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Written by my IPS colleague
#SanjayKundu
A blog on Football World Cup
The Football World Cup and the Changing World Order*
Football is the undisputed global game, played by over 2.5 billion people. Its current 2026 World Cup edition has shattered all broadcasting records as the most-watched event in human history, drawing about 5 billion viewers worldwide.
By expanding the tournament to a record 48 teams, FIFA invited the world to the pitch, allowing historically overlooked nations like Cape Verde and Haiti to compete on the grandest stage.
For years, football’s governing body fiercely debated whether a wider pool would dilute the quality of the tournament. The knockout stages have emphatically proved those skeptics wrong.
*The Fall of the Football Aristocracy*
The traditional hierarchy of global football has been utterly upended by a new wave of fearless competitors:
•Italy, a four-time World Cup winner, failed to even qualify for the tournament.
•Germany, another four-time champion, crashed out in the Round of 32 after a shocking penalty-shootout defeat to Paraguay—a South American nation of just 5 million people. So historic was the upset that a national celebration gripped Paraguay.
•France narrowly escaped disaster in the Round of 16, surviving a massive scare from that very same resilient Paraguay side, only advancing by a mere whisker thanks to a tense 70th-minute penalty by Kylian Mbappé.
•Argentina, the reigning world champions, were pushed to the absolute brink in the Round of 32 by Cape Verde. The tiny island nation of 500,000 people held the giants to a grueling deadlock until a dramatic, deflected 111th-minute goal in extra time saved Argentina from a penalty shootout.
•Brazil, the five-time world champions, were humbled and eliminated in the Round of 16 by Norway, courtesy of a ruthless brace by Erling Haaland.
*What does this tell us about the shifting global order?*
The era of small or marginalized nations being awed by established superpowers is over.
On the pitch, as in modern geopolitics, the rigid concept of "comprehensive power" has been exposed as a myth.
Heavyweight status and historical prestige no longer guarantee dominance when smaller states play with absolute tactical discipline and zero fear.
*The Myth of the "Demographic Dividend"*
We can take this lesson even further: the celebrated economic concept of the "demographic dividend" is a humbug.
Invented by economists who lacked a true vision for global progress, the theory falsely suggests that merely inflating population numbers will automatically expand market sizes, optimize human capital, and drive success. The reality on the global field tells a radically different story.
The world's most populous nations—China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—are nowhere to be found in the upper echelons of international football.
In any sphere of human endeavor, sheer numbers mean nothing without substance. What truly matters is the quality of the people, their grit, and their character.
A nation may boast over a billion citizens, but if they lack a collective fighting spirit, institutional character, and the systems to foster excellence, size and numbers are just empty statistics.
Well, many may argue that football is not all the world. But for billions of fans, football is all the world.
English
