Jack Tame: The unique joys of a Football World Cup

Tell you what, there aren’t many times in sport I find myself supporting an Australian team. By not many I mean basically none – usually, I’d be delighted to see them getting pumped. The Football World Cup is maybe the only the only occasion I feel differently because it’s about the only time the Aussies feel like genuine underdogs. They’ve had a tough few hours, this morning.

The underdog dynamic is one of the unique joys of a Football World Cup. Take Cabo Verde. I’d guess most people wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to start trying to find them on a map, and yet they held Spain, the talent-stacked and one of the obvious favourites for the title, to a nil-all draw. Who would’ve thought scoring no goals could be so exciting?!

Another unique joy I love about the World Cup —and I know this sounds bad— is the advertising. You just get biggest brands in the world, with the biggest creative budgets, combining with the biggest icons in the sport. And because football is so simple, it lends itself to really clever little concepts.

Take McDonalds. I know, I know, I know... But they posted an ad the other day designed for the TikTok generation – vertical video, designed for phones. I don’t even think it’s on TV. But it’s honestly genius in its simplicity.

Lamine Yamal, the Spanish wunderkind, just 18-years-old and one of the biggest names in world sport, sets up a phone camera in front of a McDonalds, the golden arches on a pole behind him. Ronaldinho, the Brazilian icon steps into shot. Both of them are in casual clothes. You’d swear they’d just bumped into each other on the street. They toss up a football and each casually juggle it a few times. The shot never changes. It looks exactly like it would look if you or I leaned our phones against the curb and recorded it. After a few seconds, Yamal kicks the ball high and it juuuuust misses the McDonalds golden arches. Another ball immediately rolls into shot, they each juggle it again, and Ronaldinho kicks it up, perfectly slotting the ball through the little gap in the McDonalds ‘M’. They laugh, and that’s it.  No words. No meals. No biting cheeseburgers. So simple. So shareable. And from a creative perspective, honestly, so clever.

The third thing I love about Football World Cups —aside from the football— are the fans. I just don’t think there is another sporting contest where you have huge, organised groups of fans coming from all corners of the planet. The Olympics might attract people from all over, but they’re not organised in the same way. And I love how different nations have their own quirks and traditions.

The Scottish fans have completely taken over Boston. An estimated 20,000 travelled to the city for their teams matches against Haiti and Morocco. The US media is awash with stories about the Scottish fans literally drinking bars dry around the city. After their first World Cup win in 36 years, they marched across the city, led by pipers, and completely took over Fenway Park for the Boston Red Sox. It was so funny watching it... American baseball fans outnumbered in a stadium by Scots in kilts, singing Flower of Scotland.

But then add to that the fans from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of them were singing and dancing in the stands, but they have a tradition where one man stands as a perfect statue for all of his team’s game. He commemorates his country’s first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, the man who helped lead Congo to independence from Belgium. He wears beautiful bright clothes and amidst the frenzy of the activity around him, even when his team scores, he stands above the masses, perfect and almost unsettlingly still for the whole game.

Still, how you could go past the Japanese? I’m not sure there’s a greater act of soft power in all of world sport than having fans who carefully collect all of the rubbish and clean up the grandstands at the end of every game.

For all of the controversy and all of the appalling grift, there can be no denying it is the global game. I haven’t even mentioned the football. But I for one am utterly absorbed.