The first is four weeks of football, which is a full month with at least two to four games a day in the first half, and football fans are equivalent to the world’s deepest bath to soak and relax. Only this time, it’s a bit frustrating to wonder if it’s morally ok to enjoy Poland versus Mexico given the circumstances… you know.
Secondly, now everything will be marked with the World Cup. The FIFA logo will be on your drinks, food, public transport, TV, computer, toys, cutlery, crockery, and this year – since times are unusual now and the World Cup takes place in winter – your Christmas decorations. So is the product.
Do you need these things? of course not. Do you want some of them? Absolutely. So, we’re here to lend a helping hand, sort through selected items, and tell you what’s worth spending your hard-earned money on and what’s not. Here is The Athletic’s guide to the best and worst World Cup merchandise.
Let’s start with the basics (wow!): the ball, and its name is Al Rihla. If you want £130 for a full-fledged real ball that they will use in the World Cup, go for it, but there are also more modest versions. Regardless of which version you purchase, it contains manufacturer’s nonsense, including: Al Rihla means “journey”, it “takes precision to new heights”; These are good footballs, with just enough splashes of color to give them some impact, but not so much that they cover it all. This is the 14th World Cup ball provided by Adidas, although it is not a Tango or a Tricolore or a Jabulani, so wobbly and devious.
If you don’t want to mess around with a full size soccer ball this Christmas, how about hanging a smaller ball on the tree? Here’s the thing, Christmas decorations are usually bought for years: you buy it, hang it on the tree, then put it in a box and forget it for 11 months. Then you take it out of the box again … In that case, I wonder why you need a gadget from last year’s World Cup. What then? Did you put it back on the tree anyway? trash? Starting a very slow growing series and hoping to get a US/Canada/Mexico trinket in 2026? However, this is a strange World Cup and a strange Christmas, so why not combine the two oddities.
Is it an exaggeration to say that if you want to watch the World Cup from the comfort of your chair with a glass of ice water in your hand, you will have to drink from those cups? It’s like a commodity version of the BBC license fee: if you try to buy Madri for something else, the test van will arrive in no time. For the next three years and 11 months, you may regret it, but for the first four weeks of playing, you will feel just… good.
Perhaps we should talk about Laiba, the mascot of the World Cup. Laib is described as “adventurous, cheerful and curious”, apparently from a “talisman verse”, which is an “indescribably” parallel reality. You can see what they were trying to do here, creating a likable character with a bit of mystery and backstory. But at the end of the day, Laib looks like a cartoon ghost for a tournament in which an unknown number of people died in preparation… well, you can see why people misinterpret him as one of those unfortunate souls who haunt the game to remind everything it’s worth. Anyway, here’s Laib in plush toy form.
How long do you think this “everything goes home” thing will last? It’s charmingly ironic in 2018, but it’s flippant at Euro 2021 to try to explain that this is not an expression of British exceptionalism, so if they’re still spinning the streets of Doha in December 2022… …fuck your teeth, it will tiresome. But as long as it remains the zeitgeist, it will remain in merchandise, and it will never be more appropriate than this ridiculously cheap, junk-looking duffel bag. That’s the way it should be.
Men’s note: Don’t buy British underwear if you’re single or expect new people to see your underwear. You can ruin a potentially great relationship: you meet someone, you start, you get to the point where people start taking off their outer layers, you show you put them under your pants, and they walk away, and again they can’t. See you. You are all alone. Just stick to your regular panties.
I’m not going to insult your IQ by asking you to buy a World Cup sticker book. You’re not an idiot, I know you’ll get it if you haven’t already. So let’s take a look at the accessories. You need something to protect your exchange. It’s not 1997: you can’t just put rubber bands on them and hope for the best. what you need? That’s right: jars with stickers. Tin can for stickers. This is clear.
I literally laughed out loud when I heard about it. Last together: Marilyn Monroe and the England football team. The blonde and our brave children. Norma Jane and the three lions. Although in this case, presumably for reasons of copyright, there is only one lion. One was beloved, tragic, had some success a few years ago but was ultimately doomed…the other and so on. Even the thought process behind this was out of the ordinary: we have Marilyn posing like she’s posing for guys in the early 2000s like a magazine, with a soccer ball between her thighs (Brazuka 2014 at the World Cup) in a form-fitting T-shirt England. – shirt with blood red lipstick. undoubtedly! Why haven’t I thought about this until now? Let’s all buy one and wear it every game day.
It’s good to see that the market for commemorative coins still seems to be gaining momentum. It’s like a holdover from a time when kids had nothing to do but play with hoops on sticks and two TV channels starting at 6pm. In those days, a collectible coin, remotely related to football, was sure to enliven life, and if it was boring, you could pull it out of the desk drawer and stare at it with pleasure for three to five hours. Now parents are very worried if their children do this. They may pass some tests. This begs the question: who is it for? Who buys World Cup 2022 collectible coins? I: Is it important? Should there be a dot? Is it better than Cuauhtemoc Blanco’s NFT doing bunny jumping? Almost certainly.
Once again: who buys this thing? There was a time when souvenir plates were only available to your aunt or grandmother who bought one to commemorate a royal wedding, which meant that Charles and Diana would be staring at you from the shelf long after their union ended. But the plates start at 2,200 QAR (around £500!) and go up to 22,000 QAR (over £5,000!) – who would pay £5,000 for a commemorative plaque in the name of a saint? Are you going to eat it? No, of course not. So you just put it somewhere in your house and the guests will comment: “Oh, this is a really ugly plate, where did you get it for … 5000 pounds?!?!!!? thing, it’s really an investment, isn’t it, yeah, yeah, it’s definitely going to be worth something in a few years.”
At the risk of looking like someone’s contemptuous father is now bullying his kids with music, hair, and tik toks… it’s just a chair, right? When did we change the name “chair” to “gaming chair”? Sounds tougher? Does this mean you can raise the price? Is there any added value in having the World Cup logo printed on the back? This might be one of those moments that makes it clear once and for all that I’m an old man screaming at the clouds, but… let’s be honest, kids these days bring their music, their hair and their TikTok.
We all know that when the World Cup approaches, it’s time for the most unimaginative marketer on the planet to shrug, puff on a cigarette and say, “Write ‘World Cup’ on the box.” Everything will be a product of the World Cup: TV from the World Cup, soft drink from the World Cup, chocolate from the World Cup, food from the World Cup, cereal from the World Cup, gasoline from the World Cup, toilet paper from the World Cup, shampoo from the World Cup, horror on survival from the World Cup. all. And beer, of course, but it’s 2022 and you can’t drink a bottle of beer now. You need craft beer, like this. You need to sip it without knowing what exactly you are tasting and saying, “Well, hops” or something like that so as not to look stupid. You have to pretend that a drink that you can cut with a knife and fork is good, that you are a real beer drinker and in some way morally superior to him. Sorry: the World Cup is morally higher.
When I was a kid, I sometimes played football alone at home, using a small styrofoam ball and a bay window as a goal. I will make a comment detailing myself and the team I created in my head, a group of completely fictional football players who seem real to me. It’s like having one imaginary friend but with 10 imaginary friends. I will write game reports about our victories. I think I once made a trophy out of cardboard. No, this is not a cry for help or an attempt at Internet therapy, but a possible answer to the question “Who needs a copy of the World Cup winner’s medal?” When I was young Or the equivalent of 2022. Who is this.
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Nick Miller is a football columnist for The Athletic and Totally Football Show. He has previously freelanced for The Guardian, ESPN and Eurosport, as well as anyone he wanted to.
Post time: Nov-17-2022