Brazilian royalty presided over the defeat of Switzerland on Monday evening. Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo and Kaka sat debonair in the dignitaries’ box – their symbolic shadows looming over their successors below.
Will the blonde-tipped fades of Neymar and Raphinha be repeated in stadiums two decades from now? That is the challenge of a football team that knows its assignment is a little bit different from everyone else.Brazil, incidentally, joined France as the only sides to qualify for the knockouts heading into the last round of the group stage. At the other end only Qatar and Canada have been eliminated with mathematical certainty.
. The hosts aside, no one has looked out of place. Even Canada, who scored their first ever World Cup goal at the weekend, gave their opponents some heavy licks in their two defeats.Next time, 48 teams will contest instead of 32. They will be split into 16 groups of three — unless Fifa decides to fold to the outcry that has greeted that idea. But either way, the game’s most prestigious tournament will be diluted.
But as cautious as we all are over anything the governing body dreams up, we will arrive back here four years later carrying misplaced optimism hoping to be proved wrong. And if we were to play devil’s advocate, not that Fifa needs any more of those, new ideas can grow into their own over time.
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