Well, this was at least a first. Gianni was right on that front. On a clammy, boisterous, vaguely hallucinogenic night at the Hard Rock Stadium, the opening act of Fifa’s billion-dollar death star, the newly bulked and tanned Club World Cup, did produce something new. This was surely the first major sporting event where the opening ceremony was infinitely more entertaining, and indeed comprehensible as a basic human activity, than the sporting spectacle that followed.
By the end, the best team in Africa, Al Ahly, had drawn 0-0 with a largely incoherent Inter Miami, who looked in the first half like they had a dim idea what this sport is meant to look like, but who were also struggling through a terrible wall-eyed hangover to remember which way is forward.
