Heroes, villains and clowns: Simon Kuper’s World Cup awards

{"text":[[{"start":7.85,"text":"Every World Cup is about so much more than identifying a world champion. With Fifa a bit short on credibility at the moment, I have stepped in to create my own set of awards."}],[{"start":17.35,"text":"Best player who isn’t Leo Messi: Kylian Mbappé."}],[{"start":20.950000000000003,"text":"Best Argentine player who isn’t Messi: Enzo Fernández."}],[{"start":25.35,"text":"Best individual performance by a player who isn’t Messi: Erling Haaland for Norway against Brazil."}],[{"start":31,"text":"Best team performance: Spain in the semi-final against France."}],[{"start":35.25,"text":"Beautiful loser: The prestigious award won by the great Hungarians in 1954, the Dutch in 1974 and Brazil in 1982 this time goes to France."}],[{"start":47.75,"text":"Cinderella: Cape Verde, a set of islands lost in the Atlantic Ocean with 500,000 inhabitants, drew against Spain while committing only one foul, and took Argentina to extra time in an improbably attacking performance."}],[{"start":61.8,"text":"Best fans: Scotland (with an honourable mention for Norway). The Scots literally drank at least one Boston bar out of beer, put orange traffic cones on most of the city’s monuments but above all exuded such joy that the Boston Globe ran a full-page thank you to them. This week the Scots returned the thanks, flying a commemorative orange traffic cone first-class to Boston, where it was greeted at the airport by the mayor and the governor of Massachusetts. Imagine Scottish soft power if the nation qualified for the World Cup more than once every 28 years."}],[{"start":97.4,"text":"Best host city: I only went to six of the 16, but I’d choose Philadelphia. A lovely downtown, a joyous fan park in an actual park, and a cheap subway ride to the stadium."}],[{"start":110.65,"text":"Best pundit: Thierry Henry. He knows football, loves football, and can explain it in his second language."}],[{"start":117.35000000000001,"text":"Best goal: Sidny Lopes Cabral’s equaliser from an impossible position for Cape Verde against Argentina, followed immediately by his sprint into the stands to find and hug his girlfriend."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":130.05,"text":"Best miss: Michael Olise’s overhead volley against the post from a stray aerial ball for France against Sweden."}],[{"start":139.8,"text":"Most elegant player: Michael Olise."}],[{"start":142.60000000000002,"text":"Best player nobody had ever heard of: Egypt’s Parisian-Tunisian-Egyptian outside-right Haïssem Hassan plays in Spain’s second division, broke into the national team only during the knockout rounds, and looked brilliant even before his 70-yard sprint down the touchline set up a cruelly disallowed goal against Argentina."}],[{"start":161.95000000000002,"text":"Footballer with hinterland award: Norway’s Oscar Bobb has read Dostoevsky."}],[{"start":166.70000000000002,"text":"Clown: The award for a player or team (usually England) that strides in with great ambitions and trips up over their own boots. The 2026 winner is Cristiano Ronaldo, who by imagining that he was still a serious footballer aged 41 managed to dismantle his own fabled reputation and sabotage a gifted Portuguese team."}],[{"start":186.65,"text":"Worst team: This traditional FT award, often won in the past by Saudi Arabia, has been resurrected after years of abeyance. A reward for terrible football combined with interpersonal dysfunction, it goes to Tunisia. Losing their opener 5-1 to Sweden was a feat in itself. The next morning, just as their manager Sabri Lamouchi was about to lead the training session, the Tunisian federation announced his sacking on its Instagram account, adding that “arrangements have been made” to appoint Mondher Kebaier as his successor. The federation later deleted the post and appointed not Kebaier but Hervé Renard, recently sacked by the Saudis. After Renard’s Tunisia were tonked 4-0 by Japan, their weeping full-back Ali Abdi said: “We are playing a World Cup with players who have never played together.” Their final defeat was a mere 3-1 to a bored, distracted Netherlands."}],[{"start":242.15,"text":"Worst defensive performance: England in the last 40 minutes against Argentina takes the award ahead of Egypt in the last 20 minutes against Argentina, because on paper England’s players are better."}],[{"start":254,"text":"Worst refereeing performance: Ilgiz Tantashev, the Uzbek referee, who didn’t give Paraguay a single yellow card during their 90-minute orgy of violence against France. The Paraguayan team also win our ‘Don’t come back award’, with special mention for midfielder Matías Galarza."}],[{"start":271.4,"text":"Villain of the tournament: The bookmakers’ favourite, Fifa’s president Gianni Infantino, romped home, easily seeing off brief challenges from Galarza, Donald Trump and others."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":283.84999999999997,"text":"Best social-media performance: Cape Verde’s goalkeeper Vozinha started the World Cup as a 40-year-old journeyman who had played everywhere from Angola to Moldova, had just had his contract expire with a Portuguese second-division club, and had about 50,000 Instagram followers. Everything changed when Cape Verde held Spain in their opening match, with Vozinha the hero. Interviewed on TV, he wept and talked about his mother. Told afterwards that he had jumped to 500,000 followers, he said, “Stop joking. You’re lying.” Now he has 29mn."}],[{"start":320.4,"text":"An honourable mention for Erling Haaland, who ends the tournament with 70.6mn Instagram followers, more than any English football club."}],[{"start":330.09999999999997,"text":"Best marketing campaign: The Texas store Wild Bill’s managed to sell Haaland a stuffed whisky-drinking raccoon. It got an estimated $750 from him, and a fair bit more in free advertising when he was photographed carrying it off the plane on Norway’s return home."}],[{"start":349.59999999999997,"text":"Individual winner of the tournament: The winner of the ‘Villain’ award, Gianni Infantino, returns to the stage to collect his second prize. Infantino has shown he can do what he likes to the World Cup, and it still remains the last global “appointment viewing”. People seem to have got over the “Fifa Peace Prize” for Trump, and have lived with the hated “hydration breaks”. Despite outrageous ticket prices, the stadiums were full, and so now is Fifa’s cash box."}],[{"start":377.34999999999997,"text":"The expansion to 48 teams worked, more or less, so in 2030 Infantino will surely increase that to 64 teams, hoping that will finally enable the giant markets of India, China and Indonesia to qualify. No matter that every Asian team here was knocked out before the round of 16. Fifa isn’t driven by footballing considerations, and it’s doing just fine. "}],[{"start":408.45,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1784441528_3428.mp3"}