A MESSI FINISH: SO LONG, WORLD CUP 2026. BY SANDRA HARRIS.

A MESSI FINISH: SO LONG, WORLD CUP 2026.

BY SANDRA HARRIS.

I genuinely didn't know we had so many Spanish people in Dublin until last night.

When Spain was declared the winner of the 2026 World Cup at around eleven o'clock Irish time, after beating title-holders Argentina 1-0, the pubs in my local area erupted in the loudest noise imaginable, then for the next few hours there was shouting, singing and dancing in the streets, cars hooting their horns and even people blowing on vuvuzelas.

This is a noise-making instrument (you can't really call it music) so obnoxiously loud and dangerous to human hearing that it's been banned at major sporting events, including the FIFA World Cup, but apparently it's perfectly okay to blow one outside my bedroom window in the middle of the night during a heatwave which just will not end.

I didn't really mind Spain winning as I have nothing against them, but I was kind of hoping Argentina might do it because Lionel Messi seems like a lovely man. He's the thirty-nine-year-old pocket rocket who won the 2022 FIFA World Cup for his country but then didn't retire, which I thought was strange.

I mean, surely it's better to go out on a high, was what I and apparently others as well were thinking. After all, if you choose to go again, you either win again or you lose, right, and who wants to lose something they've previously won?

He's probably kicking himself right now for not having quit while he was ahead, so for that reason I'm inclined to go easy on him. Nothing we can say will make him feel any worse than what he probably already does, God love him. Everyone be nice to the poor little billionaire boy...

Cristiano Ronaldo for Portugal, my crush since 2012, is another one who probably should have retired from international football while the going was good. He's forty-one now and earns a whopping $235 million dollars a year playing for his Saudi Arabia Pro League club, Al Nassr, so why the hell did he choose to play in a World Cup in which both he and Portugal did poorly?

He doesn't need the money (although in fairness his model and influencer wife Georgina probably manages to spend it on handbags and shoes faster than he earns it), so it was probably pride and a desperate need to look young and stay relevant that had him competing in this year's competition.

That, and not wanting to be bested by his own personal nemesis, a certain Lionel Messi. Remember the song, 'Anything he can do, I can do better! I can do anything better than him!” If Messi had won with Argentina last night, Ronaldo would be puking with rage right now. As it is, he's probably entitled to feel a little smug today...

You might already know that Ireland didn't make it in to this year's tournament, though there was a glorious day last November when Dublin lad Troy Parrott's magnificent hat-trick against Hungary so nearly told a different story...

Never mind, that just frees us up to root for our nearest neighbours, England! Lol. As if. Eight hundred years of oppression, the Irish potato famine and Brexit, a bureaucratic pain in the hole for Ireland, are as fresh in our minds today as if they only happened in 1171-1921, 1845-1852 and 2016-the present day respectively.

Plus, it might sound a bit mean but, like, it's always such terrific fun to watch the whole of England get all excited about the thought of 'football coming home' and all the fans genuinely believing that this time, the 'sixty years of hurt' are really coming to an end. Every single time, every single tournament, this happens.

If there was a World Cup of singing football songs, England would probably win hands-down, every time. 'Three Lions' has proven to be a nice little earner for Messrs. Baddiel, Brody and Skinner, the geniuses behind the simple but effective ditty.

I personally prefer New Order's World in Motion and Fat Les's Vindaloo, which each have fantastic funny videos featuring footballers and celebrities of the day.

So, the singing alone is probably responsible for raising a bazillion hopes every four years, or every two if you count the Euros. Then these sky-high hopes are invariably dashed by a better team. Oh dear, how sad, never mind...

In the case of World Cup 2026, it was a Messi-led Argentina that did the honours. Argentina battered England. The whole country went into decline. Even I, a mere woman, found it easy to understand where manager Thomas Tuchel had gone wrong.

Fancy leaving that many good players at home or on the bench! It's almost as if the German coach Tuchel was deliberately trying to sabotage England, who just so happens to have licked the Krauts in both world wars...! Snigger.

Of course, once the pressure was off, England beat France 6-4 in the third place play-off (What the hell happened to you, France?), and they played beautifully as well, giving rise to such heartfelt complaints as, where was this fighting spirit against the Argies last Wednesday night...? It was ever thus...

My favourite team this tournament was definitely Norway, who, although they didn't win, seemed to bring the happiest fans and a lovely positivity to the venues. (The 2026 World Cup was held in America, Mexico and Canada.)

There was loads of funny, endearing buzz online about 'Viking invasions' and the like. The spectacle of their top player, Erling Haaland, a magnificent specimen by anyone's standards, banging the drum and leading the fans and players in the 'rowing' motion that's become their national trademark was a wondrous thing to behold. And, incidentally, the very personification of the spirit of the World Cup, in my humble opinion.

So, it all ends for another four years. I didn't stay up to watch President Trump present the trophy to the Spanish team, but I'm sure it went swimmingly. All I have to live for now is Love Island, and they're down to the last week when there's no more drama and everyone's all loved up and it's boring, so there you go.

Guess I'll see you guys here in another four years...