The Real Winners and Losers of the 2026 World Cup

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From Viking memes and influencer superstars to FIFA fiascos and America's spectacular own goal, here's who really came out on top, and who was left licking their wounds.

July 16, 2026

The champions of the 2026 World Cup will be decided when favorites Spain and never-say-die defending champs Argentina meet for the final at New York New Jersey Stadium on Sunday. But off the pitch, online in the vibe-o-sphere, the true winners and losers of this tournament have already been decided.

The world’s biggest sporting event — sorry Olympics — isn’t just about the team lifting the trophy, it’s about who captured the media narrative. It’s about who got richer, who got roasted, and who accidentally became the internet’s main character for six weeks. A Belgian YouTuber outdrew MrBeast. A centuries-dead raiding culture got the best rebrand since Nordic noir. And a feel-good run by a bunch of plucky American underdogs curdled into a geopolitical incident faster than you can say “overturned red card.”

Winner: Sponsors

Whoever hoists the Cup on Sunday, World Cup advertisers will be coming away champions. Before a single ball was kicked, this tournament was a record breaker in terms of corporate sponsorship, with world soccer governing body FIFA booking around $2.8 billion in revenue, up from around $1.8 billion in Qatar 2022.

FIFA’s controversial decision to expand the tournament from 32 to 48 teams delivered advertisers exactly what they were promised: more matches, more fans, more eyeballs and, crucially, many more opportunities to sell things. Stadiums have been virtually full throughout, broadcast audiences have broken records across the host nations of United States, Canada, and Mexico and social media engagement has topped tens of billions of video views.

This World Cup also expanded the range of tournament sponsors. Alongside drinks (Coca-Cola), fast food (McDonalds), sneakers (Adidas), cars (Hyundai) and credit cards (Visa), we saw the arrival of banking (Bank of America), telecoms (Verizon), and state-run oil firms (Saudi’s Aramco) to the World Cup VIP lounge. Diehards may grumble, but the cash registers have spoken. FIFA President Gianni Infantino is already taking about expanding the tournament further, to 64 teams for the 2030 event.

Loser: The Rules of the Game

Has there ever been a World Cup with so much noise around rigging, ref shockers and downright bizarre applications of VAR? It’s hard to tell, especially with the level of scandal that social media can drum up these days. Even with Salvadoran official Iván Barton producing the tournament’s first viral moment (“Decision is: RED CARD!”), what is absolutely certain is it’s never been so unclear what the rules of soccer are — even for the most seasoned of fans. (None of us, it is fair to say, understand the “mistaken identity” rule that got Switzerland’s Breel Embolo sent off in their match against Argentina, helping Messi’s squad into the semis.)

But undoubtedly the worst moment of the entire tournament materialized in the form of (who else?) Donald Trump, who admitted to making a call to FIFA in a bid to get Folarin Balogun’s red card dismissed. It worked. The red card was overturned. A government leader successfully intervening on his team’s behalf. Even in the notoriously corrupt world of global football, this was a new low.

Even at its worst, FIFA could always claim that the rules of the game were the law. The ref’s call, right or wrong, stands. Not anymore. FIFA President Gianni Infantino should be hanging his head in shame. He almost undoubtedly is not.

Winner: Vikings

Not since the 9th century have longboats and cow-horned headwear been so popular.

Norway’s “Viking Row” — thousands of supporters doing a syncronized oar pull while bellowing “Ro!” — has become the tournament’s defining meme, spreading from stadium terraces to Times Square to the parliament in Oslo — with government and opposition unified in their fan tribute to Scandinavian seafearing.

The chant, invented less than six months ago by a Norwegian superfan, looks set to outlast the World Cup. After Norway was kicked out in the quarterfinals, the team was welcomed home by 100,000 rowing fans outside the royal palace in Oslo, with Crown Prince Haakon leding the crowd. Imagewise, it’s a big win for Europe’s maurading raiders, who have pulled off the greatest rebrand in a millennium.

Loser: Argentina

The surprise villain of this year’s World Cup, thanks to weeks of rumors around match fixing and referees looking the other way when it comes to squad star Lionel Messi. It all seemed to culminate in Egypt’s heart-wrenching loss in the last round of 16. Mo Salah’s side controversially had a goal disallowed after a perceived foul in the build-up. It was a goal that might just have solidified Egypt’s spot in the quarterfinals, making history for the team, but Messi implored referee François Letexier to take a look at the VAR replay. In a move that stunned spectators, he agreed, only for a similar infringement to go entirely unnoticed before Argentina’s stoppage-time winner.

Whipping social media up into frenzy further, Egypt manager Hossam Hassan gave a blistering post-match presser. “It’s all about money. They want Messi to stay in the tournament,” he said. “Why isn’t there any fairness in sport?” They have filed a formal complaint against the match officials. It has not been a good look for FIFA, especially given Argentina’s shady World Cup history (English fans will remember Diego Maradona’s notorious “Hand of God” cheat in 1986, no video replays back then).

Then there’s the FBI investigation into the Argentine Football Association over alleged money laundering of $300 million. Argentina are the defending champions and their team features the sport’s greatest-ever talent in Messi. But their public image is at an all-time low.

Winner: Thomas Tuchel’s Sex Appeal

Wait, is Thomas Tuchel hot? That seems to be the key question for thousands of women across the U.K. this past week, with sports journalists happening upon a particular Mumsnet thread reading: “Am I being unreasonable… to find Thomas Tuchel attractive?”

Granted, some comments underneath are gloriously maternal — a masterclass in gentle yet scathing smackdowns: “You need to lie down and drink some water. My diagnosis is sunstroke. It’s clearly affected your thought processes.” Others, however, appear euphoric to have had this guilty pleasure publicly validated: “He has a certain wiry, athletic, long-limbed vibe to him,” writes one. “So pretty,” says another. The words “malnourished vagrant” come up, but so does “vampire,” and we all know how magnetic they are.

The blushing mums of Mumsnet should get on TikTok: there, hundreds of fancam edits of the England coach have accrued tens of thousands of likes. “Guys, I’m gonna be real, I think I’m attracted to Thomas Tuchel,” says a young woman named Mimi. “It’s just the energy he has.” A chorus below the video sings in agreement. It’s kind of like a history teacher you fancy, they conclude, which is more than enough to anoint someone a sex symbol here in Britain. The unsuspecting combination of the German’s sharp cheekbones and quiet authority has nearly made him as much of a pin-up as Jude Bellingham (with a certain crowd, anyway). There’s just something about the sexy jeans-and-tee combo in the technical area.

That being said, last night’s late-game loss to Argentina in the semi-final might just have shattered all illusions. Tuchel-Tok won’t be happy.

Loser: Hydration Breaks

It’s been obvious from the very beginning exactly what the World Cup’s “hydration breaks” really are: ad breaks.

Sold as a chance to give players a few minutes to freshen up in scorching North American weather, very few soccer fans are actually under any illusions when it comes to the hydration breaks, and all they’ve done is draw criticism from the four corners of the sport, and raucous boos from the stadium crowds. The breaks disrupt the flow of the game, kill momentum and effectively condones a mini-tactical huddle for managers and players midway through each half.

Splitting soccer into four quarters swiftly earned accusations that this World Cup has been totally “Americanized,” and the aforementioned ad money has only fed into widespread complaints about FIFA’s obsession with capitalism and Infantino’s enduring greed. Managers, players and fans alike agree: The hydration breaks don’t really work. They’re probably here to stay.

Winners: Influencers

Legacy media did just fine out of this World Cup. Fox scored 30 million viewers — the most for a soccer telecast in U.S. History — for the July 6 round of 16 match between Belgium and Team USA; Telemundo drew 23.2 million viewers for Mexico-England on July 5, a Spanish-language TV record in the U.S.; and some 11.7 million Canadians watched their team get knocked out by Morocco on July 4, an all-time high for the sport in the country.

But the real media action in this tournament was online and its biggest stars were soccer influencers.

Leading the pack was Belgian creator Céline Dept, who briefly became YouTube’s most-watched creator, surpassing even MrBeast, generating more than 1.6 billion viewers for her football-focused channel, powered by her access to World Cup superstars including Cristiano Ronaldo, Erling Haaland and Neymar.

In the U.S., Darren Jason Watkins Jr., aka IShowSpeed, was the stand-out. His manic match-day streams have made him soccer’s answer to a late-night host, with audiences — one of his recaps generated more than 200 million views — that often exceed broadcast viewership. Sports anchors and analysts are the old guard, Influncers are the future of the soccer coverage.

Loser: Team USA

For three glorious weeks, America looked like everyone’s favorite underdog. Despite shouldering the political baggage of a Trump government, with all its xenophobic rhetoric and scandals around ICE, visa restrictions and border controls, Team USA got this tournament off to a stirring start. Mauricio Pochettino’s squad played fearless, high-energy football, beating Paraguay and Bosnia & Herzegovina with genuine style and swagger, winning over many a neutral.

Then politics, and Trump, crashed the party. After U.S. striker Folarin Balogun was sent off against Bosnia & Herzegovina, on a red card triggering an automatic one-match suspension, POTUS intervened. Trump publicly acknowledged phoning FIFA president Gianni Infantino to press for a review. Then, against all precedent and FIFA’s own laws, the suspension was overturned and Balogun allowed to play in the knockout match against Belgium.

Sympathy for Team USA evaporated overnight. Everyone become Team Belgium. When the Red Devils thrashed the U.S. 4-1, the world cheered.

The World Cup was supposed to mark America’s coming of age as a football nation. Instead, the U.S. managed the rare feat of scoring the tournament’s most spectacular own goal, transforming from feel-good hosts into tournament’s villains.

Winner: Tori Penso and Every Female Referee

When thousands of screaming men are cheering on 22 male soccer players, it’s easy to forget that there are some women gradually levelling out the gender equality in this game. But a total of six female referees made history at this World Cup, including head referee Penso, from the U.S., who took charge of Czechia’s 1-1 draw with South Africa early on in the tournament.

Misogyny immediately did its thing — her overturning of a penalty decision after a VAR review had countless users joking about Penso being “the first woman to say, ‘I was wrong'” — but her cool-as-a-cucumber officiating was already a win for women in men’s soccer everywhere.

At that game, Penso was joined by assistants Brooke Mayo and Kathryn Nesbitt, marking only the second time an all-female referee team has assumed control of a World Cup match. “Most of the time, I don’t think about it. We are just a team of officials,” said Mayo when it was confirmed they’d be policing the game. “But then you have an instructor come up and ask for a picture because his daughter is inspired by us, thousands of miles away. Or an older female FIFA volunteer, pulling you aside and saying how proud she is to see women at this level and how it never seemed possible when she was younger.”

Rounding out the female match officials at this tournament were Katia Itzel García, Sandra Ramíz, and video official Tatiana Guzmàn.

Losers: Racists

One of the most depressingly familiar traditions at any World Cup is the racist backlash that follows big matches, typically online outrage directed at Black players for missing penalities or for the supposedly unforgivable offense of being dark-skinned and playing for a European squad.

It’s been no different this year. Ahead of the France-Spain semi-final, former Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy reproached France for having “no French players” (23 of the 26 members of the French squad were born in France, all are French citizens). Rojoy’s comments echoed similar racist attacks against French star Kylian Mbappé by Paraguayan senator Celeste Amarilla, who questioned Mbappé’s identity and nationality after his squad knocked out the South Americans.

Happily, the remarks were quickly condemned across the board. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called out his predecessors, comments as “shamefully xenophobic.” France’s football federation announced plans for legal action against Amarilla on allegations of aggravated public insult and incitement to hatred or violence. Mbappé himself dismissed Amarilla as “unworthy” of public office. FIFA has condemned both incidents: “Racism can never be part of the game. It’s a crime.”

Football, it’s clear, still has a racism problem. But this World Cup was a hopeful sign that the beautiful game may be starting to kick the racists out.

Winner and Loser: FIFA (and Gianni Infantino)

No organization has worked harder to make itself unpopular than FIFA. Fans complained about soaring ticket prices. Coaches grumbled about hydration breaks turning football into a four-quarter television product. Refereeing decisions prompted endless conspiracy theories, VAR once again became football’s least popular acronym, and FIFA’s decision to overturn suspensions for Cristiano Ronaldo and, more explosively, Folarin Balogun, raised uncomfortable questions about consistency and political influence. Gianni Infantino’s increasingly cozy relationship with Donald Trump — remember the “FIFA Peace Prize”? — made headlines for all the wrong reasons.

And yet…

Commercially, this has been FIFA’s dream tournament. More than six million fans have packed stadiums, television audiences have shattered records across multiple markets, social media engagement has reached unprecedented levels, and FIFA is on course for the richest financial cycle in its history. In April, FIFA upgraded its revenue projections, saying it expected to make $13 billion in the four-year cycled ending this summer. Compare that to the $5.2 billion earned at the Paris 2024 Olympics, and you can see why Infantino is laughing all the way to the bank.

Maybe, just maybe, the Balogun affair and the various other scandals will hang on, and develop into something more damaging, loosening Infantino’s grip on power. But the safe money has FIFA, and its president, emerging from this World Cup stronger than ever.

Winner and Loser: Soccer Fans

FIFA has seemingly done everything it can — flaunt its own rules, disrupt every game, allow blatant political interference — to ruin things for fans, but this World Cup has still produced some of the most incredible soccer moments the sport has ever seen. Cape Verde’s heroic run of form, Norway’s Haaland-led Viking renaissance, England’s thrilling 3-2 win over Mexico at the Azteca, as well as Ronaldo’s tearful exit and France’s astonishingly limp bow-out last night against Spain: all of them have defied the corporate script and produced a genuinely electric tournament, despite the (often rather convincing) conspiracy theories.

Spare a thought for the North African fans as we wind down on the 2026 instalment — the official World Cup Sleep Tax graph showed that spectators in Algeria and Tunisia have lost the most sleep given their teams’ kick-off times. As if the manner of Egypt’s exit wasn’t exhausting enough already. Roll on Morocco, Portugal and Spain 2030.

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