When I started writing this column, there were 12 hours until Bafana and Mexico got the 2026 World Cup under way. When I finished it, there were eight hours until kick-off in Mexico City. By the time you read this on Friday morning, the biggest event in sport will finally have seen some actual play on the field.Phillip. It is here. Well, over there. In Mexico, Canada and the land of the free and the Afrikaner refugee.It is hard not to feel a frisson of anticipation and excitement for this World Cup, no matter how chaotic and brutal the build-up. The last week has seen Scottish fans denied visas they had already been granted (Trump’s Scottish mum wouldn’t be happy), unsold tickets, overpriced tickets, near-strip searches on airport aprons on a team from Africa, players detained, a referee deported and taking water bottles into stadiums banned and then unbanned. Through it all, Gianni Infantino, Fifa president, has grinned and shrugged until, when asked by the BBC if he had lost control of his own World Cup, he scowled and told the media and football fans to “chill and relax” as “sometimes screaming and shouting does not find a solution”.Then Infantino told them to enjoy the football and chill at the same time, but fans do not go to football matches or watch them on the telly to chill. They go to shout and scream. They are, as he also said this week, “happy barbarians”. “You will ​be invaded. You will be invaded by a horde of barbarians. But ​it’s happy barbarians,” he said in Los Angeles. (Brandan Reynolds) Perhaps invoking invasion in a time of war, immigration crackdowns and overt racism was not Infantino’s wisest take on football fans descending on US cities, particularly after he said last year “everyone would be welcome” at the tournament. Some are more welcome than others. But, back to the football for a distraction from the chaos. The Guardian’s World Cup quiz has some fun stats. Did you know Braintree Town, a National League South club, will receive £175,000 from Fifa for allowing New Zealand defender Tommy Smith to play in the World Cup? It’s a “thank you” payment from Fifa for clubs who contribute to the World Cup and money Braintree Town needs having fallen into debt. About $355m will be doled out from the 2026 tournament as “thank you for contributing” cash. Carlos Queiroz, the former Bafana manager, will be at his fifth consecutive World Cup and is tipped to lead Ghana past the group stages with Manchester City’s Antoine Semenyo ready to shine. Queiroz coached Portugal in 2010 and Iran in 2014, 2018 and 2022. He qualified Bafana for the 2002 World Cup before Safa did Safa things, and he resigned after falling out with them.English clubs have 207 players at the tournament with Germany second on 109. No team has won the World Cup with a foreign manager, and “only two teams have reached the World Cup final with a manager from a different nationality: the Netherlands in 1978, when they were managed by Ernst Happel from Austria, and Sweden in 1958, when they were managed by George Raynor from England”. As Michael Caine would say, not a lot of people know that.Cape Verde and Curaçao are the fairy tale stories of 2026. Curaçao, the smallest country yet to qualify for a World Cup, have already captured hearts, arriving at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton “in their blue, windowless bus, with music playing loudly and the players singing”, reported the New York Post. It was an old school bus, which may have been influenced by their coach, Dick Advocaat, who at 78 is the oldest manager in World Cup history.These are the stories that will make this World Cup worth watching. The World Cup is a flawed tournament, wrought with corruption, manipulated by politicians to sportswash human rights horrors and massage their egos. And, yet, it is magical. How 2026 will be judged by history is to be seen, but for the next five-and-a-half weeks, over 104 matches in 16 cities it will hold the planet in thrall. There will be no chilling and relaxing. There will be shouting and screaming. Phillip. It is here.