Mbappé, Haaland, Messi and Kane lit up the World Cup. But the tournament does not only live on its champions: from Vozinha to Abunada, those who defy the predictions
In the space of a few hours, Mbappé and Haaland scored 2 goals, Messi 3. Three close explosions, three invitations to the fourth friend at the bar: Cristiano Ronaldo, on his way to his thousandth goal. If we have to imagine a Mount Rushmore of goals, like the one with the sculpted faces of four American Presidents (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt), there’s no escaping it: Messi, CR7, Mbappé and Haaland. Yesterday it seemed obvious that the Portuguese would align himself with his colleagues among the rocks of the Black Hills in South Dakota, also because this messed up Hollywood World Cup is in desperate need of heroes. And instead Cristiano scored and the ambitious Portugal crashed into the low block and the pride of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
For the Goat from Funchal: 90 minutes of painful grimaces, as if his shoes were tight, away from the ball and a goalkeeper called Lionel (look at that…). Crushed by the comparison with the Flea. Among the rocks, the face of Harry Kane was sculpted, 2 goals on his debut, like Mbappé and Haaland. He doesn’t have the same aura, but he joined the four, as JF Kennedy failed to do. But we glimpse another Mount Rushmore, with the unknown faces of Vozinha, the Cape Verde goalkeeper who stopped Spain; of Mahmud Abunada, guardian who protected the first historic world point in Qatar; of Saibari and Wissa who scored historic goals for Morocco and Congo. The mountain of other heroes. The Black Hills were Sioux lands taken by the White Man. The spirit of Alce Nera still animates the guerrillas who rebel against the odds.