Thank you to everyone who purchased a copy of Golden Goal, came to one of our events, or read our articles. This has been an enormously gratifying experience thanks in large part to the support we’ve received from our readers. We had always intended this to be a one-off project, but the incredible interest we’ve received has led us to explore options for keeping Golden Goal going. 

We’ll update you on how we plan on doing that soon. But for now, we are taking a break. We’ll continue publishing stories on our website in the coming months—likely starting some time after the start of the European club season in August—and will have copies of our magazine on sale for $15 on our website until we’re out of stock. As for whether we’ll be back for future tournaments, that remains an open question. All we will say for now is: stay tuned.

Over the past few days, I’ve been slowly reading through the dozens of tabs I left open since the tournament began, reliving everything from the diaspora discourse to the English meltdown over Argentina’s comeback in the semifinals. I was reminded of special moments: the exciting — and unexpectedly strong — start of all three host countries; the delightful emergence of Vozinha and Cabo Verde; Curacao’s heroic lone point against Ecuador; the Dictator Mbappe memes; Erling Haaland’s all-American roadtrip; Argentina’s near-death experience in every knockout tie; Florence Pernet’s ethereal at-home photographs; that Sidney Lopes Cabral goal; Mexico v. England at the Azteca. That this largely very good tournament was capped off by the best-ever third place game and the undeniability of Spain’s victory felt fitting. 

The tournament also shined a light on the sport’s unsavory underbelly, from FIFA’s decision to sell the tournament for parts — “dynamic” ticket pricing, hydration breaks, the sale of patches of grass from the final — to the Trump of it all. I watched as the Argentina discourse developed from hate watching the champions to commentary on racism and sportsmanship, eventually curdling into generalizations on national character that broke everyone’s mind online. The Saudi Aramco advertising boards will live rent-free in a corner in my mind as a reminder of where the game is heading, ready to resurface whenever I spend too much time recalling any one particular game. 

For better or worse, I believe we’ve reached a new era of World Cups: an expanded, sprawling goal fest set across multiple countries, played with four quarters, halftime shows, a seeding system that will lend itself to fewer upsets and dark horses and a global discourse that, thanks to the advent of automated AI-powered translation, can break across language barriers almost instantaneously. Still, I’m left with a few bright moments: Palestinians gathering outdoors to watch games in Gaza, Argentine fans erupting in song after the semi-final against England, and being lucky enough to watch Colombia play against Uzbekistan at the Estadio Azteca for the final match of the first round, back when the future was full of promise, when every team was still in contention, and when the World Cup, even in this new hypercorporatized era, belonged to all of us. — Miguel Salazar

Even if we do this again, this will always be the World Cup of Golden Goal for me. Part of that is simply because the magazine consumed a decent chunk of the nights and weekends of the winter and spring of this year but mostly it’s because I got to make a magazine I am enormously proud of with my friends and because that magazine put me in touch with a huge group of people in New York but also all over America and the world who think about soccer in a way that’s similar to the way I think about it. That process was thrilling and spectacular and occasionally frustrating and stupid—just like the World Cup, in other words. What more could you want? 

As a fan, I wish I had a different answer—this was a special and unique tournament in so many ways—but this World Cup was all about America for me. It was a window into this country at what is undoubtedly a low point for it politically in just about every sense. You didn’t have to look very hard to see that in this tournament. But it was also a tournament that showcased the best parts of this country, its diversity and friendliness and the uniqueness and inevitability of American culture. For so long, part of that uniqueness came with a qualifier: This was not a soccer country. It is now. — Alex Shephard

If I told you, dear reader, that my favorite moment of this deliciously corrupt World Cup was Lautaro Martínez soaring over defenders to head a ball into the English net that was sharp like a dagger, would you believe me? Of course you would. I hazard to say that, for Argentines—much-maligned by betting-house-sponsored buffoons—no moment in recent memory has compared (with the possible exception of Montiel’s penalty, which gave us the 2022 tournament). The street outside my house, subject of a previous dispatch, became a sea of blue and white affirming as they jumped that they were not that lowest of things, English. The anthem-singing before the match started told us everything we needed to know: “God Save the King” was inaudible, and the players screamed the Argentine anthem like never before. (Once upon a time, the shy Messi didn’t sing the anthem, provoking much controversy. He was yelling the lyrics that night.)

The team played like crap in the first half, mostly trying to remind the English who they’re playing against. (Dark arts? No: winning. Let go of the ball if you don’t like it!) Then, out of nowhere, they scored – Molina, one of our worst players this tournament and never much on defense, had taken a nap near the second post and Gordon got past him. I don’t think England touched the ball again after that. Call it rage, call it the spirit of Diego Armando Maradona or Leo Messi being the greatest player of all time (but, of course, Rodri was the best player of the tournament). They started defending with everything in their power, actual fear in their eyes. 

I lost count: blocked shots, brilliant saves from Pickford, near-misses. It was coming. Out of a short corner kick, the kind we’d played all match, Messi forced two defenders to pick him up and shot it to Enzo Fernández, who put his shoe through it, soft. “It’s in the middle of the goal!,” Bellingham (rightly) complained, but too late. We knew the second goal was coming at that point, and when it arrived – once again and always, Messi – all hell broke loose. I was alone in my apartment and ran outside, where people screamed and ran into the streets and hugged each other while drivers in passing cars honked their horns. When the whistle went, Messi kneeled with joy and the players wept. Lautaro Martínez thanked his mother, who never stopped making his bed when he left their house in Bahía Blanca to join the Racing Club academy in Avellaneda. The Malvinas banner, of course, was one more stroke of genius, made out of a ripped up hotel bedsheet and smuggled into the stadium. Who knew the English were so soft?

Joy infinity. Say whatever you want, lie at will, whine till it’s dark. I – we – will never forget that day. — Federico Perelmutter

There’s this tension about the World Cup that is unavoidable for any football fan. At my most cynical, I wish I could just stop caring about football and see it for what it is, the profit machine it has become. The reality, however, is that it’s the small moments of sheer magic that outweigh the horrible bullshit, and the World Cup is both the biggest and the most meaningful stage where these moments happen.

I was thinking of that while watching Cabo Verde versus Argentina. I truly hate the expanded tournament field: forty-eight teams is an aberration, let alone sixty-four (allegedly) for the upcoming tournament. I would have probably said that right before Lopes-Cabral’s incredible goal that would set the match for extra-time (the best goal of the tournament, if you ask me). It was a beautiful moment that showcased everything that’s so enticing about football: the underdog making an epic comeback against the champions, an unbelievable shot with amazing technique that ends up right at the angle of the goal, and the outpouring of emotion as the scorer ran to the stands to find his partner.

How can you not just give in to those moments where everything comes together so poetically in front of your eyes? It’s the perfect illustration of the nature of the game: almost 90 minutes where little happens, with sporadic flares of genius and magic that make every single second you saw, no matter how uneventful, make sense. It’s the beauty of stumbling upon one of those tiny little islands amid oceans of dullness.

There’s a certain grandness in being the underdogs that fight back, that won’t let them kill the magic of what we have come to love, and that believe that the sport itself will always find a way of showing it to us. It’s the romance of Lopes-Cabral about to make that shot against the goalkeeper of the reigning champions.

Ironically, the World Cup has left me with a certain optimism about the future. It might as well end up being an illusion, but for now I can’t shake the hope. — Eduardo Palma

Now that we’ve finished the Golden Goal World Cup cycle, I’m going to step back from having takes and just be unsexily honest about what draws me to the World Cup: I watch almost exclusively through the lens of being a Tottenham Hotspur supporter. 

When England lined up to play Croatia, I saw that our then wunderkind Luka Vuskovic was in the Croatian starting eleven, and I was rooting for him to have a great game so that his transfer value would go up. The ink on the Dutch defender Jan-Paul Van Hecke’s contract hadn’t even begun to dry before I was fully backing him as if he was my own son, daydreaming about the line-breaking passes he would make into our midfield. I was gutted to see Lionel Messi’s best goal of the tournament whiz by Kevin Danso on the line in their 2-0 win over Austria. I thought to myself: Morocco wouldn’t be winning this if the Netherlands had Xavi Simons available to them, and England are lucky that Mohammed Kudus isn’t in there to take some of the pressure off Antoine Semenyo. I bet that Ancelotti wished he had Richarlison instead of Igor Thiago.

I got very angry about Thomas Tuchel yelling at Djed Spence, and was so happy to see him become a cult hero for England. I wanted Christian Romero to show the world the level of player he was (and to drive his transfer value up); I would get mad at Lionel Scaloni for deciding to sub on Nicolas Otamendi instead of Marcos Senesi, who hasn’t even showed up to the training ground yet. I wouldn’t go far as to say I wish that Pau Cubarsi hadn’t cleared the ball before Marcos Senesi had a chance to tap in the tying goal in extra time, but not because of Argentina’s aggressiveness or politics: I simply like Pedro Porro more at this point. Yes Nico Williams made a great headed assist to Ferran Torres for the tournament winning goal, but the key part of that goal was Porro’s lofted cross to him beyond the back post. I think what I’m trying to get at here is that being a fan of a team can be a disease that invests (or infects) everything with a different meaning, and in this case it allowed me to consume the World Cup in a uniquely neurotic way instead of as the monolithic spectacle it is being made into. — Billy Lennon

I watched very little of the 2022 World Cup, which started just a few days after my father passed away from a rapid terminal illness. Four years is a long time—enough time, at least, for me to forget most of the things he’d say about football. This tournament has felt like the first one without him, and throughout these past few weeks, I’ve been trying to recall the stray comments he’d throw out at the television when I was growing up, or what he’d say on our videochats after I moved away, both of us watching the games on our own.

One of the few things I hold onto is that he disliked Cristiano Ronaldo. Too much showboating, too many tricks, too selfish; my father had this opinion at some point during his first spell in Manchester. The critique was widely shared and an easy one to inherit, through Ronaldo’s stratospheric, gravity-bending years, when his ego was at its most malignant, when the hyperbaric chamber was doing its most compelling work. I ended up watching all of Portugal’s matches this summer, including their slow throttling by Spain in the round of 16. It was the kind of game that a younger Ronaldo would tear open, but now, at 41, could only endure in that belabored, sputtering way he has had for a while. He had nineteen touches and took three shots, the best of them in the 11th minute—a quick stepover and a shot straight at Unai Simón. Afterward, the camera cut to the Portuguese fans in the crowd, cheering and smiling serenely, as one would look at an elderly dog still reliably fetching a stick. The rest of the time, he toiled at the periphery, not really near enough to be relevant, trying to muscle memory his way into destiny. And yet, after Spain took the lead, I watched with a kind of muscle memory, expecting one final miraculous turn that never came. The game finished, Portugal went out, and with it, Ronaldo’s final appearance at a World Cup—the closing act of Messi-Ronaldo struggle that has reverberated through the past two decades, which has been the founding text of my footballing consciousness. 

Each World Cup is a marker in time: You can measure a player’s trajectory, a life, in four year increments. 2010 Luis Suárez, the crying heel for the African continent, honed his craft to become vampiric 2014 Luis Suárez. I was struck by the thought that my father would never see the 2026 Ronaldo, and, actually, the last Ronaldo he saw at the World Cup was the 2018 version—the one who scored a hat-trick against Spain in the group stage, somehow salvaging a draw with a trademark knuckleball free kick. The World Cup has an immortalizing power in this way; the endings we get are rarely perfect, often poetic, and mostly it’s special to have witnessed one at all. — Andrew Tan Delli Cicchi