The correct way of following this World Cup is to first recognise that its principal host, the United States of America, is a disordered, flailing, naked behemoth and the tournament is a small, inadequate fig leaf. To report on the World Cup as if it isn’t being played in a politically deranged country whose president stages cage matches in the White House, has kidnapped Venezuela’s president, has repeatedly attacked Iran without any military provocation, and plunged the world into an existential crisis is a failure of the imagination, part willed, part involuntary. Ask yourself why Russia hasn’t sent a team….
News Timeline:
Track the development of this news story across the Internet.