World Cup 2026

Mexico City, June 12th

Started the day with telling Marcelo that he ruined my day in 2018, when he scored against Bayern in the Champions League Semis. He promised me he wouldn’t do it again.

It’s early to say, but one of the defining characteristics of this World Cup gets visible early on, I think. This tournament has no hub. In most World Cups I’ve seen before fans and media centered in one, sometimes 2 places, and travelled from there to the games.
Berlin and Munich 2006, Qatar in 2022, Paris in 1998, Overwhelmed Tokio and excited Seoul in 2002, even hostile Moscow in 2018 played that role. The hubs became fan meeting points, black market centers, celebrity hangouts, energetic cores. Not here…strolling through the streets of CDMX the last days I have rarely seen any football shirt that’s not Mexican. A few South African yellows, a group of Germans (why do German football fans abroad always remind me of Mallorca?), a Norwegian couple. Global media is here, global fans are not.

Despite the victory the Mexican public reacted remarkably subdued. A few cars on Av Insurgentes pretend to be a big party, but very little open joy, no comparison to Brazil 2014. There is a certain melancholia with Mexicans anytime, the problems around the opening game (army and police galore) and the demonstrations in the city center definitely don’t help. Public talk is about fragile social conditions and the whereabouts of thousands of victims of organized crime. Not the lighthearted stuff World Cup parties are made off.

I’ll leave Mexico tomorrow, and there is very little chance I am returning over this World Cup, if I understood that bastard of a game plan correctly. I’ll miss this place, always, for its sensuality, its smoothness, its ability to handle chaos and hurdles. I thought I’d find some sort of World Cup intensity in ten streets of Mexico, but it shouldn’t be. It just feels that it’s not very likely that this World Cup will make the locals happy…unless, well, a miracle happens on the pitch..

Fun fact? The favorites of the locals: Japan and Bosnia. The Japanese appeared in Monterrey cowboy hats, sharp 3 piece suits and impeccable tailoring, and cleaned the dressing room, again, after training. Looking smashing and behaving well, a great combination. The Bosnians claimed the role of the happy, proud, slightly anarchist underdog, and their song is played up and down on all social media and radio. One thing is sure: this tournament might not be the best marketing for the US, but it definitely is for a small Balkan state most locals have never heard of before.

It’s an airport day tomorrow, for my travel companion and myself, with 3 flights for Tino and 2 for me, before arriving in Houston, and for a game, that hopefully will remind me of the first German game in 2002, Sapporro.