| World Cup’s universal appeal It was the universality of traffic lights that got Ken Aston to come up with the idea of red cards and yellow cards. Fifty-two years ago, it was introduced at an event whose universal appeal shows no sign of reaching saturation point – the World Cup. I can’t think of a tournament, or any event, that gets the world together like this. The last World Cup was watched by over half the world’s population, or 3.57 billion people, aged four and above, according to FIFA. The 1.2 million visitors expected in Qatar for the 22nd World Cup will be representatives of people from every part of the planet. There will be a lot of conversations through hand signs, head shakes and proper nouns like we had with Cesar Luis Menotti on the train from Munich to Nuremberg. Shyam Sundar Ghosh of The Statesman and I could scarcely believe our luck that the 1978 World Cup winning coach was sitting alongside. While English might be one of the FIFA languages – as a stern media officer reminded me in 2006 – it’s a shared love of the game that gets the point across in a foreign land as we lose and find our way, forge new friendships and relationships. And after two years of isolation and over 6 million deaths worldwide because of Covid-19, it is a welcome change. It is this, the participation of a cross-section of the world’s population that makes being at a World Cup so fascinating. And obviously, the banter that follows. I remember a woman, a France flag draped around her, chanting, “I will never have pizza,” after the 2006 final (when Italy beat France on penalties). In the same edition after Germany beat Sweden, some Swedes were reminded at a bar in Munich that they come from a nation of furniture makers. And who can forget Argentina fans bouncing through Brazil with a song inspired by Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising. The song referred to Argentina beating Brazil in 1990 and just to rub it in, claimed Maradona was better than Pele. It was so infectious that even German fans were heard singing it after their semi-final.  A cut out of Manchester United and Argentina defender Lisandro Martinez in Kozhikode (Source: Twitter/ @Kaus_Pandey17) Good hosts From my limited experience of three World Cups as a journalist with Hindustan Times, I can say this: every host nation has tried to show its best face during the quadrennial showpiece. “Oh! You are from the land of Gandhi! I cannot charge you entry fee,” I was told at Nelson Mandela’s house in Soweto. A taxi driver in Belo Horizonte insisted on not taking money because a two-hour drive through the city in search of a mobile phone adapter was fruitless. In a heartbeat, a lady at our hotel in Rio agreed to accompany two 40-something Indian journalists she had just met on a day-trip to Garrincha’s house thereby ensuring nothing was lost in translation. The same hotel deliberately looked the other way when a World Cup volunteer from India stayed a night with us because he couldn’t find a bed anywhere on the night of the final.  A Twitter user shows off a beer from every country participating at 2022 World Cup (Source: Twitter/@ballstothis) The football, we must accept, is unlikely to be as sophisticated as elite club competitions such as the Champions League in Europe. National team coaches don’t get as many training sessions as Pep Guardiola. But that also makes it unpredictable. Think Cameroon-Argentina in 1990; Senegal-France in 2002; Spain-Switzerland in 2010. Also, no Champions League edition comes close to being as diverse a celebration of life and sport as a World Cup. Here’s hoping it won’t be any different this time despite negativity about Qatar in sections of the media, some participating nations and the recent pushback it has led to from the hosts. | 
