From Ben Old’s trampled ballsack to Miguel Almirón’s covered mouth, here’s what we’ll actually remember about this World Cup once the football fever subsides.
We are now only a couple of weeks away from finding out who wins the World Cup, and only a couple of months away from forgetting almost everything that happened in the preceding 103 matches.
This is how the quadrennial global pandemic known as World Cup fever typically operates. For a month or so it consumes up to 99% of the mental capacity of those affected, rendering the worst cases unable to perform routine daily tasks. But while it may be debilitating now, most will make a full recovery shortly after the final whistle is blown on July 20.
So what are we likely to remember about this World Cup once the fever subsides? Probably not the score of France v Sweden in the round of 32 or who scored the late winner for Ecuador in their group stage upset over Germany. Everyone’s memory is different, of course, but for me these are the things I suspect might stick in the mind.
Sithole
The World Cup kicked off a long, long time ago with Mexico defeating South Africa amid a frenzied atmosphere inside Estadio Azteca. I’m unlikely to remember who scored either of Mexico’s goals for much longer but I will probably always remember the name Yaya Sithole, the unfortunate recipient of the tournament’s first red card. Sithole went on to complete a stunning redemption arc as he returned in round three to play a vital role in South Africa’s shock win over South Korea, helping Bafana Bafana qualify for the knockout stage.
When a New Zealander topped the golden boot table
A New Zealand player scoring a goal at the World Cup? Incredible. Two goals in the same match? Unthinkable. For a brief, beautiful moment following the All Whites’ draw with Iran, Eli Just was the joint leader in the race for the golden boot, and they’ll never take that away from us. A player securing a big money transfer off the back of a few eye-catching World Cup performances is mostly a thing of the past in the modern age of advanced analytics, but Just’s three-goal tournament certainly would have grown his profile beyond the Scottish Premier League, where he was already hot property after a standout season with Motherwell.
When number 10 Paraguay covered his mouth
Before the tournament a number of new rules were announced by Fifa in an attempt to wipe out various scourges on the game like excessive time wasting and abusing opponents while covering your mouth. The first recipient of a mouth-covering red card was impish Paraguayan midfielder Miguel Almirón, who was spotted shit-talking a Turkish player by the video assistant referee. After reviewing the footage, on-field referee Iván Barton delivered one of the all-time great VAR review verdicts over the stadium PA: After review! Number 10! Paraguay! Cover his mouth! Decision is! Red card!
Guilty Rod Stewart
As an exercise in spotting random celebrities in the crowd, this World Cup has delivered time and again. Probably the funniest was Sir Rod Stewart, slouched in his seat in a hospitality suite in Boston watching his beloved Scotland playing their first World Cup match since 1998, just hours after cancelling a concert in San Diego with a case of laryngitis. He later admitted that going to the football was “not a good look” but said he “did it for the boys [his adult sons]” who he’d been promising to take to see Scotland at the World Cup for 28 years.
Boston’s love for the Tartan Army
Scotland’s return to the World Cup for the first time this century may have been a huge disappointment on the pitch, but it was a resounding success in the pubs of Boston, which hosted their first two matches. Locals were delighted by their affable kilt-wearing, statue-climbing, road cone-placing, Proclaimers-singing, permanently tipsy guests. A profound sense of loss swept the city when the Tartan Army headed south for their final pool game, and things got worse when English fans rolled into town for their game. After finding the Scots so charming, Bostonians apparently couldn’t stand the English – and, in a way, that’s worth more than any football result.
Ben Old’s ballsack
In retrospect, the fate of the All Whites’ World Cup campaign turned the moment an Egyptian player accidentally stomped on Ben Old’s balls. After an encouraging 2-2 draw with Iran in the first match, our must-win encounter with Egypt was delicately poised at 1-1 halfway through the second half when Egyptian defender Yasser Ibrahim bowled over his Kiwi opponent, who later described their coming-together to reporters with the immortal sentence: “He’s fallen down on my ballsack and ripped my shorts and underwear.” As Old writhed in agony and New Zealand players appealed to the ref for what appeared a clear foul, Egypt stormed downfield and scored the go-ahead goal, crushing not just Ben Old’s balls but the All Whites’ World Cup dreams.
When we missed Spain’s goal
One of the most dour and unmemorable matches of the group stage ended up providing New Zealand viewers with one of the most thrilling moments of the World Cup as TVNZ accidentally played ads in the middle of the game, then cut back to show Spanish players celebrating a goal. No complaints – from this user’s perspective, TVNZ’s World Cup streaming has otherwise been more or less flawless, and getting to experience this hilariously unlucky faux pas live will endure in the memory far longer than seeing Spain score a goal would have anyway.
The tragedy of Iran
World Cup history is strewn with examples of teams getting screwed over in all sorts of cruel and unusual ways, but it’s possible no team has been more thoroughly screwed over than Iran in 2026. First there was the rigmarole Fifa and the US government put them through, forcing the team to base themselves in Mexico and fly in and out of the US on match days, then there was the brutal manner in which they were eliminated: scoring what everyone thought was the goal that would secure their place in the knockout stage in injury time against Egypt, only for it to be ruled out by an extremely marginal VAR-adjudged offside call, then having to watch as Algeria and Austria traded late goals to cruelly hand them a qualification route only to tear it away again seconds later. Easily the heartbreak story of the tournament.
When a Ghanaian witch doctor cursed Harry Kane
The only defence that’s been able to prevent England striker Harry Kane from scoring so far this World Cup, Ghana were aided by a curse purportedly placed by their country’s most famous witch doctor, Nana Kwaku Bonsam. The 0-0 draw, in which Kane missed an absolute sitter, helped Ghana qualify for the knockout stages, at which point Bonsam sportingly released the curse to allow Harry Kane to score in the next round, which he did. Bonsam has since directed his powers to predicting underdogs Cabo Verde will beat defending champions Argentina in the round of 32 on Saturday.
The Beatles x Tina from Turners mashup from hell
The introduction of mid-half hydration breaks designed to prevent players dying of heat stroke and/or allow broadcasters to squeeze in a few more ads has been the most controversial feature of the 2026 World Cup, each one met with a loud chorus of boos from the crowd. But those in the stadium don’t know how good they’ve got it – for dedicated New Zealand viewers, these breaks have meant being subjected to the same handful of ads at a frequency likely to cause lasting neurological damage. My internal monologue for the last three weeks has been a Simpsons-esque loop of John Lennon singing “don’t let me down” in the Rexona ad and Tina from Turners singing “Paekākāriki” in the Turners ad. It’s a living hell, but it’s a small price to pay for the privilege of another glorious bout of World Cup fever.