It Was Real To Me Darn It

There was a Bronze Age; have you heard of a Gold Age?
(Source: r/ThreeLions)

Spain have fittingly won the 2026 World Cup with a decisive 1-0 in extra time over defending champions and top haramball proponents Argentina, and while it may seem strange to apply the "decisive" appellation to a single-goal victory, Spain having twenty shots (twelve on target) to Argentina's zero should lend the claim some support. There was no shortage of entertainment before, in between and after the match itself too, beginning with a failed attempt by Ethan Hunt to loot the trophy by distracting the audience with a rambling speech, followed by Bieber and company putting up the first World Cup half-time show, and concluding with Argentina and Spain starting a bonus mixed martial arts brawl as an encore for GEOTUS - who stuck around after presenting the victors their spoils.

As a spectacle, however, the game paled in comparison to the bronze medal match, that saw England oust France 6-4 in a ten-goal circus... and somehow coming close to bottling a four-goal lead. Bukayo Saka's hat-trick was richly deserved, and may support the previous post's suggestion to sub him on against Argentina - and also the statement from a little further back that perhaps they were the best football team... had the management not messed it all up. Granted, it's hard to extrapolate from a no-stakes game to the actual final, and to be honest Spain would still have to be the clear favourites, but England may well have put up stiffer resistance than the Argies.

And for the epilogue to the Balogun saga, despite the European UEFA supposedly seeking an alternative to replace Infantino in the immediate aftermath (alongside the UEFA president boycotting the final), the sitting FIFA president has already secured the endorsement of over 200 of the 211 member nations, making his re-election something of a foregone conclusion. Calls for sanctions by the International Olympic Committee have also fallen through, and were ironic anyway given that the IOC may well be the usual frontrunners for "most corrupted sporting association" to begin with - with Infantino being a recent former UEFA secretary-general too. At some point, one has to figure being on the take as simply part of the job description, and perhaps they should just formalize the "highest bidder wins" process to maximize transparency.