Ink And Insight

Italy will miss the 2026 World Cup. For a nation crowned champions four times, it is another painful reminder that in football, history offers no guarantees. Though one of the tournament’s most successful sides, Italy’s journey has always been marked by triumphs shadowed by heartbreak. In 1934, they hosted and won, though not without controversy. Four years later, they defended their title in France, becoming the first team to do so. For a generation, Italy set the standard for how to win when it mattered most. Then came 1982 in Spain. Three draws in the group stage left the press and fans at home furious. Nobody believed in them. In the quarter finals, they faced Brazil, the best team in the world. Paolo Rossi, just back from suspension and dismissed as “the Ghost,” suddenly came alive. His hat trick eliminated Brazil and carried Italy to the title. A player written off became the hero of the nation. In 1990, they hosted again. Unbeaten through the group stage, controlled and ef...

Think about the last time a World Cup moment took your breath away. The chances are you were not in the stadium. You were watching a screen. So was your neighbour. So was someone in Brazil. So was a child in Japan. So was a grandmother in Senegal. All of us, at exactly the same moment, sharing the same feeling. Television did more than bring the match into our homes. It allowed millions of people to gasp, cheer and cry together. When Maradona scored in 1986, the gasp was felt across Buenos Aires, Naples, London, Cairo and Tokyo at the same instant. That is the quiet magic of television. The first World Cup to be televised was Switzerland 1954. A small number of Europeans watched grainy black and white pictures. Then colour arrived and the images came alive. Gradually the audience grew. Slowly the whole world tuned in. By 2022 in Qatar, around five billion people followed the tournament. That is more than six out of every ten people alive on earth. And the final between Argentina ...

June 7, 1962. Viña del Mar, Chile. Brazil were defending champions. Everyone expected them to win again. The question wasn't if, but by how much. Second match. Pelé pulled a muscle. He was out of the tournament. The newspapers wrote that Brazil's dream had died with Pelé's injury. But there was another man in that team. Manuel Francisco dos Santos, popularly known as Garrincha and affectionately called the Little Bird. He was born with a crooked spine. His right leg bent inward. His left leg bent outward. Doctors said he could never play football. In 1958, he had been brilliant. But Pelé was the star. Garrincha lived in his shadow. Now the shadow was gone. Quarter-final against England. Garrincha scored twice. Header and foot. Brazil won 3-1. Semi-final against Chile in Santiago. 76,000 Chileans roaring. Garrincha dribbled past three defenders and scored. Then he dribbled past them again and scored again. He was sent off for retaliation. The final seem...

Stockholm, Sweden. 1958. Brazil arrived carrying a wound that had never healed. Eight years earlier, in 1950, they had lost the World Cup final at home. In front of 200,000 people at the Maracanã. The silence that followed broke a nation. Grown men wept in the streets. Some never watched football again. Now they were back. With a new manager, Vicente Feola. A new philosophy. More disciplined, but still brilliant. But something was missing. The tournament began, and Brazil played well. They won their matches. But there was no spark. No magic. Then, in their third group match against the Soviet Union, the coaches made a decision. They put a boy on the pitch. He was 17 years old. Not even fully fit. His name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento. The world would come to know him as Pelé. He didn't score in that first match. But he was a revelation. Fast. Creative. He moved like water across the field, flowing past defenders as if they weren't there. In the quarterfinal against Wales, he...

Is the UN Relevant?  A question I posed to some of the groups.  I got mixed reactions.  My thoughts on this issue (by no means authoritative) are as follows. I've been thinking about the UN lately.  Is it relevant? My view—we should seriously consider dismantling it for the following reasons. The UN system, including the core budget, peacekeeping operations, and specialized agencies, costs billions of dollars annually. Sadly, this huge investment has failed to deliver on its primary purpose of maintaining international peace and security.  Since the end of WW2, the UN has failed to prevent or resolve the Korean War, Vietnam War, Cyprus war, Rwanda and Gaza genocides, Serbian massacre, wars in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan, the Arab-Israeli wars, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the US invasion of Venezuela. These are just the major conflicts. Countless smaller ones, like the Thailand-Cambodia crisis and China's invasion of Vietnam, show the same pattern. ...

Bern, Switzerland. Nine years after the war ended, Germany wasn't supposed to be there. Their country was divided, their cities still in ruins. Many of their players had been soldiers just years before. Some had been prisoners of war. But here they were. In the World Cup final. Across the pitch stood Hungary. The greatest team in the world. They hadn't lost in four years. 31 matches without defeat. They had humiliated England 6-3 at Wembley, then 7-1 in Budapest. They crushed the Soviet Union. They scored goals no one had seen before. Led by Ferenc Puskás and the brilliant playmaker Nándor Hidegkuti, they were called the Magical Magyars. Newspapers predicted they would win easily. Germany had barely qualified. They had lost 8-3 to Hungary earlier in the tournament. The final began as expected. Hungary scored in six minutes. Then again in eight minutes. 2-0. The dream was dying before German eyes. Then the sky opened. Rain poured down. The pitch turned to mud. German...