This World Cup tournament has given us very beautiful moments but they have been overshadowed by many controversies.
t's been beautiful watching African teams put some fear into other continents' teams, especially football superpowers of Europe and America.
Morocco has followed up their unprecedented semifinal finish in 2022 with a solid showing this time around. They have shown that 2022 was not a fluke. Cape Verde deserves special mention being world cup debutants and playing so beautifully against Spain, Uruguay and Argentina. We also saw Ghana refusing to let England win their fixture together (a match in which goalkeeper Asare made some incredible saves). Jude Bellingham graciously said, subsequently, that the man of the match award should have gone to a Ghanaian player and not him.
We have seen beautiful moments like Norway sending my beloved Brazil out in the second round; Messi breaking the all time highest goalscorer record once and again; Ronaldo scoring a brace and being the oldest player to do so in the world cup whilst also creating the record of the first player to score in six consecutive world cup tournaments; Mbappe and France being as sturdily good as they have been in the last 8 years.
In deed we have seen many beautiful moments but they have been blighted by many controversial ones that leave so much to be desired and potentially bring the game we all so much love into disrepute. How can we absolve the referees of blame of very dodgy decisions like ignoring Messi's leg breaking tackle on Algeria's Aissa Mandi and then sending of Folarin Balogun (USA) for the same offence in another match. There have been a lot of many other wrong calls of offside and unchecked bad tackles and you begin to wonder why the Video Assistant Refereeing system, VAR, was introduced. Of what use is a system that's supposed to reduce, to the barest minimum, cases of bad officiating when it continuously fails to give the right calls.
Many of us were delighted to have the VAR but it has been underwhelming in its impact at club competitions. However, one would expect FIFA to make sure that their competition is not tainted with the failure of VAR having had past experience of dodgy decisions that are still controversial. Maradona's "hand of God" against England in 1986 can never be erased from history.
There is also the apparent show of partisanship by FIFA president Infantino. He was recorded to have said that, "I suffered a lot with Argentina", after Argentina's "little deserved" victory
over Cape Verde- a case of the umpire being part of the contestants. Isn't it shameful for Infantino to be loyal to any particular nation? In fact it smacks of corruption. Now let's juxtapose with the fact that Argentina's path to the final is less tedious compared to France, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal and even Morocco.
The FIFA president has also found himself in murky waters with the Balogungate. FIFA invoked Article 19 of the Fifa Disciplinary Committee and suspended, for a year, the red card given to USA's Folatin Balogun in the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina. This had never happened in the history of the game and eyebrows were raised when the American president admitted to lobbying Infantino to get that done. The same FIFA that frowns at government interference in football is being directly influenced by the host government. What a shame!
Going into the quarterfinals i look forward to some of the best matches and i still believe that France is the team to beat while Morocco comes second. Hence, the "final before the final" is the France versus Morocco fixtures.
May our beautiful game remain beautiful.
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