Let’s move on from Ronaldo, the GOAT, politics, diversity, Southgate and talk football

The Mailbox has talked and talked about the World Cup and has already started on 2026 but can we move on now?

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Five things we can stop talking about now
There’s a few subjects that we really can give up talking about now.

1. The GOAT. It was massively boring when there were arguments to be made. It’s done now.

2. Politics. Qatar’s treatment of migrant workers has now been covered extensively by everyone except the Neviller, despite his weak efforts. They appear to be getting their house in order – slowly – so let’s get on with doing the same.

3. Diversity. Inclusiveness needs promoting, of course, but chiming in about the potential 2026 US political situation is ridiculous. That’s blending the worst elements of being woke and being a hipster. Nope.

4. Potential future England managers. Southgate is staying. That anybody even mentioned Lampard or Gerrard shows just how few alternatives there are. Southgate himself should be at the head of the 365 ladder, because without him we’re stuffed. Football is a toxic mess, especially around the national side. Southgate is the antioxidant who makes the whole thing slightly more bearable.

5. Ronaldo. He won’t be missed.

Let’s get back to the actual football. The hopes, dreams, experiences and insight we have for this infernal football addiction of ours.
Tom E13

Abaya, amnesty, apathy
I’m not sure presenting Messi with an abaya would be quite the reverential compliment Eoin suggests it is, given that the abaya is a women’s garment. The word he is looking for is bisht, something that most people probably already know given the number of ‘what was the cloak given to Messi?’ articles that immediately appeared.

Can we also have an amnesty on comparisons between the USA and Qatar for at least the next 3 years? It’s not clever, it’s f**king tiresome. Yes yes, the BBC and the Guardian (seemingly the only media outlets to express an opinion, according to some) are going to be outrageously hypocritical. Or maybe they won’t. Who knows? I don’t. Neither does anyone else.

I do know that a cross-continental World Cup is a bloody awful idea from a climate change perspective, but I also know that it’s essentially a drop in a rising ocean compared to the annual impact of the likes of BP. Maybe we, as a planet, will be enacting the necessary major systemic change by then and the tournament won’t even happen. More…