World Cup final went big on America - and left soccer behind

President Trump And First Lady Attend FIFA World Cup Final In New Jersey

FIFA's 104th and final Super Bowl delivered plenty of American pomp and circumstance, yet seemed to forget about the soccer

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Before the 2026 World Cup Final actually started, iShowSpeed did a backflip.

The YouTuber, influencer, and ubiquitous face of American soccer - the kid who made it big after weaponizing his fandom for Cristiano Ronaldo - marked his autotune-heavy performance with an Olympic-caliber bit of acrobatic flair.

His cameo was an encapsulation of this chaotic occasion.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has been banging the American drum for months now. This tournament would be "104 Super Bowls." It would be the "greatest human, social and cultural event that mankind has ever witnessed." It was hyperbolic. It was over the top. But so is this country. America loves its events. It is quite good at staging them. And here, in the swamps of New Jersey that they are calling New York, FIFA put on its ultimate soccer event: brash, a bit wrong, but appropriately American. It could never be any other way.

messi

FIFA WORLD CUP, THE FINAL!

This was "FIFA World Cup, THE FINAL," as the official branding calls it - which sounds a bit dramatic. Many will, no doubt, hope that this is not the last final ever. But it does have a climactic feeling to it. The Lionel Messi-Lamine Yamal dynamic is a bit too tasty to resist. Does it really get better after this? The GOAT bathing his heir in a UNICEF ad in a picture that the charitable organization had to confirm on social media was indeed real - and not the AI slop so many said it was. Messi just turned 39. Yamal is just shy of 19. Old versus young. Legend versus legend-to-be. This has been a World Cup of stars, and there isn’t a better matchup of big names here.

Yet all World Cup games exist in their context.

This is not just a football match. It is an hour-long commute from midtown Manhattan on a train with a round-trip fare of just under $100. It is the culmination of 104 games and a tournament shaped by complications: a participating team forced to move its base camp because of an armed conflict, eye-watering ticket prices, political entanglements, Folarin Balogun’s suspended red-card ban, overheated stadiums and hydration breaks that weren’t always needed. Even the buildup to the final brought air-quality warnings caused by wildfire smoke, although conditions had cleared by Sunday.

All of that forms part of this World Cup’s story. And then there’s the good stuff.

Yamal at a Walmart. Erling Haaland scoring loads of goals, capturing the hearts of America, and then walking off the plane with a taxidermy raccoon. There was Cape Verde, Curacao, and Haiti. Kansas fell in love with Algeria and Argentina. Paraguay beat Germany. Jude Bellingham made England believe.

These things are all true, and Sunday it was all distilled.

Fans times square

'Anyone who doesn't jump is Spanish'

The real festivities started the night before, though. Parts of New York City flooded on Saturday as torrential rain fell. Yet that did little to dampen the celebrations of Argentina fans that descended on Times Square.

There are five Argentina songs. None of them last more than two minutes, but for hours, thousands cycled between the quintet, drums banging throughout the afternoon and into the night. The heavier the rainfall became, the louder they chanted. New York Police shut down the party at 11 p.m.

The next morning, the remnants were still there: the odd empty beer can, paper of blue and white, a little more rubbish than usual. And it was there that the fans first congregated. Times Square before noon is a weird place, especially on a Sunday. Here, there was a suggestion of soccer fandom. New Yorkers wearing Spain shirts filmed TikTok dances in front of LED screens. The halal carts blasted Cumbia. There were jerseys of pretty much every nation: Argentina, Spain, Germany, Scotland, England. A lone fan sat at a dirty table, cradling a coffee while wearing a Christian Pulisic USMNT kit.

Traveling to the stadium was going to be tricky this summer, we were told. But the journey from Penn Station to the Meadowlands themselves has been relatively comfortable for most of the tournament - if a bit sterile. There was some action, though. A collective of artists and organizers printed out mock red cards, emblazoned with the slogan "unitas mundi" and encouraged fans to wave them in protest of Donald Trump. On the train itself, the Argentina fans made a good account of themselves. The chants were out in full force (even if 'anyone who doesn't jump is Spanish' is quite hard to pull off on a moving train).

Tickets were going for around $7,000 on the resale market in the hours leading up to the final, yet there were still some milling around the parking lot hoping to buy and sell. One Argentina fan told GOAL that he had flown from Miami to Baltimore on the promise of a ticket - only to find that it wasn't available upon arrival (he watched the game from the parking lot outside the stadium).

Tom Cruise

'Turning strangers into friends'

And then the spectacle began. FIFA promised a "closing ceremony" before the game. And it certainly wasn't lacking in pomp. A giant tarp with famous New York buildings jutting out into the centre. iShowSpeed showed up first. His rise to the top of football has been a baffling thing. The YouTuber now has nearly 58 million subscribers on YouTube. He has six million monthly listeners on Spotify.

Here, he got to show off his tune "Champions (WC26)". It's quite the song, which starts with Speed listing every single participating nation before announcing "this is the World Cup." The theatrics lifted it a tad, with some amateur acrobatics thrown in and plenty of backup dancers. Post Malone was next, clad in all denim with a cowboy hat on. He ripped through a couple of hits before Swae Lee joined him for a rousing rendition of "Sunflower".

Then Chris Martin popped up, inviting everyone to the halftime performance in agreeable Spanish (they really didn't have much of a choice - it was literally at the stadium). By the time the football started, there were four musical performances, a revealing of the trophy, sponsored by Louis Vuitton and featuring, among others, Carlos Alcaraz. For a final flourish, Tom Cruise showed up, doing his best Top Gun impression, sunglasses strategically removed, clad in all black, giving a rousing speech about football 'turning strangers into friends'.

Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber brings the vibes down

Halftime entertainment had been part of American football for decades by the time the first Super Bowl was played in 1967, when the University of Arizona and Grambling State marching bands performed a medley of popular songs. They have, of course, proliferated since then. These days, they are star-studded affairs in the NFL - and home to numerous iconic cultural moments.

Soccer was always going to sink its teeth into this kind of thing. And they flirted with it at the 2025 Club World Cup, with Coldplay curating a halftime show at the final. It was a strange thing that never seemed likely to properly catch on. Yet Infantino announced last year that they would go again. And Coldplay did the honors of selecting the lineup here. It looked quite good on paper: Madonna, BTS, Shakira, Burna Boy, Justin Bieber.

The result was remarkably strange. Fans were given a five-minute countdown, and not so much encouraged as ordered to stay in their seats before the show began. It opened with Ronaldinho and Ronaldo Nazario driving a large car that featured Madonna and a handful of dancers. Madonna lip-synced her way through a tune. Then BTS popped up for an abbreviated take on their hit "Dynamite". It was an energetic thing, and FIFA surely had another gear.

Apparently not. After a Ted Lasso-themed interlude - with Jason Sudeikis showing up in character - Bieber strolled around half of the pitch, playing a guitar and uniting the world by singing "hallelujah" a lot. Even Shakira's hips and Burna Boy's flows could not save the thing, which stretched over a painful 27 minutes.

Wayne Rooney summed it up on British television.

"I thought it was crap," he said.

Ferran Torres

'Nothing to criticize'

Oh yeah, there was football, too.

The game was a drab affair. This was perhaps always likely to be a bit of a strange fixture. Spain are a technical side that lack pace, but can keep the ball more effectively than anyone. They also have the best defense at the tournament. It's a deadly cocktail - if not necessarily a thrilling one. If they were to beat Argentina, it would have to be death by 1,000 six-yard passes.

Argentina, meanwhile, rely heavily on a 39-year-old who has won eight Ballons d'Or - and have few other options. Put more simply: stop Messi, and you stop Argentina. And that was more or less what happened. Sort of. One side tried to play football here. The other did not. Yet Spain - generously here to play a sport of sorts - were largely toothless in front of goal. This is an interesting side, full of creativity, but lacking in a deadly finisher. Lamine Yamal was lively. Dani Olmo did some nice things. Rodri patrolled the midfield. But a killer blow wasn't dealt through 90 minutes.

Meanwhile, Argentina resorted to kicking Spain - and the referee was surprisingly generous for electing not to blow the whistle. A minority Spanish crowd made their feelings known in both words and gestures, but it wasn't until the 93rd minute that the referee cracked. Enzo Fernandez, who had been bold in his tackling after picking up a yellow, went in two-footed on Pau Cubarsi. The referee had no choice.

Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni admitted that it was probably the right call in the end.

"The first yellow card could have been avoided. I tried to speak in my broken English to appeal, but nothing to criticize," he said after the game.

Ferran Torres played hero on the day, bashing home from 10 yards after Argentina's defense finally caved in the 106th minute. Messi barely had a kick. A majority Argentina crowd barely made noise until they decided, rudely, to whistle Spain's trophy presentation.

Ronaldo Ronaldinho

'More than just a game, it's our DNA'

The ceremony was where the Americanness really kicked in.

Donald Trump emerged on the pitch to loud boos. He handed out every other medal to the players of both the winning and losing team, taking an extra second to exchange a word with the defeated Messi. Many will remember Trump standing in the middle of Chelsea's Club World Cup celebrations last year. And he inserted himself into the narrative this year, too, flirting with the edge of the team trophy lift - despite Infantino's best efforts to shoo him off the stage. It wasn't quite Messi being dressed up in traditional garb in 2022. But it was close.

And so the boxes were all checked here. FIFA, as they so very well promised, put on a show. Their 104th Super Bowl was the most Super Bowl-y of them all. Nearly 40 minutes was taken up by various musical interludes, in total. There was a bit of presidential flair. YouTubers had their moment. New York City will certainly have to go fireworks shopping again for New Year's.

Yet perhaps the one letdown, ironically, was the football. If Infantino wanted people to be wowed by the spectacle, then 120 forgettable minutes, in which the GOAT lost, probably isn't the best way to captivate an audience.

Perhaps that was the point of all the fireworks, songs and dancers: FIFA had ensured that its final would produce a spectacle regardless of what happened once the ball started moving. As the World Cup's official anthem "DNA (More Than A Game)" suggests, this is more than just a game.

It's just a shame that the game was lost in, well, whatever this was.