Football without faith is nothing so Infantino is playing with fire at World Cup

"What makes sport great is that it is unknowable. Strange things happen. A team suddenly score twice in a couple of minutes. A player does something brilliant. A player does something terrible. A referee makes an inexplicable decision. Because it is low-scoring, it is perhaps less predictable than other sports. It is viable for a weaker side to defend for 90 minutes and hope to win with a counter or a set play. A team can have 30 shots and their opponents one and still lose. Miracles happen. Remarkable acts of resilience happen. Incredible denouements happen. It means something because it is real.

Script it and there is an emptiness.

But that’s where the doubts begin to mass. What if the big teams are being favoured for financial reasons? Should Messi have been sent off for planting his studs into Aissa Mandi’s calf in the game against Algeria? (And if he had been, would the resulting ban have been suspended using article 27, as Balogun’s was?) Was the penalty that Argentina won against Austria really a clear and obvious error that required the intervention of the video assistant referee? Did Alexis Mac Allister commit a foul in the buildup to Messi’s goal in that game? Why was an Egypt goal ruled out for a foul when Argentina’s winner was not?"

more in the article by JONATHAN WILSON

Football without faith is nothing so Infantino is playing with fire at World Cup | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian