Phew! The 2022 World Cup is over, Lionel Messi has that elusive prize and Argentina have bragging rights over the soccer world for the next four years. So, it’s time to re-rank.
Prior to this tournament, Bill Connelly and I tried to put every previous edition into a highly scientific and rigorously analytic ranking from worst to best. With the festivities in Qatar wrapped up, now let’s figure out where the 2022 edition fits into everything.
Every FIFA representative near a microphone has been quick to call this one of the best World Cups ever, but in one way or another, most of them have been pretty good. While recency bias will almost certainly play a role here, let’s go category-by-category and see how the last month shapes up with its historic peers.
FIFA ran proper and constant interference for its benefactors/hosts. That will forever be tied in memory to the exploits of Messi and Mbappe, and that’s FIFA’s fault. There were the typical on-field controversies, too, but that doesn’t really matter because the 10 full points had already been granted. Congrats for max points — it came with a cost.
JT: Right, and it feels like the whole thing had a grimly scripted feel, especially in the days leading up to the tournament opener. Did we really think we’d get an open embrace of global tradition here? Could we really have expected to see Argentina lift the trophy without a robe being positioned on Lionel Messi’s shoulders to make those images feel like they belonged to Qatar?
In terms of on-field controversy, the use of semi-automated VAR did rub fans the wrong way on many occasions, and the officiating of Antonio Mateu Lahoz in that Argentina-Netherlands game was a kind of chaos we tend to expect from World Cups. (Eighteen yellow cards? Really?) But by and large, results were accepted as largely fair based on VAR reviews, officiating and the lack of any sinister subtext. From that perspective, we got a reasonably clean event on the pitch.
On a more personal note, we should also mention the shocking passing of journalist Grant Wahl at Argentina’s quarterfinal with the Netherlands. There was no foul play or suspicion over his passing, just that it was a reminder to all of us how fragile life is and how hard it is to cover a competition of this kind.
