“And what exactly are you doing here, sir?” To be fair, the border guard at Miami international airport made an excellent point. As ice-breakers go, frowning over the passports and visa stickers of the long-haul crowd on matchday minus four of the Fifa Club World Cup, the border guard was at least in tune with the zeitgeist. What is football doing here?
What are Lionel Messi, Trent Alexander-Arnold and the massed engines of the football-industrial complex doing hovering like an alien landing party over this fun, sinking sandbank of a city, a strip of land where the ocean seems to be punching a mulchy green hole in the asphalt every few miles, a place that from the air seems to be made entirely from deep-fried crumb, tropical weed and traffic?
