all the expected cynicism — Don’t try to convince us this is for competitive benefit; we know this is just a ploy to increase ratings, increase the number of games, increase revenue for FIFA.
And yes, expansion was exactly that, funneling untold millions more in broadcast fees, sponsor activations, ticket revenues and all the other ancillary revenue streams FIFA vacuums up every World Cup. It’s a perfect distillation of the bottom-line, revenue-above-all corporate mentality: If people are willing to pay for something, well, just give them more of it. What’s the problem?
The idea of expanding the field by 50 percent didn’t exactly meet with universal approval when it was announced nearly a decade ago. European Club Association president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge called the idea “actually nonsense,” while then-Man City manager Pep Guardiola said the move would “kill the players.” The concerns sure seemed valid at the time … before the World Cup went to, you know, Russia in 2018 and recalibrated the entire world’s soccer schedule in 2022.
Vozinha waves to fans after Argentina eliminated Cape Verde from the World Cup.
(REUTERS / REUTERS)
But here’s the thing about FIFA expansion: Like so much of the World Cup, it grew far past its greedy origins to become something glorious and beautiful. The sight of a tiny nation from an underrepresented corner of the world stepping up and shining in the spotlight is something that never gets old, and thanks to the increased field, we’ve already seen it time and time again this World Cup, through both the group and knockout stages. That’s how you get Cape Verde nearly dethroning Argentina, and how you get:
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34th-ranked Paraguay taking out 12th-ranked Germany in penalty kicks, and then holding mighty France scoreless for an entire half.
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41st-ranked Congo DR holding Portugal and Cristiano Ronaldo scoreless, and later reaching the knockout rounds to throw a scare into fourth-ranked England.
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88th-ranked Haiti running boot-to-boot with sixth-ranked Morocco for much longer than anyone expected.
Now I will freely admit that expansion-is-good is a treacherous argument in America these days. When we’re not being all worldly and international, we’re consumed with the great American sport of football — note the spelling, no accent marks — and, specifically, the college version. College football is in the midst of massively expanding its own playoff system, and pretty much nobody thinks expansion of college football is a good idea, for so many reasons. (Start with the fact that there are four times as many CFPs as World Cups.)
But it’s impossible to argue with the results so far. Yes, the stars will carry the show from here on out. But the first weeks of the World Cup have been a thrilling ride for nations from six continents. For the entirety of its existence, the World Cup has been the province of European and South American countries. Africa and Asia aren’t yet ready to bust into that bloc just yet, but they’re getting closer every time.
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Oh, and let’s be honest. We’re not stopping at 48. You can’t keep FIFA away from a new revenue fountain. And now, there’s a ready-made reason for growing the field by a whole new mass of nations. After all, did you see what the 64th-ranked squad just did?
