{"text":[[{"start":3.55,"text":"This article is an on-site version of our Swamp Notes newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every Monday and Friday. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newsletters"}],[{"start":17.05,"text":"It is just a game, of course. I have nevertheless picked an emotionally inopportune moment to write about America’s successful hosting of this World Cup — England having just been ejected from the tournament. So I’m not the picture of effervescence. But I will push the ball up the field regardless. "}],[{"start":34.6,"text":"Against much of my profession’s expectations, the 2026 World Cup has been a genuine success, and credit for that goes to the Americans. I use the term “American” in its broader sense to include co-hosts Mexico and Canada, which deserve their share of the applause. Yet almost all of the pessimism was directed at conditions in the US. I will not name names — and none work for the Financial Times — but it was common among US and non-US media outlets alike to forecast a disastrous tournament. Among the recurring predictions were that fears of ICE thuggery would inhibit fans from travelling to the US, that tightening of visa requirements would likewise deter them, that Fifa’s dynamic pricing would alienate the ordinary supporter, and that Airbnb and other retailers would scalp them. Some of this happened, as it often does. But the 2026 World Cup is a tale of things that went right."}],[{"start":92.5,"text":"I choose this topic because I believe that my profession rarely indulges in self-critical postmortems. Most of this World Cup’s nattering nabobs of negativism were political journalists, not sports reporters, who were looking ahead to the actual competition. But there was a tendency among the former to expect the worst. At one point, something scandalous did happen; Donald Trump intervened to get a suspension of a red card against America’s star striker, Folarin Balogun. I wrote about that a couple of weeks ago (“Trump and the Fifa debacle”). Alas, the victims of Trump’s move were US fans and players, particularly Balogun, who seemed psychologically upended by all the attention in America’s losing game against Belgium. Fifa’s chief, Gianni Infantino, should never have caved to White House pressure."}],[{"start":141.8,"text":"But it turned out to be an isolated incident that did not mar the tournament as a whole. In addition to packed stadiums, the festival’s atmosphere was exuberant. I write this from high up in the Rockies, where I am attending the annual Aspen security forum, which is crammed with national security figures, senior corporate executives, dozens of ambassadors and media. The conference was halted for both semi-finals and almost all seemed to watch in rapt attention. "}],[{"start":168.20000000000002,"text":"At a smaller dinner at a private home last Saturday evening, the entire party piled into the TV room to watch Argentina beat Switzerland (I know how you feel Switzerland). That gathering of administration figures, former secretaries of state, national security advisers and the like commented blow by blow on soccer tactics as the game reached its crescendo. It is one thing to hear millennial Americans comment on football; quite another to listen to relatively knowledgeable asides about the referee and so on from foreign policy boomers and ageing Gen-Xers. A non-American friend of mine travelling on the Acela between Washington and New York reported that almost every passenger was watching the game on their cell phones. “One of the reasons this World Cup has taken hold is that it has been a safe space for a deeply divided country,” he texted. “People haven’t had much joy recently.”"}],[{"start":218.3,"text":"Several times over the last six weeks, American friends have said something along the lines of, “What will we do with all our spare time when this is over?” Being American, almost all of them had a second team to fall back upon after the US had been knocked out. Some were won over by Norway’s Viking rowers or Scotland’s serried bagpipers earlier in the tournament. Others got swept up with Morocco or Cape Verde. Being British, I rooted for Scotland and England. Both having been eliminated, I have now switched my loyalty to Spain. Please, don’t let Argentina win again."}],[{"start":255.4,"text":"I am turning this week to my even more grief-stricken colleague Gideon Rachman. Gideon, unlike me, you actually go to World Cup games and pay full whack. Is this your fifth consecutive one? I recall you pointing out to me that if fans were prepared to go to Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022, they were unlikely to be deterred by ICE. Your sanguine forecast proved correct. You went to two games — England vs Ghana and England vs Norway. Is my encomium for America’s hosting deserved or were there flaws that I didn’t notice?"}],[{"start":288.6,"text":"Recommended reading"}],[{"start":290.25,"text":"On the same topic, do read the FT’s star striker, Simon Kuper, on this World Cup. He’s been churning out great insights but I liked this one particularly on why western Europe maintains such a stranglehold on the global game . Let’s hope Simon is still right on Sunday. "}],[{"start":306.9,"text":"Do also read Matthew Rose in the New York Times on why England lost. Though Matthew captured the spirit of a nation where it’s the hope that kills you. I think the England-Argentina game could easily have gone the other way."}],[{"start":322.79999999999995,"text":"My column this week argues that the Democrats are not in great shape. “The party is split between a radicalised younger vote, which is increasingly Maga-like in its tactics and tone, and an ageing establishment that is short of ideas,” I write. "}],[{"start":338.4,"text":"Gideon Rachman replies"}],[{"start":340.65,"text":"Hi, Ed. You underestimate my fervour. This is actually the eighth World Cup I have been to. The first was also in the US — in 1994."}],[{"start":349.84999999999997,"text":"So how does this one compare? Pretty good, I would say. The most important thing is that the football has been spectacular — with some of the world’s greatest players at the top of their game: Mbappé, Messi, Haaland and Bellingham have all had brilliant tournaments. Even the innovation of expanding the number of teams, which I was sceptical about, has worked — because it has given us great underdog performances from the likes of Cape Verde."}],[{"start":376.45,"text":"I also agree with you that most of the scare stories about the tournament were overblown. ICE behaved themselves. The policing and security were efficient and not too heavy-handed. The atmosphere in the host cities was fun. Unlike in Brazil and South Africa, there were no fears about street crime."}],[{"start":397.15,"text":"That said, I do have a couple of gripes. The stadiums are largely terrific, when you can actually get to them. But they are often very inaccessible. In Moscow and Doha, you could get the subway to the matches. In Brasília, you could walk to the ground which was right in the centre of the city. But “Boston” stadium is actually in the middle of a motorway a long way from the city. You had to pre-book a train or a coach to get there. Miami stadium looked like it would be easier to get to, but it was almost as inaccessible because the roads to the stadium were all choked with traffic. The only World Cup stadium that I can remember that was more difficult to get to than Miami or Boston was Soccer City in Soweto in South Africa."}],[{"start":440.5,"text":"My second complaint is the weather. It is unfair to the players to ask them to perform at the height of a Miami or New Jersey summer. Some stadiums like Atlanta and Dallas were covered and air-conditioned, which is great. But I was soaked in sweat simply walking to my seat in Miami, the venue for the quarter-final against Norway. It must have been physically shattering for the teams to have to play 120 minutes in that kind of heat. I wonder whether that is part of the reason why the England players seemed to run out of energy in the last 30 minutes of the semi-final with Argentina, which took place just five days later."}],[{"start":477.8,"text":"But maybe that’s the pain of defeat talking. Overall, it was a great experience. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"