FIFA World Cup 2026: A week of tears and heartbreaks

A football World Cup is a coup de theatre that offers a warm reminder that when men do open up about their inner feelings, such a spectacle comes with a unique soulfulness. When Lionel Messi teared up after scoring his first goal against Algeria and getting Argentina off to a perfect start to their title defence, it made us pause and ponder.

There was nothing over-the-top about the moment, which followed Messi’s penalty miss a few minutes earlier.

Rather, the image was poignant and personal, especially since it later emerged that his father was recovering from an illness.Even a storm needs a place to break. So, Neymar - after making a comeback to the Brazilian team for the first time in almost three years - found a place in the dressing room on Wednesday to unleash his inner “storm” and break down alone.

His isolation seemed intimate and restrained, carrying its own emotional charge.

When Turkey’s players broke down in a collective expression of anguish after their elimination from the ongoing World Cup earlier than anticipated, it became a tale as much of broken hearts as of a broken system.With great expectations, Turkey arrived at the World Cup for the first time after their high in the 2002 edition, when their legendary striker Hakan Sukur scored the fastest World Cup goal ever — in 10.89 seconds — in a dramatic 3-2 win against co-hosts South Korea in the third-place playoff match.

This time around, they went out without scoring in losses to Australia and Paraguay, 0-2 and 0-1 respectively.Their combined tally of 62 shots was the most without a goal in any two-match span in World Cup history. “Everybody’s crying,” said Arda Guler, the 21-yearold pin-up boy of Turkish football. With tears streaming down his face, Tunisian defender Ali Abdi also lambasted his country’s dysfunctional football system soon after his team’s elimination following two straight losses.The Tunisian football federation fired coach Sabri Lamouchi immediately after a 1-5 defeat to Sweden in the opening match, and his successor Herve Renard could do little as the team suffered a 0-4 thumping by Japan in the next match.The Arabic-language daily Al Chourouk wrote that the team’s collapse had lifted the veil on a “football mafia” in Algeria, which had made history in 1978 by becoming the first African nation to win a World Cup match.In the shadows of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and other big stars’ record-breaking razzledazzle, we often end up experiencing these accidental glimpses of some “other” stories — less perfect but equally touching in their emotional scope.Perhaps this is also a reminder for our own football. As the system remains flawed and in crying need of a restorative touch, it still appears more challenging than rewarding. We may have come through the challenge of an abridged Indian Super League, but the new season still looks shrouded in uncertainty.A forgettable recordFrom some mouth-watering moments, we have also come across a mouth-covering one, as Paraguay midfielder Miguel Almiron made history he would like to forget.Almiron and Turkish midfielder Mert Mulder exchanged a few words following a foul, with the Paraguayan covering his mouth. Mulder immediately appealed to referee Ivan Barton.Under a new rule, Almiron was issued a red card, becoming the first player to be sent off for covering his mouth to seemingly hurl abuses.