Once upon a time, footballers seemed to have only one dimension: when they weren't sweating it out on the field, they were always seen in tracksuits. People programmed solely to perform athletically, as if there were no boundary between the athlete and the person. And when they appeared in street clothes, they conveyed the same discomfort as men who only dress up for weddings: suits that seemed to wear them rather than the other way around. Times that, seeing the national teams' arrivals at the World Cup, seem absolutely bygone. But this transformation has taken several World Cups to crystallize.

Although this is the World Cup with the most participating teams in history, the kits continue to be concentrated in the hands of a few brands. In fact, despite this edition featuring the greatest diversity of manufacturers to date, with 13 brands represented, Adidas, Nike, and Puma maintain an overwhelming dominance: they dress 37 out of the 48 qualified teams, meaning three out of every four teams aspiring to the golden trophy.

66,000 t-shirts would practically fill the stadium where the World Cup final will be played on July 19 in New Jersey. But these 66,000 t-shirts are the fake World Cup kits that the National Police have seized in an investigation affecting various points in Spain, including Barcelona and Girona. They are seven tons of fake clothing that have led to the arrest of up to 95 people.

While the FIFA World Cup fills the impeccable stadiums of the United States, Mexico, and Canada, the entertainment industry deploys its machinery of millions, exclusive television rights, and global marketing. But far from this golden showcase, there is another football. A stubborn, free, and essential game that needs no turf or giant screens. It is the global game of bare feet. From the remnants of the destroyed streets of Gaza to the outskirts of Buenos Aires or the communities of Nigeria, the ball rolls, moved purely by the game. It generates identity, survival, and rebellion. Where advertising does not reach, sport maintains its truth intact and the dreams of the little ones.

Women's refereeing will once again have a presence in a men's World Cup. FIFA has included six women in the group of 170 referees called up for the tournament: two main referees, three assistants, and one VAR specialist. The focus is particularly on the two main referees: American Tori Penso and Mexican Katia García. Both come from host countries and face the most demanding challenge of their careers in men's football.

Mariano Rajoy knows what is expected of him and does not hesitate to give it to his followers. "In football, what really matters is scoring more goals than the opponent. If you don't, you lose. Or, at best, you draw." Yes, the former Spanish president returns to sports commentary for the World Cup and, again, in the digital media El Debate, which four years ago — also for the World Cup and, later, for the European Championship — already opened its doors for him to publish his analyses of the Spanish national team's matches. Rajoy does so without pay and, in fact, without writing: he sends audio notes when the matches end so that the media's editors can transcribe them. He did so this Monday after the draw of La Roja against Cape Verde.

"It's a tremendous joy and something that almost seemed impossible," highlights Valdo (Villaseca de Laciana, León; 1981), former Espanyol player and player for the Cape Verde national team. He speaks of the feat of this African archipelago, one of the four debutants in this World Cup and Spain's first opponent this Monday in the group stage (6 PM, La 1). Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony, is the second smallest country in the tournament's history by territory and the third by population with 4,000 km² and 600,000 inhabitants. The province of Girona has 6,000 and 850,000.

In 1994, the United States hosted a World Cup for the first time. One of the novelties of that event was the introduction of a new rule that changed the game: it became forbidden to pass the ball to the goalkeeper and for him to catch it with his hand, as had been the case until then, which led to significant time-wasting. This year's event will also be remembered for the introduction of new rules that will significantly modify the game, always with the intention of avoiding time-wasting, according to IFAB (International Football Association Board), the body that determines the rules of the game.

The season has begun in Swedish football and, where one would not expect to find any Catalans, you stumble upon the name of Marc Manchón, a 28-year-old from Barcelona. He plays for Sundsvall, in the country's second division. His is not a story of overcoming adversity, but rather of resilience and effort. A young man who found himself on the verge of fulfilling his dream and debuting with Espanyol's first team. One summer he was left with no future in professional football and was on the verge of giving it all up. “They always say you have to be in the right place at the right time. It's a cliché and true at the same time, but you also have to be prepared in case it ever happens.” After a moment of uncertainty, the moment arrived via an Instagram message. And to a destination he surely never would have imagined.

FIFA will have to clarify its ticket sales practices for this year's World Cup in the face of accusations of artificially inflating prices and deceiving fans at the time of purchase. The state attorneys general of New York and New Jersey have opened an investigation into the eight World Cup matches that will be played at MetLife Stadium, including the tournament final. Currently, on the Seatpick.com portal, tickets to watch some of the matches at the New Jersey stadium are being sold for an average price of $2,790.

Storm winds are blowing for Lleida football. To the category descents of two historic clubs from the region, such as Unió Esportiva Tàrrega (which falls to Segona Catalana) and Borges CF (to Tercera), three more simultaneous ones concentrated in Lleida city are added. It has been a long time since so many sporting failures have been accumulated in the capital: AEM's women's team will no longer continue in the Primera RFEF after thirteen years of competition; Atlètic Lleida, despite having opted to compete in the Segona RFEF, drops dramatically to Tercera; and Lleida Club de Futbol, in addition to falling into the abyss of the Lliga Elit (the sixth level of Spanish competitions), cannot find an investor to cover its debts and is one week away from disappearing.

For years, every time a young child tops a human tower in front of thousands of people, the debate about the safety of castells resurfaces. The image of children several meters high continues to generate admiration, but also apprehension among those who see this practice as a particularly dangerous activity. Now, a study by researchers from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) and the Santa Tecla Network provides data that question this negative perception.

On July 25, 1975, Ladislao Kubala walked onto a football field at the head of a group of players. These men were not unknown footballers. They were the best of the Spanish league at the time, many of them destined to play in the Argentina World Cup a few years later under the command of Ladislao, who was then the national team coach. That was no ordinary match. To begin with, the field where these stars would play was made of sand. The audience was also different. No luxury and no giant stands. It was all the people of Sarral, a town in the Conca de Barberà region with fewer than two thousand inhabitants, surrounded by fields of vineyards and olive trees.

Pep Guardiola has retired amidst the admired recognition of everyone, who have proclaimed him the best coach of the last 20 years and one of the most influential in the history of football, after how he made Barça, Bayern and City play and win, with a model that more than creating a school has marked a before and after for Pep. (That they didn't recognize it in Madrid before caused me perplexity and then made me laugh. Now it causes me great spiritual comfort because I see the coherence in it: there is nothing more provincial and stingy than believing yourself the center of the world, and Madrid-Club and Madrid-Ayuso speak as if the sun had not set in Flanders many centuries ago.)Excuse the digression. What I meant to say is that these days on social media there's a scolding from Guardiola to his players after a lost game played with a terrible attitude. The dressing-down he gives them is epic. But it has nothing to do with big data, or whiteboards, or footballing concepts, or "you didn't follow the instructions I gave you." It's born from the monumental, human anger of someone who feels disappointed, almost betrayed, and wants that game to have consequences: the boss is very angry, we need to get to it.You can ask artificial intelligence to write you a scolding or whatever it may be, and it will come out well-articulated but flat, because it will not have arisen from natural intelligence, from commitment to work, from a sense of responsibility, from personal knowledge of a group, from accumulated personal experience. It seems that Leo XIV writes about all this in his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, which is presented today. AI is so useful that it can make us believe it can replace us. But it lacks the moral authority, the head and the heart that allow us to decide that today is the day to slam our fist on the table.

The Vega Andújar family founded a project in the sports events sector in 1999. They organized a Coca-Cola Cup and some summer camps. The idea evolved towards the distribution of sportswear, and at the beginning of the 2000s, it grew to have eight multi-brand stores. From this initiative, Gedo (Gestión de Eventos Deportivos y Ocio) was born, founded in May 2002, and it grew to the point of outfitting more than 800 sports clubs throughout the country. In Catalonia, l’Hospitalet, Llagostera, Terrassa, and Reus were part of its client portfolio. But what seemed like a solvent business was not so much in reality. In fact, up to five transactions by brothers Ricard and Jordi Vega to raise funds for the company have ended up in court due to non-payment. Other attempts to capitalize Gedo, which today is a project in limbo, have involved several professional footballers. Most have lost their money and their faith in recovering it.

When in 2019 everything went wrong, surely few people imagined that the city of Reus would continue to enjoy its football. After years of irresponsible management that caused shameful scenes, La Liga decided to expel Reus Deportiu with the season already started in the Second Division. Joan Oliver, former general director of Barça in Joan Laporta's first tenure, had managed to bring Reus to the Spanish Second Division for the first time, but he did so by playing so hard that he burned his fingers. He fell out with the fans, stopped paying, and couldn't find anyone to sell the entity to. Instead of bringing glory to Reus football, he sank it.

At the start of the season, Barcelonism agreed that winning the League again would be a great achievement, because the team “of all Spaniards” could not repeat the surprising, almost ridiculous, blank year with a squad full of multi-million euro signings who were supposed to usher in some new era of world football under a new coach, Xabi Alonso, presented as a Guardiola for this new hegemony. Eight months and two coaches later, Alonso appears on the long list of victims of president Florentino Pérez; the multi-million euro signings have once again shown that, as Cruyff used to say, you've never seen a bag of money score goals; Madrid is once again left blank; Barça wins the League for the second consecutive year, and, in line with this good governance, Mourinho (!) is rumoured for next year.

The name of Marie-Louise Eta (Dresden, 1991) has already been etched in the world of football. She has become the first woman to manage a men's team within the top five leagues (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France). She arrives at the Union Berlin bench with the mission to turn around the difficult situation they are going through. The team is not in the relegation zone, but they have been in a very bad dynamic for a few months. They had a good first half of the season and reached Christmas in eighth place, close to European spots. However, since then, results have worsened: out of the last 16 matches, they have only won two.

Huesca and Real Zaragoza arrived at the 37th matchday of the Second Division with the urgent need to score points in an increasingly suffocating period of the season. The team from the Aragonese capital is in the lower zone, very close to a relegation that would be as historic as it would be dramatic. And Huesca also fails to distance itself from danger. In this context, the Aragonese derby presented itself as an especially delicate fixture, with the feeling that a defeat could have decisive consequences in the fight for permanence.

The Italian Guardia di Finanza has dismantled a network accused of exploiting prostitution and managing nightlife-related events that allegedly provided services to high-level footballers. Among the players mentioned are Real Madrid's Dean Huijsen and Inter's defender, a target for Barça, according to information that has emerged in the Italian press. As confirmed by the EFE agency, the operation, which is being investigated by the Milan Court at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office, has resulted in four people under house arrest, accused of facilitating prostitution by organizing escort services, as well as money laundering derived from this activity.