The 2026 World Cup was always going to be too big to remain just football. It is the first 48-team edition, spread across the US, Mexico and Canada, stretched over 104 matches and sold as the biggest, grandest and most lucrative tournament FIFA has ever staged. It is also being played in the year America marks its 250th anniversary, which gives Donald Trump exactly the kind of backdrop he understands instinctively: flags, stadiums, anthems, cameras, national theatre and the possibility of a home team carrying the pageant deeper into the month.