This epic tournament planned over several years, taking place in 16 cities across North America, kicked off today.
It was something of an anti-climax. Along Steinway Street in Astoria a couple of days earlier, stores and cafes were adding extra Tunisian, Algerian, Moroccan, Egyptian flags in anticipation with posters in doorways announcing that venues will be showing the matches. For the kick-off game between Mexico and South Africa I was at home.
The corporate performance of the whole thing felt elevated, with the newly-introduced hydration breaks brought to you by Coca-Cola’s PowerAid and the polished FOX broadcast. Thank goodness though that football halves are 45 minutes long meaning 45 minutes without ads. FOX has the exclusive English language rights in the US, Telemundo has the exclusive Spanish-language rights here - but when you zoom out to look at the broadcasting rights everywhere there’s something mind-blowing and boundary-blurring still, in the sheer reach of the event.
Mexico won handily 2-0. Their opponent South Africa got two penalties and closed out the game with just nine players on the pitch. A colleague in Mexico City described a bifurcated sensation during the day, featuring the excitement of the football and the sounds of helicopters over the city monitoring protests by parents of the disappeared. Here in the US, the morning’s headlines were i. The Knicks historic comeback from a 29 point deficit to beat the Spurs in game 4 of the NBA finals 107 to 106, and ii. new attacks by the Trump administration against Iran.
On a smaller plane…CMH’s soccer practice this evening was cancelled due to extreme heat: the same heat that many of the professionals will be playing in during their World Cup games (will those PowerAid sponsored hydration breaks be enough?).
