METLIFE STADIUM — By the time the ball hit the net we were all Spanish. The goal felt like an override by the gods fed up with Argentina’s anti-ballers and a referee that struck off what appeared to be a legitimate Spanish goal in normal time and restricted the red cards to one, the inevitable Enzo Fernandez.
Few will remember this World Cup for a final of unrelenting poverty. Well done to Spain for enduring. So bad was “the show” that it rendered the half-time intrusion, as impressively inauthentic as it was, an upgrade on the football.
After a diet of the “best World Cup ever” according to Fifa and its acolytes, Argentina’s version of warball stripped the contest of pattern and rhythm so much that Justin Bieber’s mournful balladeering seemed almost entertaining.
Moreover, Bieber’s cultish indulgence landed like a weighty counterpoint to Madonna’s slapstick journey to pitchside in a car steered by the Brazilian football royalty of Ronaldinho and Ronaldo.
Madonna with Brazil icons Ronaldinho and Ronaldo during the half-time show (Photo: Reuters)
