The real reason behind Argentina winning the FIFA World Cup 2026 semi-finals is actually crazier than the wildest speculations football — not to be called soccer at least in former British colonies — fans worldwide have been putting forth. My teen daughter, a compulsive Argentina hater, slept through the match. Had she stayed up and cheered for Jude Bellingham’s team, Messi’s men would have been sent packing. Such is the jinx operating in my football-crazy household: Whichever team’s jersey she dons during the game wins, and whichever jersey I wear to cheer has to, inevitably, belong to the loser. We have never supported the same team since she watched her first World Cup in 2018 as an eight-year-old.

I was exactly her age when my mother initiated me to the magic of football. It was the same ungodly hours of match-watching for us in India in 1994, when the US hosted the championship. There was something magical about that long-drawn Brazil-Italy final, ending with a penalty shootout. More than three decades later, the memory of those Italian tears on the........

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