Mario Andrada | Next year’s World Cup is here

Brazil lost more than Argentina in the World Cup. We were eliminated in the round of 16 by a team from the 2nd shelf of European football. The Argentines only lost to the new champions. They were defeated in the final by the minimum count. This is a result that worries and disappoints.

The regulatory time in which defeated fans allowed themselves to temporarily “root” for the other team has expired. Or, in the case of the Argentines, a large part of the fans here preferred to support against it. Which in practice amounts to an anti-sporting attitude.

In the Protagonists’ Cup, Spain won, which always had 11 of them on the field. The medallions of protagonism lost: Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Mbappé, Dembélé, Vinicius Jr., Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham, Erling Haaland, Vozinha, Neuer… the list is long. The most popular of the protagonists, Lionel Messi, also lost. But he left the World Cup a little bigger than he had entered, at 39 years old, due to the dramatic turns that took the siblings only handing over his title in the final game.

We can think of the USA, Canada and Mexico Cup as an immense Stock Exchange. Players, teams, hosts, referees, fans and politicians leave the World Cup with their personal brand reevaluated in light of what they produced at the World Cup.

Here are some examples:

• Spain – the world champion’s shares are on the rise, with an upward bias;
• Argentina – stable role, another final, with a downward bias, it was Leo’s last Cup;
• Brazil – stocks falling with a bearish bias. In addition to the early elimination, in the round of 16, something that has not been seen since 1990, Brazilians in general and the CBF in particular seem lost in the football space. For example: Vini Jr, are you back with Virgínia? Seriously, are we going to spend another 4 years mixing sports news with influencers?
• France – stable shares, with a timid downward bias. Everyone knows that the France team is spectacular. He was only eliminated before the final because there was Spain in the middle of the way;
• England – rising stocks, bearish bias. The team was better than the fans expected. They only lost due to a strategic error by the coach, who, by the way, is German. If it were this way, the coach’s dismissal would be quick;
• African teams – shares down, without bias. The teams are good and well trained. Perhaps a new crop of protagonists could do the trick;
• Asian teams – bearish stocks, bullish bias. Japan was unlucky to catch Brazil on a good day. It could have beaten Norway if it had passed us. Korea did poorly in everything. The 2 teams only tend to improve, worse than they were in the World Cup it is difficult;
• Arab teams – everything down, stocks and bias. Egypt still played a good game against Argentina, but everyone else played less than expected;
• Cape Verde – shares rise like an Elon Musk rocket. The only team that drew with Spain and its new protagonist, Vozinha, was one of the sensations of the World Cup;
• Germany and the Netherlands – 2 disasters. Stocks plummeting and bias dipping downwards. They need to start from scratch and do everything differently (like Brazil).

In the organization, sport policy, the variations were better:

• World Cup – rising stocks with an upward bias. The World Cup was electrifying, the protagonists starred and 6.8 million people went to the stadiums to see the best football in the world;
• Gianni Infantino – stable stocks with an upward bias. The president delivered everything he promised to his voters, to the confederations of each country and sponsors. The World Cup paralyzed the world for almost 40 days, produced billions of dollars in profit and defined new frontiers for the spectacle of football. It’s okay that he offered himself as Donald Trump’s servant. He even gave the “peace prize” to a president who in the Warriors’ Cup tied with Russia’s Putin. It turned football into a game with 4 quarters separated by a 30-minute show in the middle. He canceled a red card to help the host team… Those who vote for Infantino, and make money with him, thought the cup was perfect. The Spanish too. As the newspaper recalled The New York Times: “Infantino emerges from the World Cup stronger in his little world of football politics and finance”;
• Donald Trump – stable and unbiased actions. Did anyone expect behavior different from everything the North American president did at the World Cup? The “trumpices” and “infatinisms” were already “priced by the market”.

The shares of technology applied to sport have also risen sharply, as have the shares of Lamine Yamal’s brother, the hottest and cheekiest image to see. The rowing and rowing of the Norwegian fans, in super loud, goes down in history.

And… at the end… at the end, the shares of all countries and all the fans that welcomed their athletes back with parties rise.

Of course, in our case this was not possible. The rest of the European summer holidays were too important for our “protagonists” after a “sweaty and exhausting” World Cup. The image of Danilo, the only athlete from the team to return to Brazil on the CBF flight, remains the most emblematic of our team’s failure. They can say that Messi didn’t return to Buenos Aires either. The difference is that Messi lost his vacation because he went to the final.

Next year there will be more. Here. With the girls from the women’s team. First class athletes in their sport who await the World Cup at home with the silver Olympic medal on their chest. It’s worth every second and every shout from our fans.