World Cup might not unite the world, but it does offer chance to view things through someone else's eyes

Australia playing Turkey in a group-stage match might not seem like a thriller for neutrals. It’s the sort of game that the World Cup’s expansion from 32 teams to 48 requires. But for Australians and Turks, it meant the world to be in Vancouver on Saturday night. 

BC Place was as loud as Toronto Stadium was for Canada’s opener the day before. The noise was the first reminder that the game had the same stakes for them as Friday’s did for us.

This summer’s World Cup is the biggest by nearly every conceivable measure, good and bad. It’s being hosted by three countries for the first time, and they aren’t really getting along.

Tickets have never been more expensive. A beer costs $22. Some teams and their fans will have to cover thousands of miles. (The Bosnians who were in Toronto on Friday will play in Los Angeles this week, and Seattle the next, a prohibitive commitment for most.)

FIFA, the World Cup’s brazen profiteers, will collect something like US$9 billion this year, US$13 billion for the cycle.

That’s about half the estimated GDP of Haiti, one of the participants.

But scattered against that pitch-black backdrop, a record 104 games will shine like constellations. Some, like stars themselves, will be brighter than others. The 2022 final drew 1.5 billion viewers, and this year’s will draw at least as many. The other 103, even those lost a little in the margins, will still matter, very much, to tens of millions.

“Football unites the world,” Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s president, likes to say. He especially likes to say it when he’s being criticized for another chisel, for another misguided or craven scheme.

It doesn’t unite the world, of course. All our divisions that existed before will exist after.

But it does do something