CUE the Big O: de de de dum – it's over, it's over. FIFA World Cup 2022 has ended, the World Cup is on its way to Buenos Aires, Lionel Messi has achieved his ambition and emulated Diego Maradona. France is crying and the more-sensible English fans have realised, they were never going to win it.
Meanwhile, here in Scotland, the nation which refined football and gave it shape, well, we are back to wall-to-wall coverage of two average teams, from opposite ends of Glasgow, wasting money on third or fourth-rate players, few of whom are Scottish, to keep alive traditions which have more to do with Irish politics than Scottish football.
To be fair, Sunday's World Cup Final was a cracking game – Argentina building-up (in boxing terms) a huge points lead, before being caught by a couple of sucker punches and pegged back. However, they coped better with the penalty kicks lottery and, in the end, they deserved to win.
However, I genuinely feel, since so-much of top-level international sport these days is about “never mind the quality – feel the width” - about appearing bigger and better, aside from that thrilling final, much of what was served-up in Qatar was shite.
And, it's going to get worse. There were 32 teams in the field in Qatar, which is probably about 16 too many. Next time round, in North America, they are going up to 48 nations qualifying. Come off it – there are not 48 nations of sufficient quality to justify reaching a final tournament. This will mean, particularly in the group stages, more mismatches and bore fests.
FIFA, if they really want to make the World Cup the festival of football the competition should be, ought to go back to a final field of 16 nations. But, instead of sending half of them home at the end of the group stages, leaving eight nations to contest the real part of the tournament – the knock-out games, they should introduce a system whereby, by the end of the entire event – each nation is ranked 1 to 16.
This would be easily done:
16 teams – four groups of four, each nation plays three games
the top two teams in each group take “the high road” - quarter-finals, semi-finals, final
the bottom two teams in each group take “the low road” - the four teams finishing third in each group play each other; as do the four teams finishing fourth.
This way, by the end we know where each nations finished from the winners down to the 16th-placed nation.
As for Sunday's final – well, it only really caught fire in the fourth quarter and extra time; before then, France simply didn't turn up. Maybe it was the bug, perhaps the occasion but, they didn't start playing until they got that first penalty.
Some of the defending was poor – football really has to address the way in which shirt-tugging and use of the arms to impede progress has become everyday in the game. A season or so of proper officiating at challenges and the likes of Gary Neville would look even stupider; for some former defenders turned pundits, such as Neville – anything seems to go when it comes to stopping attackers.
Any way, Messi – clad in that robe – provided by The Emir of Qatar himself, and proving, I initially thought - money cannot buy class. Then I read the history of the robe, and realised, that was a terrific honour for a unique player, who finally got to lift the World Cup. Nobody begrudged it him, not even the French.
You can never say never, but, we are unlikely to see him on the global stage again. This was a baton handing over World Cup. Messi will not be back, ditto Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric, Robert Lewandowski, Pepe, Danni Alves, Angel Di Maria, Thomas Muller and perhaps Manuel Neuer. These are familiar names to us from European club football.
But, new names, led by Kylian Mbappe, will emerge as football, as it has for over 150 years, refreshes itself and produces new heroes.
Ah! well – back to purritch and auld claes and the seemingly perennial question for the Tartan Army: how will we blow qualification for the next Euros and the next World Cup?
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