The Establishment™ Bar

Curaçao supporters, from Instagram "Minnows". That's the term that football cognoscenti use for national teams which aren't England or Spain or France and so on. They're the small nations, the ones who will not earn a single point during the group stage of a tournament, who are at a tournament like the World Cup and have won simply by being there. This summer's Cup is the first one to have forty-eight teams competing. It was expanded from thirty-two teams. When FIFA announced the expansion, the howls were immediate. This would dilute the quality! This would make the tournament too long! This was more evidence of FIFA venality, as its president Gianni Infantino merely did it to secure votes from the federations which stood to benefit! While I have no doubt that Signor Infantino pushed through the expansion to secure his own position and keep his followers onside—Hah! See what I did there?—this bit of iniquity has... actually turned out well. More than well. It ...