What would you like from a World Cup final?
Would you like an iconic stadium, boasting a storied history and a vibrant atmosphere? Or a car park in New Jersey?
Would you like affordable ticket prices that allow the ground to be full of die-hard fans? Or price tags of $30,000?
Would you like a pre-game build-up full of cheers and chants from the stands? Or a speech from Tom Cruise?
Would you like half-time to be over as quickly as possible so the biggest game in sport can resume? Or Ted Lasso bringing Justin Bieber on to sing a sad ballad?
Would you like the big screens to show you replays of the biggest moments throughout the game? Or shots of semi-famous people looking deeply uninterested?
Would you like the final image of the tournament to be one of the greatest team in the world lifting the trophy and achieving their lifelong dreams? Or one with an extremely divisive politician slap bang in the middle of it?
Perhaps I'm just wildly out of touch, and FIFA and Infantino found that lots of people wanted the latter option when they were planning the final of the 2026 World Cup.
Or perhaps they just didn't consider what people wanted at all. Perhaps, as they did for the entirety of the tournament, they just did what would make them more money.
What will go down as one of the worst World Cup finals ever undeniably wasn't helped by the lack of excitement on the pitch, but it was far from the first final that has failed to deliver in that regard. In recent times alone, we've had one that was goalless until the 116th minute (2010) and one that was goalless until the 113th.
However, those ones still at least had a sense of occasion. A sense that the most important event in sport was unfolding in front of us. A sense that, for those in the crowd as well as on the pitch, it was going to be one of the greatest days of their lives, or one of the worst.
The 2026 edition, on the other hand, thanks in large part to the venue, the painful amounts of pop music and the make-up of the crowd as a result of ticket prices, had the feel of a pre-season friendly. Just one featuring the confusing presence of celebrities.
It was, at least, a fitting ending to the tournament as a whole, one that has seen Gianni Infantino chase money and favour from the most powerful nation in the world as intensely as Argentina players have chased their opponents.
The hope was that, satisfied by the eye-watering ticket prices, his pursuit wouldn't continue into the tournament, but then came the hydration breaks, held in conditions in which players very much didn't need hydrating.
It became clear then that this was a man on a mission, and he wasn't going to let cool temperatures and air-conditioned stadiums stop him from giving broadcasters some extra advertising breaks.
The pesky laws of the game weren't going to get in his way, either. If the president of the host nation wanted the suspension of their star player overturned, then overturned it would be.
And as a last hurrah, he gave his hosts a bad Super Bowl imitation that nobody wanted. At least nobody with a keen interest in the actual football that was supposed to take centre stage.
The worry for those people now will be that, as we bid farewell to the 2026 World Cup and look ahead to the next one, Infantino shows no signs of slowing down, but instead of doubling down.
It's becoming clearer and clearer that he intends to make the tournament even more oversized in 2030, expanding it to a mammoth 64 teams. Well, that's more matches for him to sell eye-wateringly expensive tickets for, so why wouldn't he?
In an unprecedented move, three continents will host, with Morocco being added to Spain and Portugal's bid, and the opening games being given to Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, to mark the anniversary of the first tournament. Conveniently, that left Asia as the only continent able to host the 2034 edition, giving Saudi Arabia a clear path to doing so.
In case your memory needs jogging, that's the same Saudi Arabia that owns a stake in DAZN, a broadcaster that paid FIFA billions for the TV rights to the last Club World Cup.
But enough with all the negativity, let's get excited for the next edition of the greatest show on Earth! Who will win it? Who cares? The big question is: Who will play the half-time show?
