The confetti has settled. Spain are world champions at the FIFA World Cup, crowned after a nail-biting final at MetLife Stadium. But what struck me most wasn’t the trophy presentation. It was the silence that followed. My Spain jersey is back in the closet. The Argentina scarf I bought to commemorate Messi’s last World Cup folded neatly in a drawer. The group chats that used to blow up at three in the morning are silent again.

If football is just a game, why does it leave a void this big? Maybe because for six weeks, it was never really about football. It was about us—including the thousands of us here in the Philippines who don’t normally follow the sport, but somehow found ourselves setting alarms for 4 AM anyway.

Everyone became a football expert overnight

If you have a group chat, a barkada, or a family Viber group, you know exactly what happened during this World Cup: someone who has never watched a single match in their life suddenly had a very strong opinion about Erling Haaland.

“Ano yung offside?” “Bakit ang haba ng extra time?” “Sino si Haaland, bakit sikat na sikat?” The instinct among longtime fans is usually to roll their eyes at the newcomers. This time, it felt different. People welcomed the questions. They sent explainer videos unprompted. They turned casual officemates into co-conspirators for a 3 am kickoff.

That’s the real magic trick of a World Cup. It doesn’t stay a sport for very long. It became a shared language, and for once, everyone was invited to learn it.

The watch parties became bigger than the matches

Somewhere between the group chats and the actual football, the watch parties took over. Fast-food function rooms turned into makeshift stadiums. Sports Bars extended their hours until sunrise. Someone’s living room became the unofficial meeting room for a month.

The matches mattered. But so did the people beside you. The friend who insisted on ordering pizza during halftime because “baka mag-penalties.” The officemate who somehow became your closest ally because you both picked the same underdog. The family reunion that happened simply because “may laro kasi.”

The World Cup didn’t just give us matches. It gave us excuses to spend time together.

Filipinos will always root for the underdog

Nobody expected much from Cabo Verde. They are a nation of just over half a million people, which is smaller than a single city in Metro Manila. And yet there they were, holding their own against football giants, pushing all the way to extra time before finally bowing out.

It’s easy to see why that story crossed over even to people who couldn’t name another player on the roster. Filipinos know underdog stories. We’ve lived them, cheered for them, written songs about them. Watching a tiny nation refuse to be intimidated by the biggest stage in sport felt less like watching football and more like watching something familiar.

We didn’t remember the final score. We remembered that they believed anyway.

Everyone loves a redemption story

Before this tournament, Ferran Torres was the guy fans loved to pile on. Every missed chance turned into a meme. Some people even joked he was “the greatest player of sometimes”. Then the World Cup started, and it almost went the same way. In an opening match vs Saudi Arabia, he found the back of the net only for it to be called off. Another near-miss. Another punchline waiting to happen.

Except this time, he didn’t disappear. He kept showing up, kept taking the half-chances nobody else wanted, until it finally clicked at the moment that mattered most. The assist in the goal that eliminated Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal and the winning goal of the finals against the defending champions and Lionel Messi’s Argentina in the Final.

It’s a redemption arc in the middle of a much bigger story, but it’s the kind that sticks with you.

We all know a version of Ferran Torres, someone written off a little too early and a little too loudly. His tournament was a reminder that being doubted and being done are two very different things. Sometimes the story isn’t over; you just haven’t gotten to the part where it turns for the better yet.

Rivalries reminded us what respect looks like

Even if you don’t follow football, chances are you’ve heard of two clubs: FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. For decades, they’ve been football’s greatest rivalry. El Clasico. Every meeting between the two feels bigger than a regular match. Fans grow up choosing sides. Friendships are tested and group chats become battlefields.

This World Cup gave us a glimpse of what that rivalry looks like on the international stage.

On one side was Lamine Yamal, the 19-year-old Barcelona wonderkid carrying Spain’s hopes. On the other was Kylian Mbappé, Real Madrid’s superstar being the focal point of the French offense.

Before the semifinals, all anyone wanted to talk about was one head-to-head: two of the sport’s brightest young stars, two legendary clubs, two countries with decades of history between them. Then, after ninety minutes of all-out competition, they were shaking hands.

In a timeline that constantly rewards outrage, that image was oddly comforting. The biggest rivalries in football aren’t built on hate. Instead, they’re built on two sides pushing each other to be better. It’s a small thing, but it’s the kind of small thing worth holding onto.

We can actually be friends

For six weeks, the World Cup felt like the friendliest place on the internet. South Koreans celebrated alongside Mexican fans. Thousands of Scottish supporters turned the streets of Boston into one giant pub, singing with Americans and anyone willing to join in. And somehow, people from every corner of the world found themselves shouting “RO!” whenever Norway played, even if they couldn’t point to Oslo on a map.

Football has always had rivalries, but the World Cup reminded us that rivalry doesn’t have to mean division. You could wear different jerseys, speak different languages, pray to different gods, and still celebrate the same unbelievable goal.

In a time when our feeds are filled with politics, outrage, and endless arguments over almost everything, it was refreshing to be reminded that people can still gather around something simple. Maybe that’s the World Cup’s greatest achievement. Not that it crowns a champion every four years. But that it keeps proving strangers can become friends, even if only for ninety minutes.

What we’ll actually remember

We won’t remember most of the scorelines. We definitely won’t remember the possession stats. What we’ll remember is messaging a friend the second a match ended, or meeting someone new because you happened to be cheering for the same team at the same bar. We will recall the group chat notifications that never stopped for six straight weeks. It was the particular kind of tiredness that comes from watching football until sunrise on a work night, and choosing to do it again the next day anyway.

That’s what a tournament like this actually gives people. It provides a set of stories you’ll still be telling years from now.

The trophy belongs to Spain. The experience belonged to all of us.

History books will say Spain won the World Cup. What they’ll leave out is everything else that happened around it, including the watch parties in homes and restaurants across Metro Manila, the family group chats that came alive again, and the friendships that started over a shared underdog pick. It will miss the newly minted “fans” who couldn’t tell you what a formation is but stayed up anyway because it felt like something worth being part of.

For a few weeks, complete strangers had something in common. That’s rare these days. Social media usually reminds us how different we are. This, somehow, reminded a lot of us how similar we can be.

The jerseys are back in the closet now. The alarms have been turned off. Life is back to its usual rhythm. But for six unforgettable weeks, a sport most of us don’t even follow gave us something we don’t get nearly enough of anymore: a reason to come together, not as die-hard fans, but just as people.

Until 2030.

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