The 2026 World Cup tournament being staged in the United States, Canada and Mexico has produced more shocks than the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) and the Richter scale of an earthquake.
The world is shaking violently, and the apocalypse can be seen to be within sight by ill-assorted pundits and prophets that are more AI-compliant than the expired Octopus Paul.
The first shocker of the World Cup came from no less a personage than the President of America, Donald J. Trump, whose devil-may-care art of deals ensured that a designated referee for the games, Omar Artan of Somalia, was sent packing and banned from entering the USA even with a valid visa.
FIFA used to make so much mouth that the internal politics of a country must never interfere with football matters, but Trump and his allies treated FIFA that has a president named Infantino as an infant.
The opening game of the tourney between one of the hosts, Mexico, and one of Africa’s representative teams, South Africa, witnessed the shocker as per almost all Africans outside of South Africa supporting Mexico.
It was payback time for the South Africans who had used the evil tool of xenophobia to chase out their fellow Africans from the former apartheid enclave.
The much-touted weapon of African solidarity was thrown in a refuse dump in Mexico where Nigeria boasts of an ambassador-designate in the puppet buffoon called Reno Omokri.
The catch of the story is that xenophobic South Africa had the effrontery to field a Nigerian, Okon, in their line-up.
Even with the shameless borrowing of a Nigerian footballer to help them, the South Africans lost to Mexico 2-0, and capped it all up by collecting two red cards.
But seriously, I got the info from the grapevine that when a South African striker was about to shoot for a sure goal he heard some voices from the spirit world that one Nigerian immigrant in Johannesburg had just captured his girlfriend.
Instead of shooting the ball to score a goal the striker kicked the grass in anger.
A tear for South Africa and her xenophobia!
The shocks of this World Cup came in different doses such as giants Germany shooting into the lead against the minnows Curacao, only for the country of only 150,000 persons firing home an equalizer, thus tying the game 1-1, before the German machine revved the throttle to end the game 7-1.
The grand shock of the World Cup came when mighty Spain squared up with the global tournament’s debutants, Cabo Verde, formerly known and addressed as Cape Verde.
Spain with all the acclaimed glories of soccer artistry, tiki-taka and all that jazz, could not get past a 40-year-old goalkeeper named Vozinha.
Cabo Verde has a population of just about half a million people but the players refused to be intimidated by the much-ballyhooed class of Spain’s overpaid stars.
Goalie Vozinha who ended up as the man of the match was only worth a paltry 40,000 pounds as against the multi-millions of the Spanish armada. Vozinha had just 50,000 followers on Instagram before the match, only for the number to shoot up to a staggering 5.8 million after the masterclass.
On the other side of the shock ledger, Tunisia sacked her coach, Sabri Lamouchi, after just one match that the team lost 5-1 to Sweden.
The real shock is that Nigeria’s Super Eagles did not qualify for this World Cup that Africa is being represented by 10 teams.
The consolation though is that most of the countries that qualified have Nigerian players representing them such that Nigeria can still win the coveted trophy through the back door!
Historically, the World Cup has always served up a potpourri of oddities.
Back in 1994, the Colombian centre-back Andres Escobar was killed in his hometown for scoring an own goal that led to the elimination of his country in the World Cup staged only in USA that year.
Nigeria’s colonial masters, England, will never tire of telling the world of “bringing the cup home” every four years of the World Cup, but success only came the way of the Three Lions back in 1966 when the tournament was staged on home soil at Wembley.
The prayer of a good number of Nigerian soccer fans, especially title-winning Arsenal FC of London supporters, is that the English player named Bukayo Saka can finally shoot England to victory.
Until the final whistle is blown on the final day, Sunday, July 19, 2026, nobody can say with any measure of certitude the nation to steal the show in this World Cup of shocks.
By talking about stealing the cup, let me refer back to the 1982 World Cup in Spain in which Italy did not win any of its group matches but ended up knocking out the best Brazil team since the 1970 Giants of Brazil that included Pele, Tostao, Jairzinho, Rivelino, Carlos Alberto etc.
The 1982 Brazil team made up of Socrates, Zico, Falcao, Cerezo, Eder, Junior etc. did all the playing while the Italian striker, Paolo Rossi, who had scored no goal at all in the previous group matches of the tournament, had three touches of the ball and scored a hat-trick that knocked out mighty Brazil, before the Italians went on to beat Germany 3-1 in the final to lift the trophy.
That match between Italy and Brazil has since been dubbed “the day football died”.
Football can equally die in USA, Canada and Mexico – in the World Cup of shocks beyond the Richter scale of earthquakes and Volcanic Explosivity Index! .
