Honouring the best and worst bits of the World Cup that FIFA don’t hand out trophies for
The curtain has finally come down on the biggest, strangest and perhaps most controversial World Cup there’s ever been. Spain are world champions for a second time and Kylian Mbappé, Rodri and Unai Simón picked up the main post-tournament awards – but they weren’t the only winners across a bizarre summer.
To celebrate the best (and pillory the worst) bits of the 2026 World Cup that FIFA’s usual gongs don’t cover, we’ve decided to dish out some prizes of our own…
Most damaged national reputation - Winners: Argentina
Leandro Paredes’ classic display of Argentine sportsmanship after the World Cup finalplaceholder image
Leandro Paredes’ classic display of Argentine sportsmanship after the World Cup final | Getty Images
You have to work quite hard to make England look like the good guys in international football, but Argentina’s combination of relentless gamesmanship, cheap thuggery and good fortune with refereeing decisions combined to make them the official villains of the tournament and persuaded millions of neutrals to back the Three Lions in their semi-final. You know you’ve behaved poorly when even the rigorously neutral BBC’s post-final headline asked whether Spain’s win was a ‘victory for football.’
Sure, the ‘VARgentina’ stuff was a little overblown, but the team’s brutal and classless method of playing the game rankled. Even Lionel Messi, who usually stands aloof from his team-mates’ less gracious behaviour, tried to get Marc Cucurella sent off during the final for covering his mouth in a cheap and patently unsportsmanlike move. Then, having deservedly lost to Spain, they started a punch-up. It was all thoroughly pathetic.
Honourable mention: USA
Argentina’s ceaseless unpleasantness came as a relief to the United States, who had their status as World Cup bad guys usurped by the end. It all started so well - with fine performances, good vibes and passage to the last 16 - but then President Trump got involved and, as is so often the case, made everyone involved look absolutely terrible when he pressured FIFA to overturn Folarin Balogun’s suspension and turned the whole world into Belgium fans.
Most relentless whinger - Winner: Hossam Hassan
Egypt head coach Hossam Hassan registers his complaints after the last-16 loss to Argentinaplaceholder image
Egypt head coach Hossam Hassan registers his complaints after the last-16 loss to Argentina | Getty Images
This was a banner year for griping about refereeing decisions. The introduction of VAR and the gradual expansion of its powers has greatly increased the potential for controversy, and an amazing number of national managers used that opportunity to deflect criticism from their teams’ performances and on to the officials. Even Didier Deschamps bafflingly blamed the referees for France’s completely undisputable semi-final defeat to Spain.
But nobody went harder on the referees with less good cause than Egypt head coach Hossam Hassan, who placed the blame for their collapse against Argentina squarely on the “unfair” decisions made by the officials (even though replays demonstrated pretty clearly that they had got all the big calls right) and then continued to whine, whinge and moan in impressively strong terms for days afterwards.
The real clinching moment for this award, however, was when he seemingly attempted to invoke the FIFA racism protocol because he wanted to protest that the refereeing decisions were discriminatory, rather making a mockery of a system designed to act as a serious deterrent to bigotry and which was certainly not intended to be used to grumble about VAR.
Most ear-crushing crime against music - Winner: Chris Martin
Chris Martin performs alongside two other muppets during the half-time ceremonyplaceholder image
Chris Martin performs alongside two other muppets during the half-time ceremony | Getty Images
We learned many things about FIFA this summer, none of them good, but one of them was that nobody involved in the organisation has any music taste whatsoever.
The official song of the tournament, Shakira & Burna Boy’s ‘Dai Dai,’ was so bland that most people reading this probably couldn’t hum it despite likely having heard it dozens of times during matches. The official album of the tournament – please don’t feel compelled to listen to it – was quite astonishingly bad, a relentless morass of dross design to be as inoffensive as possible in such a way that it ended up being very offensive to the ears indeed.
But the real cherry on top was the execrable half-time show during the final, correctly assessed by Wayne Rooney as being ‘crap.’ Modelled after the Super Bowl half-time show, this lacked any of the sense of spectacle that event musters up and had far less musical merit. Curated abysmally by Coldplay’s Chris Martin, it was a 10-minute masterclass in how to suck the life out of a crowd. Who was it for? How many of the travelling fans really wanted to hear Justin Bieber croon 40 seconds of some milksop ballad? Why did Ronaldo Nazário look like he was involved in a hostage situation?
Most successful PR campaign - Winner: Erling Haaland
Erling Haaland takes the time to rack up another few thousand followersplaceholder image
Erling Haaland takes the time to rack up another few thousand followers | Getty Images
We could probably just have given this award to the entire country of Norway, who charmed the world with their rowing celebrations and, frankly, the evident joy their fans experienced simply by being there in the first place. But Haaland is now a bona fide celebrity in the USA, in all his weird and wonderful glory.
A winning combination of goofy social media posts and his impressive feats on the field earned him millions of new followers and a cult status which might just endure beyond the World Cup – with the image of him getting off the plane back in Norway with a stuffed racoon only serving to solidify his legend. Although perhaps the biggest single viral hit was an image of him sitting in a Stetson shop wearing a cowboy hat and a t-shirt which read ‘Y’all can kiss my Dallas.’ He may not be especially subtle, but his oddball charm has officially gone global.
Honourable mention: Vozinha
Largely ignored throughout a long career which saw him ply his trade in Slovakia, Cyprus and Moldova, Vozinha found the form of his life at the age of 40 and went from being an obscure, free agent goalkeeper to one of the tournament’s biggest stars with a string of superb displays for Cape Verde. Such was the power of his instant celebrity that he was able to get American immigration (who were probably desperate for even a sniff of some good PR) to overturn their decision not to let his mother into the country. Rumour has it that he could now get a gig at Inter. Good for him.
Most soul-destroying injury - Winner: Amadou Onana
Aston Villa's chances of another top-four finish could plummet after Amadou Onana's injuryplaceholder image
Aston Villa's chances of another top-four finish could plummet after Amadou Onana's injury | Getty Images
Many Premier League managers see international football as little more than a tremendous opportunity for their best players to pick up nasty injuries. Judging by the way that the 2026 World Cup panned out, they may have a point.
Several English-based players suffered serious injuries which will damage their teams’ chances in the coming season. Arsenal are waiting to find out how long William Saliba will be out with a potentially serious back injury. Manchester United watched Lisandro Martínez limp out of the final, and are now stuck with Manuel Ugarte after he ruptured his ACL. The Uruguayan, who United needed to sell in order to raise funds, could be out for up to a year. And while it’s not Premier League-related, let’s not forget Canada’s unfortunate Ismaël Koné, who broke his leg in appalling fashion.
But the coach who might be lamenting the existence of the World Cup the most is Unai Emery. Aston Villa will now have to make do without crucial midfielder Amadou Onana for most (if not all) of the 2026/27 season after he ruptured knee ligaments during Belgium’s 4-1 win over the United States. For a team already bleeding players after another year of overachievement, losing their midfield lynchpin represents a truly brutal blow. The odds on another top four performance don’t look great from where we’re sat.
Most unconvincing attempt to explain away a controversy - Winner: Shaun Evans
The offending hand gesture made by VAR assistant Shaun Evans (left)placeholder image
The offending hand gesture made by VAR assistant Shaun Evans (left) | Getty Images
This was a World Cup absolutely laden with controversies from start to finish. From ticket prices to hydration breaks, from American visa practices to VAR decisions and of course the genuinely disgraceful decision to overturn Balogun’s ban after he was sent off against Bosnia & Herzegovina, we hardly went five minutes without another media storm, justifiable or otherwise. But none of the tournament’s controversies were as bizarre as Gesturegate.
A little over a month ago, Australian VAR official Shaun Evans decided to make a circle with his hand when he popped up on screen before Germany’s 7-1 win over Curaçao. It was a gesture familiar to anybody of a certain age who remembers a stupid school game in which you could be given a punch on the arm if you looked at the symbol when a friend made it in your field of view. It seemed like a stupid and harmless joke. Then it turned into something altogether darker.
Online far-right types tried to co-opt the ‘OK’ symbol a while back, and a small handful of people worried that Evans was actually showing support for fascism. That didn’t seem very likely until he decided to provide the least believable explanation for anything since Wayne Hennessey told us that he didn’t know what a Nazi salute was – Evans claimed that it was an “involuntary, subconscious twitch.” Absolutely nobody was buying that, and suddenly everyone started to look at the whole thing sideways. Hopefully it was just a bungled attempt to get out of trouble with his bosses. Hopefully.