Black footballers carry the burden of achievement while facing personal abuse and political erasure.
Being a Black diaspora football lover means veering between anger and celebration, happiness and resentment.
Navigating Loss of Trust
This tournament comes at a unique global moment: post-pandemic, post-Gaza, post-Black Lives Matter backlash, post-death of the rules-based order, and post-enshittification of X under Elon Musk.
These forces curdled when Egypt's goal against Argentina was disallowed, sparking allegations of a fix. Trust has haemorrhaged from sporting and political institutions.
The World Cup is fundamentally about political tribes and the nation state. Each team projects a country.
But the beauty was in micro-dosing politics, not being engulfed.
I want to watch football as always: on a laptop, back turned, feeling sick because my team is losing.
I don't want a seminar after every match or every decision scrutinised as motivated.
Yet, as the tournament draws to a close, I'm in awe that the World Cup remains porous to what we're collectively feeling.
It is the biggest compass for where we are, marking our coordinates every four years. This is where we are.
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I shall measure my life in this one, too.
