The 2026 World Cup already feels like a tournament drowning in bureaucracy, border politics and institutional cowardice. Euro 2028 could be the antidote: close, reachable, fan-centred and rooted in football cultures that still understand the game as a public ritual, not a corporate asset. If UEFA keeps its promises, the tournament may remind Europe that football belongs to supporters before it belongs to executives, sponsors or airport officials. Quite rightly.
Category: Sports
The World Cup sells the Names. The Knockouts will test the Bodies.
The 2026 World Cup will be full of famous names no longer playing at the sharpest edge of European football. Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar and others may still sell tickets, dominate weaker opponents and provide the tournament with its mythology. But the knockout stage is less sentimental. It does not reward memory, aura or golden contracts. It asks what is left when time, space and legs disappear.
Sports Journalism wants the World Cup Question, But Not the Answer
European football media keeps asking players whether they should speak about the FIFA World Cup 2026. But the real question is whether sports journalism itself has the courage to face what this tournament has become: a politically contaminated event shaped by war, exclusion, hostile entry conditions, security fears, absurd prices and a broken contract with the fans. The question is allowed. The debate is not.
Is Manuel Neuer the Answer, or the Symptom?
Germany is not really debating Manuel Neuer. Germany is debating whether its old certainty is still safer than its unfinished future. Neuer may still offer the world-class ceiling needed to win a World Cup, but at forty he also brings fragility, hierarchy problems and the risk of one decisive mistake. Baumann offers competence, not greatness. The question is whether Germany is choosing its best goalkeeper, or merely returning to the last answer that once worked.
FIFA did not fight the Black Market. It became the Dealer.
The 2026 World Cup should have been a football festival across three countries. Instead, FIFA’s own ticketing platform looks like an official resale casino with hospitality lounges attached. After comparing today’s obscene prices with my own tickets from Germany 2006 and Brazil 2014, the conclusion is simple: FIFA did not fight the black market. It became the dealer.
The FIA has found the cure for F1. The disease continues until 2030.
Formula 1 appears to have found the cure for its over-electrified mistake, but the treatment is scheduled for 2030 or 2031. Until then, fans are asked to endure several more seasons of clipping, energy management and artificial yo-yo racing. The planned V8 return is good news, but also an indictment: the sport already knows the current formula is wrong. It just refuses to stop running it.
I gave Formula 1 another Chance. That was my Mistake.
After weeks of frustration, I gave Formula 1 another honest chance with Miami qualifying. It should have been the purest form of the sport: one lap, maximum attack, no excuses. Instead, the cars looked slow, sounded lifeless, and somehow made world-class drivers appear strangely irrelevant. When even qualifying makes a lifelong fan start zapping, Formula 1 has a problem.
The Annual Green Bay Super Bowl Prophecy
Every spring, the NFL performs its little theatre of hope, and I perform my part with great dignity and no measurable restraint. The Green Bay Packers draft someone promising, sign someone intriguing, or merely produce a training-camp clip of mild beauty, and I enter the WhatsApp group with the only reasonable conclusion: Super Bowl. It is not delusion. The trophy is named after Vince Lombardi. We are simply asking for the family silver to be returned.
Shut Up, Max? Why F1 Media has become Part of the Problem
Max Verstappen is not the problem. The real problem is a Formula 1 that keeps drifting away from actual racing, while parts of the media unfairly attack the one driver honest enough to say it. Instead of listening to the purest racer on the grid, they dismiss him as bitter, spoiled or complaining, as if the obvious decline in spectacle were not already visible to anyone paying attention. Bigger, heavier, overmanaged cars have turned elite drivers into caretakers of systems rather than racers.
Formula 1 is dead. Long live Formula Eco!
What Formula 1 fans had to witness at the 2026 season opener in Australia was not a spectacle. It was not the beginning of an exciting new era. It was not the kind of racing experience that reminds you why…
alexreusch 