July 16, 2026
By Bill Connelly, ESPN: In this summer’s expanded FIFA World Cup, the entire world got a taste of peak March Madness. And it loved what it saw. Lower seeds — in this case, small or unproven countries like Cape Verde and Congo DR — defined the early part of the tournament, pulling upsets (it’s soccer, so draws count as upsets) and giving us a bracket we didn’t quite expect. The heavyweights eventually took over, but despite the fact that this was the biggest and longest World Cup ever, the underdogs gave the tournament almost endless momentum. Something breathless was almost always happening. It was great.
Of course, being the biggest World Cup — 48 teams in all, up from 32 in 2022 — had its advantages: We had more underdogs, and therefore more had opportunities to make noise. Not all of them did, but there were few mega-blowouts. The underdogs came to play, as I was confident they would. And getting to watch the celebrations when Cape Verde qualified for the knockout rounds (where they would damn near beat Argentina) was one of the cooler sports moments of the decade.
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