Trump has no idea about football, but his World Cup has already made history
There is a magnificent football quote from Jean-Paul Sartre that condenses the essence of the Trumpist manual: “In football, everything gets complicated by the presence of the opposing team.” Donald Trump has based his political career on an identical premise: in the United States, everything gets complicated by the presence of opponents.
In the imaginary of Trumpist polarization – the most recent press archive can be consulted on Truth Social – everything is the fault of others: Democrats, immigrants, "weak" leaders in Europe, cheap cars from Beijing, and, again, immigrants. But for four months now, Sartre's phrase can have another, more ironic reading: it is a good summary of the course of the most important military intervention of Trump's presidential life, the failed war in Iran. Trump, like Vladimir Putin in his day, imagined a lightning-fast, simple operation, which has ended up getting bogged down and complicated because on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz there was, precisely, the presence of an opposing team that was underestimated. Trump's complications in Iran will go beyond the battlefield.
Trump doesn't know anything about football. His sport is golf. And then come American football, boxing, wrestling, and martial arts. Strength sports, like Putin's favorites. These days, however, the United States, along with Mexico and Canada –two countries, incidentally, threatened by Trump's strength–, are hosting the World Cup, the most important event in footballing calendars. Sportingly, the tournament is at the start of the knockout stages and everything is yet to be decided. Politically, the tournament has already made history.
In an unprecedented event, a fruit of the geopolitical surrealism in which we are immersed, the Iranian team has played football in stadiums in the United States while Washington and Tehran were bombing each other in the Gulf. The height of delirium was on June 27: at the exact moment when Iranian footballers were competing in Seattle against Egypt, Iran had attacked a ship in Hormuz, the United States was responding with bombs on the south of the Persian country and the ayatollahs were responding with more bombs against American targets in Bahrain. The referee blew the final whistle, Egyptians and Iranians drew 1-1, and the result sent the Tehran team home. “A moment may come when we can no longer act wisely and we will be forced to complete the task we started with great success through military means. If this happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will cease to exist!”, Trump roared the next day.
For international journalists, World Cup weeks are strange. A France vs. Senegal, like the one played in the group stage, is a treat. So is a Spain vs. United States (a Pedro Sánchez vs. Trump?) like the one that could be played soon. Or an England vs. Argentina, a quite probable semi-final. What would have happened if fate had crossed the paths of the US and Iranian teams on a football field? Probably nothing. If in wars the reality in the offices is completely alien to what the soldiers experience, imagine the distance between the Oval Office or the ayatollahs' bunker and the locker rooms where the footballers prepare.
If in wars the reality in the offices is completely alien to what the soldiers experience, imagine the distance between the Oval Office or the ayatollahs' bunker and the locker rooms where the footballers prepare.
Whimsical archives
Newspaper archives are also tempting. The last World Cup, that of 2022, the one Messi won, was held in Qatar. The monarchy of Doha then used football to launder its image in the eyes of the world and sell itself as a guarantor of progress and stability. Today, a World Cup could not have been held in Doha. Qatar – now a negotiation center to end the war – has been one of the Gulf countries furiously punished by Iranian missiles and drones. The previous World Cup, that of 2018, was held in Russia. From those days, photos abound of European leaders hugging Putin, now punished by FIFA.
Last summer, in the midst of the Russian war in Ukraine, I was walking through Kyiv with a Ukrainian soldier. He was on vacation, and we went for a walk so he could explain to me what a soldier did in his free time, away from the front line. It became clear to me that he couldn't get the war out of his head: he talked about the improvement of drones; about the enemy soldiers he killed and saw die from a screen; about the death of comrades, and about how he had become accustomed to calculating his own death. At one point during the walk, he made me stop at a spot near the Dnipro River. He said something like this: "Look, right here was Spain's fanzone during the Eurocup. All this was a party. Many Spaniards came to Kyiv." Ukraine was the host of the Eurocup that Spain won in 2012. Matches were played in stadiums that are now in cities occupied by Russian troops. Matches were played in stadiums that are now used for military purposes.
On Thursday, the same Ukrainian soldier sent me a photo via WhatsApp: a television broadcasting a World Cup match somewhere on the Kharkiv front. "If I can, I try not to miss any games."
–Who are you with? Ukraine didn't qualify in the end.
–And it's a good thing they didn't qualify. Our team is in a bad way. Our country is in a bad way.
The conversation paused and resumed a few hours later. He sent me another photo: a completely destroyed building. It was the Uzbek restaurant in Kyiv where we had lunch on the day of our walk, last summer. It was bombed on Thursday morning. The soldier sent me one last photo: an image created with artificial intelligence showing Trump playing football dressed in an outfit dyed in the colors of the Russian flag.