It’s finally here. On Thursday afternoon, Mexico and South Africa will kick off in the opening match of the 2026 World Cup.

There are now signs of life: teams and fans are arriving, settling into their base camps, dealing with the heat, touring new environments… even baptizing planes. There is World Cup buzz in America.

But fans are still locked out of matches due to unaffordable prices, and out of the country due to travel bans. There have already been detainments and denials at the border. There has already been a shooting near a team base camp.

There will be football, and there will be problems. There always are, but the football usually seems to drowns out the noise. This year, it all depends how loud that noise continues to be.

This has been a year-long project, and this is my final episode. (More on that to come.) I wanted to go out on a positive note by asking, amid all the darkness: Why does the World Cup matter? Why do we still celebrate it despite all the baggage? Why is it still worth having around?

To summarize some of the themes of this project that’s now coming to a close, and to offer some hope, I invited a panel of guests to play us out: Sean Jacobs, professor of international affairs at The New School; Brenda Elsey, a historian of Latin America, soccer and gender at Hofstra University; and Simon Chadwick, professor of Afro-Eurasian sport, and sports business, based in the U.K.

00:00 Intro

06:30 Meet The Panelists

07:45 Lightning Round

10:56 Europe’s Fears

12:08 Is This A Missed Chance?

16:18 Global South Upset Potential

20:00 Media Scrutiny of U.S. Vs Qatar

24:54 U.S. Football Culture

29:18 FIFA Meets Trump

29:52 World Cup as Soft Power

33:10 Authoritarian Comparisons

35:30 Sportwashing

36:31 What FIFA Really Is

39:02 Hosting for Profit

40:11 Diaspora World Cup Stories

44:34 Identity and Fan Resistance

48:25 Why the World Cup Matters

Get full access to America's Cup at talibvisram.substack.com/subscribe