How the World Cup has changed over the past 50 years and why there are only flashes of the beautiful game in 2026.
“They don’t care about the beautiful game. They don’t care about the elegance of football. In my time, we used to think and give a little show.”
The words of arguably the greatest player of all time, Pele, back in 2014 before the World Cup in Brazil, which Germany won, say it all about the state of the world’s most popular game.
That tournament was a watershed moment for Brazil: it was meant to showcase the individual talents of the likes of Neymar, Oscar and Hulk in front of a global audience.
Instead, Brazil were humiliated in the semifinals 7-1 by a ruthlessly efficient German side, a defeat that still haunts the nation to this day.
Germany’s success was the perfect example of how hard-running, athletic teams that followed a strict tactical game plan were the dominant force in football, rather than teams full of individual brilliance, playing off the cuff and aspiring to entertain and win.
Pele’s team that won the 1970 championship in Mexico is considered by many football historians to be the last great side to win a World Cup, exemplifying the “beautiful game”.
Four years later, at the World Cup in West Germany, Brazil were overtaken tactically by other sides like the Netherlands and their mantra of “total football”.
The year 1974 became pivotal as it marked the corporatisation of the game.
The election of Joao Havelange as FIFA president that year ushered in a new era of lucrative global sponsorship deals.
Previous agreements had been local and independent, but by the mid-to-late 1970s, premium partnerships and worldwide brands like Adidas and Coca-Cola became entrenched FIFA partners in commercial marketing relationships that continue to this day.
Broadcast rights mirrored this trend, with the cost of TV deals skyrocketing with the advent of national network deals, followed by sports cable subscriptions beginning around 1980.
Football was now big money, and, as a result, the stakes had been raised.
The increase in sponsorship and broadcasting revenue saw the financial rewards for teams reach levels never before imagined. Football became about winning at all costs, and the way one played the game was increasingly seen as outdated.
However, even with the sport becoming big business, there have still been teams that have played the game in a beautiful way.
The two main examples in World Cups are the 1974 finalists Netherlands and Brazil in 1982.
The Dutch team that reached the 1974 World Cup final might have replaced the creative and free-flowing match play of Pele’s famous Brazil sides with the total football concept – put simply, a system that meant no outfield player had a fixed position, meaning a winger could play as a centre back, for example – but it resulted in a team that played a brand of fast, fluid and attacking football, led by the incomparable Johan Cruyff.
In doing so, the Dutch proved that the beautiful game could also be played in Europe, although their system was exposed in the 1974 final when the more pragmatic West Germans found a way to exploit their tactical weaknesses. Yet, over half a century later, it is the Dutch team that people still remember rather than the actual winners.
It was a similar story for Brazil at the World Cup in Spain in 1982.
A team boasting the generational talents of Socrates, Zico, Eder and Junior wowed crowds and the global TV audience, producing a brand of football that harked back to the Brazilian team of 1970.
However, like the Dutch in 1974, Brazil did not win the World Cup and were eliminated by the eventual winners, Italy. Similar to the Netherlands, however, Brazil of 1982 have become immortalised for their style of play, even though it eventually proved to be unsuccessful.
Fast forward to 2026, and the so-called “people’s game” has become even more disconnected from common fans.
In England, where the modern game was born, football used to be the sport of the working class, providing a cheap form of entertainment and an escape for everyday people.
Nowadays, buying tickets for English Premier League games is so expensive that common fans are being priced out of the market.
A recent survey by English supporter groups found that tickets for top-tier football in England had gone up by 800 percent since 1990.
Meanwhile, in international football, the World Cup has now become FIFA’s cash cow. Tickets for the current tournament have ranged from $60 to more than $10,000, helping the game’s governing body generate nearly $9bn in revenue.
Since the United States last hosted the World Cup in 1994, ticket prices have risen steadily. The cost of a category one World Cup final ticket in 1994 was $475, which, when adjusted for inflation through to 2026, would cost $1,074.45.
Statistically, the largest price hike – and steepest by far – from one World Cup to another was from the 2022 edition to 2026, where a category one ticket increased 600 percent. When adjusted for inflation, the price rose from $1,833.91 to $10,990.
All in all, it has made watching live 2026 World Cup matches an experience for a relatively select and wealthy few.
However, the magic and beauty of football still manages to occasionally come through, even during this most commercial of World Cups.
FIFA’s idea to expand the tournament to 48 teams has added additional revenue through more matches and more inter-game advertising breaks, but it has also allowed smaller countries to play on the sport’s biggest stage.
One of those smaller nations, Cape Verde, captured the hearts of fans across the world when, against the odds, they qualified for the knockout stages in their first World Cup.
They were eliminated only after pushing defending champions Argentina all the way in a heroic 3-2 defeat after extra time.
Their performances against the likes of past champions Spain, Uruguay and Argentina prove that, at its heart, football can still be beautiful.
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