A Champion Crowned. Best World Cup of All Time?
Why This was the Best World Cup Ever?
By: Andrew Ferguson
The 2026 World Cup finished up fittingly in New York City this past weekend with Spain emerging as victors over Argentina. What better place to host on the international level than the Big Apple? Well, technically it was New Jersey. But that’s not the point. The United States (North America) put on an absolute show over the past month and a half hosting these games.
So was this the best World Cup of all time?
There are so many reasons to believe so and there are just as many reasons why the United States should be considered to host again, and sooner rather than later. And I’m not a biased American writing this, it’s coming from people all over the world.
The 2026 World Cup had more memorable moments in the games than I can remember. 4 years is a long time between games though so maybe I just forget what happened in 2022. We ended up with the top 4 teams in the world making the semi finals and the GOAT (Messi) of Argentina making it to the finals against the young, 19 year old prodigy in Lamine Yamal for Spain. FIFA couldn’t have asked for more than 2 of the biggest stars in the game squaring off in the World Cup Finals. The only downside, Argentina left their offense in Buenos Aires, and Spain dominated on defense as they had the entire tournament. Spain let up one goal in the entire Cup and deserved to be crowned with that historical defensive run.
In a World Cup where almost every game had some type of late game drama or high scoring affair, Spain’s defense clutched up and held Argentina to 0 shots and won 1-0 in extra time. The game itself wasn’t necessarily the finale everyone was looking for, but the scoreboard shows it was at least competitive. A complete opposite story to what happened the day before between France and England in the 3rd place game where a total of 10 goals were scored as England won 6-4.
I think Americans would get on board with soccer more if we had more games like England vs France’s 3rd place game. Hot take? I know the playstyle was a little more relaxed but I do know Americans like big trucks, guns and high powered offenses. Just to name a few.
The world witnessed all the stars show up in this World Cup and we got to dig more into the lives of guys like Haaland, Mbappe, Kane and Bellingham. But even with the lame 1-0 final to become World Cup champs, a lot of people were happy Spain beat Argentina because Argentina may not have had the same loveable players to root for that many other teams have, outside of Messi.
How many of you are Messi fans, but not Argentina fans? I’m raising one hand and typing with my other right now. Argentina (without Messi) isn’t a team I root for and their playstyle isn’t something I support. They are kind of dirty, not going to lie. I’m happy Messi won his World Cup in 2022 because that is what separates him from Ronaldo when it comes to comparing titles and championships. They both have multiple league titles, Champions League titles but Messi has the World Cup over Ronaldo. Messi = GOAT and we don’t have back-to-back world champs with Argentina.
Argentina as a team was bailed out multiple times by VAR and late game heroics after being dominated for most of their games. The big one came against Egypt where someone on Argentina’s pinky toe was stepped on and Egypt went down the field in one of the most beautiful sequences I’ve ever seen in soccer to score and go up 2-0. The goal was called back because of the flop and ‘devastating’ pinky toe injury. Egypt would then go on to score anyway and take a 2-0 lead, but in the end, blew the game and lost 3-2. But what would’ve been if it were 3-3 and going into extra time? We’ll never know. They also were being beaten by England. But 2 goals after the 85th minute during regulation and stoppage time saved them. But this behavior eventually caught up to them in the finals and the numbers didn’t lie about who was the better team. The only knock I have on this is that in most sports, after being dominated in such a fashion as Argentina did, they still had a chance to tie and even win the game at the end. The scoring is so tight in soccer that they take goals away so easily, and award them so easily over silly penalties just because they’re in a certain area of the field. So with that, some of the rules are the only parts of the game that Americans won’t fully jump on board with.
In the 2026 World Cup, there were nearly 40 goals called back due to VAR (Video Assistant Referee). And I can’t tell you how many times I would casually watch a game and a goal was disallowed because a sliver of a person’s body was offside. Imagine if hockey regulated their offside rule that hard. If you know the rule, it’s pretty casually monitored in hockey but it works great. It has to be blatant for them to call a foul. The VAR was never intended to be used in such a tedious fashion. So how do you fix it? Here’s my theory; once a team is in the 18 yard box of the opponents side of the field, there should be no offsides. Teams are compacted so tightly, why is it still in effect at that point? It doesn’t make sense and it’s a flaw in the rules of international soccer. Fix it for goodness sake!
And now we also have to deal with the fact that a big population of soccer fans think FIFA’s inconsistencies in the rules makes them a very corrupt organization. From 30,000 feet up, it does look like the better teams get special treatment, especially when an international superstar plays for that team. Money always talks but we can save this argument for the podcast or another article.
But as natural as it is to hate on soccer and their rules, there was so much good that came out of North America hosting this World Cup.
The ratings proved it. The US had over 63 million viewers, which broke an all time record in the country. Worldwide, it’s expected to break the 1.5 billion viewership record that Argentina vs. France had in 2022. The United States was in full showcase, and we delivered. Like we always do.
People from all over the world came into the United States to proudly represent their country and watch their team compete. And a lot of them went home, with aspirations to come back. And they wanted to take ranch dressing home with them. It’s a pretty easy recipe honestly, which is funny. We got to show off our delicious, flavorful food, big sports venues, and welcoming tourism that people fell in love with. A lot of our culture was embraced and social media was flying high with all sorts of love for the country from visitors. If you hate it here so bad, leave. Nobody cares.
Who else saw the Japanese guy tour Texas and try BBQ and love it? Who else saw the English fans at the Atlanta Braves game, creating a chant for their outfielder Michael Harris? The tourists from out of the country were an amazing group of people, the US made it safe for them and us, and it truly was a vacation to them. Just a spectacular job all around.
But what’s next for the World Cup? Well, 2030 already has its destination picked out with Portugal, Spain and Morocco. The next Cup will be the 100th year anniversary so they better take notes with how North America hosted to try to even top what we did. But with how well the United States hosted, I don’t think it will be long before they throw their name in the hat. 2034 will be hosted in Saudi Arabia (for now), but look to see if the US makes a push for those games and/or the 2038 Cup. It was reported that the 2026 World Cup had a $17.2 billion GDP impact. Keep em’ comin’!
But with how great this World Cup was, it came at the perfect time. I’m not sure how many more/new kids are out kicking a soccer ball around and have completely been sold on the game, or if this was just the perfect bridge until real, American football starts. I know that overall, I was entertained more than I ever have been with international soccer, and American football is that much closer. Thanks for the great games, for filling in the gap and for the entertainment. Fix some rules and I’ll be more excited for 2030. Maybe USA will clean up some of their mess as well.
