Gianni Infantino supersized the World Cup — but we are too exhausted to enjoy it

Gianni Infantino finally got his wish: a World Cup so massive it practically requires its own timezone and a dedicated algorithm just to keep track of the group stages. The 48-team behemoth is currently sprawling across North America, delivering a buffet of football so relentless that fans are developing repetitive strain injury simply from changing the channel. But as the FIFA President takes his victory lap and the 2026 tournament stumbles into its final week, a glaring question has emerged from the sheer exhaustion: did adding more teams actually make the beautiful game better, or did we just supersize a meal nobody asked to finish?

1. The sheer, unrelenting volume. One hundred and four matches is not a sporting tournament; it is a full-time job with terrible dental benefits. Infantino looked at the pristine, mathematically perfect 64-game schedule of the past and decided humanity needed a month-long sleep deprivation experiment.
2. The group stage felt like a gentle suggestion. When 32 teams advance from a 48-team pool, the competitive stakes are roughly as high as a friendly kickabout in a municipal park. We spent two weeks watching teams desperately try not to get eliminated, which is a very different viewing experience from watching them try to win.
3. The David vs. Goliath match-ups lean heavily toward Goliath. We all love a romantic underdog story, but sometimes watching a squad of plucky debutants get systematically dismantled by European megastars feels less like tournament magic and more like an HR violation.
4. The geography is actively hostile. Spanning three massive North American nations means the tournament footprint is roughly the size of the Roman Empire at its absolute peak. Players and fans alike are racking up enough air miles to legally declare themselves sovereign clouds.
5. The Infantino victory lap is deafening. The FIFA President's grand vision of a perpetually expanding football universe has been realised, cementing his legacy as the man who gave us more football than the human brain can legally process.

Quantity, as it turns out, is not a tactic; it is just a very long month.