Who Gets to Call It “Parity”
Not long after FIFA announced an expanded 48-team World Cup, criticism began to pour in that the quality of the tournament would likely be worsened. The complaint was simple enough: let more smaller teams into the field, and the spectacle might include more weak matchups and more lopsided results. That is the language of the gatekeepers, worried less about fairness than about whether the product stays polished enough for the global football machine.
As the biggest World Cup ever progresses, those fears have not fully materialized. Through the first 24 games, the goal differential was unchanged compared with the tournament in Qatar in 2022, suggesting the larger field did not create more one-sided competition. The number of goals scored after the first 24 matches increased from 57 in Qatar four years ago to 75 now, while the goal differential this year was 35, exactly the same after the same number of games in Qatar.
The Bottom of the Ladder Still Has to Play the Top
Germany routed newcomer Curacao 7-1, Qatar was trounced 6-0 by Canada, and Haiti was eliminated after two matches. Those are the kinds of scorelines that remind everyone who still sits at the top of the football hierarchy and who gets used as the warm-up act. But some less-traditional nations held their ground early on, refusing to simply roll over for the usual powers.
Cape Verde, the fifth-lowest ranked team entering the World Cup and one of the smallest nations ever to make it to the tournament, drew 0-0 with European champions Spain. Congo, whose only other World Cup participation was in 1974 as Zaire, held Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal to a 1-1 draw.
Cape Verde was ranked 67th when it drew Spain, which was ranked second. Curacao was the third-lowest ranked team at the start of the tournament at No. 82 and held Germany to a 1-1 draw until late in the first half before the European powerhouse took over for good. Haiti, ranked 83rd and back in the World Cup after five decades, lost 1-0 to Scotland in its opener and then lost 3-0 to Brazil after conceding three first-half goals. Qatar, 56th in the world coming in, conceded six goals against co-host Canada after a 1-1 draw against 19th-ranked Switzerland. New Zealand, the lowest-ranked team at No. 85, drew 1-1 with 20th-ranked Iran.
What the Coaches and Officials Admit
Mexico coach Javier Aguirre said, “It’s very tough to win. It surprised me how even things are. They had talked about having 48 teams, but not counting Germany, which did have a big gap with many goals scored, all other matches were very complicated,” and added, “It’s not easy to win. Really, believe me. The teams have been improving, until recently we didn’t know much about Cape Verde, and there it is. Morocco played a tremendous match against Brazil.”
Spain coach Luis de la Fuente said, “This game showed us that the World Cup is a tournament with a lot of equality. It’s very complicated,” and added, “These teams have their limitations, but they do what they do well. The team we faced was clearly inferior to ours, but it did what it had to do very well and defended very well. In every match you have to be fully focused and extremely precise to be able to overcome your rivals.”
UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin was criticized last Sunday by soccer governing bodies in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean for allegedly saying the expanded tournament created uninteresting matches. According to Zurnal 24, he said, “We have a huge number of matches that are completely uninteresting,” while adding the expansion allows small countries to participate and experience the tournament’s excitement.
The associations of Cape Verde, Congo, Curaçao, Haiti, Jordan and Uzbekistan issued a joint statement in solidarity with the federations of Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia. The statement said, “Football does not belong to a select group of nations. Its strength comes from its universality,” and added, “For many countries, participation in the FIFA World Cup is not only a sporting achievement. It is a moment that inspires a generation, accelerates football development and creates memories that last a lifetime.”
New Tunisia coach Hervé Renard said, “When you are organized and together, you are able to compete,” and added that Cape Verde was giving his team hope for a good result against Japan on Saturday. He said, “We have to follow this example and not be scared of defeat.”
The whole affair lays bare the contradiction at the center of FIFA’s grand expansion: the same institution that sells universality still sorts the world into ranked tiers, elite powers, and nations expected to absorb the punishment. Yet the results through 24 games have not delivered the simple script critics promised. Instead, the tournament has produced draws, stubborn defending, and a joint statement from associations insisting that football does not belong to a select group of nations. That is the language of people trying to pry open a system built to be managed from above.