{"text":[[{"start":7.75,"text":"All the fuss about which country will win the World Cup is relevant to only a handful of the 48 participating teams. The rest are too small or weak to win, and have come to the tournament in pursuit of other quests. At every World Cup, there are several prestigious titles at stake beside that of Champion. In fact, it’s the profusion of storylines that makes this such a compelling show. "}],[{"start":31.4,"text":"There’s the title of Clown — a big country that fails, often England, which strides onstage to the strains of “Rule, Britannia” and then trips up, usually on penalties against some former wartime enemy. There’s the Beautiful Loser — the prize for which my team, the Netherlands, used to compete. "}],[{"start":49.15,"text":"Most teams aspire to the title of Cinderella, a small country that experiences a fairy tale: Cameroon in 1990, Ghana in 2010 and Morocco in 2022. The whole world supports the Cinderella. This year, with the tournament expanded from 32 to 48 teams, there are more potential Cinderellas than ever before. In fact, the first round is all about them, given that big countries like England or Germany will need to perform miracles not to survive this stage. "}],[{"start":79.85,"text":"The perfect Cinderella nation is low-income, like Cinderella herself, and a surprise participant at the ball. The ideal candidates this time are therefore Haiti, Cabo Verde and DR Congo."}],[{"start":92.6,"text":"In World Cups as in theatre, the most compelling character is often the Villain. The tournament has produced undying Villains, like the West German keeper Toni Schumacher in 1982, who lives eternally in memory flying out of his goal to karate-kick the Frenchman Patrick Battiston in the ribs. "}],[{"start":110.5,"text":"That moment was so resonant because Schumacher transcended his individual persona. He represented the collective Villain of the World Cup in the postwar decades: Germany. Crucially, the country in that era still carried the emotional baggage of wartime. The French TV commentator Georges de Caunes said that for French people of his generation, Schumacher’s assault evoked feelings from the occupation. "}],[{"start":136.3,"text":"The football writer David Winner says that in the story of 20th-century World Cups, Germany played the role of the bad guy who kills the beautiful teams — the Hungarians in 1954, the Dutch in 1974 and the French in 1982. In Winner’s phrase: “A World Cup without Germany would be like Star Wars without Darth Vader.” "}],[{"start":158.3,"text":"But this century, Germany retired from the role. Tired of ugly winning, the Germans remade their game to become pretty losers. Meanwhile, the second world war faded from living memory. The World Cup lost its Darth Vader and football stopped being war. Sweet as that is, it has deprived the tournament of some of its spice."}],[{"start":179.95000000000002,"text":"This century, the title of Villain is open to all-comers. The Italian Marco Materazzi and the Frenchman Zinedine Zidane competed for the role during the final of 2006. Some believe that Zidane’s headbutt to Materazzi’s chest made him the Villain. To others, Zidane’s spontaneous, authentic and perversely elegant farewell to football made him more beloved than if he had jogged away from Materazzi and won another World Cup. He became that year’s Beautiful Loser and also walked off with an imaginary oeuvre prize for lifetime contributions to the tournament."}],[{"start":213.40000000000003,"text":"Only one man, Uruguay’s Luis Suárez, has been the Villain of two World Cups. First, in 2010, his handball on the goal line in Johannesburg knocked out Ghana. A well-structured drama pits the main characters against each other, and here was the Villain slaying Cinderella. Satisfyingly, Suárez embraced the role. “I made the best save of the tournament,” he boasted. In 2014, he retained the title with his bite out of the shoulder of the Italian Giorgio Chiellini."}],[{"start":245.05000000000004,"text":"Uruguay is a small-time collective Villain of modern World Cups, and after both episodes, Suárez’s compatriots defended the indefensible. In 2014, Uruguay’s coach, Óscar Tabárez, blamed a conspiracy by the “English” media, while the Uruguayan newspaper El Observador said of the apparent bite mark on Chiellini: “It could just be a mole.”"}],[{"start":268.40000000000003,"text":"I hasten to add that I condemn the bite. Eating people is wrong. But it was also a brilliant and hilarious moment, more bizarre than evil, which remains a highlight of the tournament. "}],[{"start":280.1,"text":"This time the frontrunners for Villain are Donald Trump and Fifa’s president Gianni Infantino, but every World Cup throws up surprises. Who will win the tournament itself? I have no idea and don’t particularly care. "}],[{"start":293.90000000000003,"text":"Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend Magazine on X and FT Weekend on Instagram"}],[{"start":308.3,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1781316485_1341.mp3"}