Sunday's World Cup final, which ended with Lionel Messi finally grasping the one trophy he'd never won, was the most dramatic in tournament history. It was great theater, a bare-knuckle brawl that played out over 120 minutes and four rounds of penalty kicks before Argentina was declared the victor following a game that ended in a 3-3 draw.
Which raises one very vexing question: What to do for an encore?
The next World Cup kicks off in North America in 3½ years and will be the largest and most complex ever, with a record 48 teams playing 80 games in 16 cities spread across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. It's not so much a soccer tournament as it is a full-scale invasion.
