Many visitors to this blog are probably surprised that I haven’t mentioned the World Cup once since it started, co-hosted by Mexico, Canada and the USA. Now that we have the last 8 teams battling it out over the next 10 days until a champion is crowned, we say ‘Well done’ to them: France, Morocco, England, Norway, Spain, Belgium, Argentina and Switzerland. We are also surprised that some other nations are not there, like Italy, Brazil, Germany, Uruguay, Netherlands, Portugal and others who have featured prominently over the last 96 years, the first four of them winning 15 World Cups between them ! Both Pope St. Paul VI and Pope Pius XII spoke about sport in a few of their speeches. Most recent Popes also met winners of certain championships, like the World Cup and Euro Cup. Pius XII in 1945 said ‘Sport develops the entire character of a person, makes players more courageous, as they learn to accept a loss with generosity and win ever more graciously.’ We had some beautiful goals this year, also many spectacular saves, certain teams surprising everyone like Cape Verde, Egypt, and other African countries, and of course the VAR controversy which never ends, as its application is making every game slow down and every critical action and goal to be checked out, over and over again. My own personal observation after watching most of the games, is that on any given day, any team can win, as we saw in several games, going to the wire, and being won in the last second.
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