The Positivity Found in the World Cup

I’ve been watching plenty of the knockout games in the World Cup this year, and I’ve found that, like many people, I’m quite keen on rooting for underdogs. And so, as we enter into the final game with powerhouses Spain and Argentina, I can say I’m a little disappointed that no underdog made it this far.

Perhaps the biggest underdog in the whole tournament, however, was Cabo Verde.

Let me set the scene: It was the Round of 32. Argentina faced off against Cabo Verde in a scene reminiscent of a David and Goliath story.

Cabo Verde, an African island nation of roughly 500,000 (the smallest nation to ever reach the World Cup knockout stage), ranked 67^th overall. The team had just qualified for the World Cup for the first time ever.

And in the other corner, there was Argentina: population 46 million, ranked second, with three World Cup wins under their belt (including the last World Cup).

Despite those odds, Cabo Verde held its own, heading into extra time at 2-2, mostly thanks to the impressive saves of its stellar goalkeeper, Vozinha. It was only in the 111^th minute of extra time that Argentina, with foreheads creased in worry, managed to gain the lead and ultimately win the game. (Seriously, it was one of the best games of the 2026 World Cup.)

But though Cabo Verde lost, the world celebrated with them as if they had won. Suddenly, this archipelagic country off West Africa went from being relatively unknown to center stage. Vozinha himself went from having 50,000 Instagram followers to over 29 million. Google searches for “Cabo Verde vacation” jumped by 5000%.

And it’s that trend—the explosion of interest in this tiny, oft-overlooked country—that reveals the power of the World Cup.

Let’s Rejoice in the Beautiful Game

Something I love about the World Cup is how, despite plenty of negative press and all the cultural and geographical differences, pretty much every nation looks at soccer and says, “Yeah, this is fun.” Whether it’s the United States, Panama, Brazil, France, Norway, Japan, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Curaçao—it doesn’t matter what part of the world you inhabit: Chances are, there’s a soccer ball nearby.

It’s through this shared love of a simple game that we connect with and learn more about our fellow man around the world. Case in point, when millions of people suddenly start investigating a tiny nation like Cabo Verde simply because it faced off against Argentina, it’s proof of how the World Cup can bridge that cultural divide.

And it seems many others think that way, too. According to a survey conducted by Superprof (an online tutoring network), just over three in four American parents view the tournament as “an opportunity to teach their child about other cultures and countries.” And as of June 11—the first day of the tournament—nearly half of those parents had already seized that opportunity. Likewise, roughly two-thirds of the respondents were learning more about the countries and cultures participating in the World Cup themselves.

To throw even more positivity into it, a lot of this learning is helping to deflate preconceived biases about other countries, too.

Let me explain what I mean.

Mean World Syndrome

When I was in journalism school, one of the concepts we discussed was something known as “Mean World Syndrome.” The idea behind it is simple: Continued exposure to negative (mostly violent) content in mass media naturally leads one to believe the world is more dangerous than it actually is.

The unfortunate reality feeding into that concept is that negative news performs better than positive news does. You’re far more likely to see your 10^th negative article before you see a single positive one. And while that doesn’t negate the bad, it does place a heavier emphasis on it than perhaps is fair.

The same goes for news around the world. Negative news flies out of every country and onto your phone. You start to build a perception about how the people in that country must live based on that information—and it isn’t always a pretty picture.

But stories of friendship from the World Cup challenge some of those notions.

Mexican fans embraced South Korean fans as their own. Algerians formed a bond with the citizens of host city Lawrence, Kansas. People around the world celebrated alongside each other ahead of an Australia vs. Egypt match.

The United States, too, which hosted the World Cup this year, was by no means left out of the perception boost. Stories of international soccer fans finding Americans to be kinder, safer and more welcoming than news stories had let on were a dime a dozen. And visitors to the U.S. discovered a newfound love for ranch dressing, prompting a TSA post begging those new fans to stop chugging it outside security.

Definitely A Goal

If Mean World Syndrome holds up, this blog post won’t do very well, and it’ll get buried beneath a mess of negative things for us all to worry about. But for those who have found this post, hopefully it’ll help clean away some of that dreariness the news cycle unceasingly churns out.

After all, the World Cup only comes once every four years. And despite our differences and all that negative press, soccer is a sport nearly every nation on this planet knows how to play. We can share our love for it. And during those 90 minutes on the pitch, we can be reminded just a little of our shared humanity, too—at least enough to share in a little joy of watching a tiny island nation hold its own against a World Cup powerhouse.