Boston is my second home. I have visited my Italian-American family in Massachusetts 30-plus times. It is the most visitor-friendly and European of the great American cities. So, when the fixtures for this year’s World Cup were confirmed, and England were assigned a game at the New England Patriots’ Gillette Stadium against Ghana, we were excited to go – especially as another game was relatively nearby in New Jersey, close to New York City, where I lived for five years.
And then came the ticket and travel price fiasco – and the horrible realisation that Fifa boss Gianni Infantino was gaslighting the world in his craven attempt to appease Donald Trump and garner as much profit as possible for his brazen organisation. I was resigned to not going (and no one I know is going either) and relatively uninterested, especially as my beloved Italy has failed to qualify for the third World Cup tournament in a row.
And then came the opening match between South Africa and co-hosts Mexico. Watching the former Fulham player Raul Jimenez cry with joy after scoring in front of 80,000 of his home supporters in the storied Azteca Stadium in Mexico City – and knowing how he had come back from a near-death on-pitch experience and recently lost his father – reminded me that the World Cup isn’t about Fifa, Infantino or even Trump, however hard he tries. It belongs to the players and fans alike – and each one has an individual story, some of them truly quite remarkable. Suddenly, the FOMO was real.
