Colin Sheridan: Bring back the drama. The football can look after itself

The world was a better place when the build-up to World Cups was more memorable than the tournament itself.

GOLDEN BALLS: The FIFA 'Peace Prize', presented to US President Donald Trump at the 2025 World Cup Draw sits alongside the World Cup Trophy in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC. Pic: Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Mon, 08 Jun, 2026 - 07:31

Colin Sheridan is a writer and columnist. A former officer in the Irish Defence Forces he has extensive deployment experience as a peacekeeper with the United Nations, having lived and worked in the former Yugoslavia, West Africa, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine.

There’s only one thing more annoying than a middle-aged man taking to print by way of longing for the halcyon days of yesteryear, lamenting that everything was better when wives (and mistresses) were allowed to go to World Cups, players families were subject to kidnap threats, and Bobby Moore wallowed in a Bogotá prison cell for allegedly stealing a diamond bracelet.

And that one more annoying thing is the middle-aged man being right. The world was a better place when the build-up to World Cups was more memorable than the tournament itself. A sporting nod to the pool stages of cliche. “It’s the journey, not the destination.” I think that one was actually born in a bar in a Buenos Aires barrio during World Cup 1978.