Forever Blue With Ian Cheeseman: The World Cup Is Over - Let's Crack On With The Premier League

Personally, I’m glad the World Cup is over. I used to watch almost every game, but I didn’t this time, for a number of reasons.

Back in 1970, when I watched my first, the World Cup felt magical. We rarely got to see live games on TV and as a small child, hearing exotic sounding names like Pele, Rivelino and Jairzinho, while listening to David Coleman’s commentary down a telephone line, to grainy pictures, all added to the mystique.

The Brazilians played dream football back then. I’d only ever seen black and white highlights of Bell, Lee and Summerbee playing on mudheaps. By the 80s I was still looking forward to every game and enjoyed the great players and teams gracing the pitch. In 1992 along came the Premier League and slowly things started to change. Live games were on TV more often. The FA Cup Final was no longer the treasured special occasion, where everyone watched the build-up from 10am right through to the early evening. TV games became ten a penny.

Access to players, back then, was usually in person, asking for an autograph, at a Supporters Club meeting or the Junior Blues. These days we are fed PR videos, either from the powerful TV stations who own the rights or the clubs themselves. We don’t really get to know the players any better, just the side of them they want us to see. 

If you want to, and can afford all the subscriptions, you can watch two or three games a day. There were 64 matches at the Qatar World Cup, most shown on free-to-air channels. I already attend approximately 100 games a season in person so I took the chance to book a couple of weeks away, when the midseason World Cup was announced. I didn’t start watching the competition until the last sixteen. 

Even then, I found myself losing interest in many of the games, when I started to watch, because the quality wasn’t as high as I’m used to at City, these days. There could be as many as 88 games in the 2026 tournament in the USA, Canada and Mexico, though that’s yet to be decided. There is soon going to be an expanded club World Cup, which no-doubt will include City. How much football do they think we can watch?

Well, refreshed from my holiday and the extended winter break from the Premier League, it’s back on Boxing Day, or the 28th December for City at Leeds United. I’m looking forward to getting back to vlogging, podcasting and writing about my beloved Blues again and it’ll be interesting to see how the clubs will be affected by the break and the various levels of success their players have had in Qatar. 

City’s players have had mixed fortunes. Young striker Julian Alvarez has had the ultimate confidence boost, while Kevin De Bruyne and the England lads might be feeling a bit down after failing to hit the heights expected of them. Pep Guardiola is the ultimate people coach, so if there’s anyone to lift them, if they need lifting, it’s him.

Those in the City squad who weren’t in Qatar include Erling Haaland and Riyad Mahrez, who along with the returning Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan played in the 2-0 friendly win against Girona on Saturday, so should be all systems go when Liverpool visit the Etihad on Thursday in the Carabao Cup.  

Last time out, City lost at home to Brentford to allow Arsenal to extend their advantage at the top of the table. At the time, many Blues felt that was because the minds of the players were on that World Cup. There’ll be no such excuse when City travel to Elland Road on 28th. There are big challenges to come in this extra-long season, both for the players and those of us who travel up and down the country to all the games. Even if you don’t go to those lengths, having sat through the TV version of the World Cup, it’ll be a long slog until June 10th, the Champions League Final, before football takes another (short) break. Strap yourself in, it’s going to be another rollercoaster, I’m sure of that!