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El futbol, Mexico y las cosas mas importantes de las cosas menos importantes | AXO News
OpinionOpinion7 min
Football, the most important things of the least important things
David Mateos' opinion on Mexico as a World Cup venue, the power of the spectacle, sports that live outside the spotlight and causes that should not remain invisible.
DM
David MateosFounder and AXO Ecosystem Editor
Published Jun 13, 2026, 09:26 PMUpdated Jun 13, 2026, 09:26 PM
Illuminated football field, used as an editorial image for a column on Mexico, 2026 World Cup, sport and public attention. AXO editorial artwork.
Article automatically translated from the original editorial language. Espanol -> English.
There is a phrase that comes back every time football gets too big: the most important things from the least important things. I like it because it has an honest contradiction. It reminds us that football should not be above life, but it also accepts something that anyone who has seen a city change for a match understands: there are days when a ball orders conversations, streets, businesses, fears, pride and memory.
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Mexico as a World Cup venue not only received a tournament. He appropriated the show. He turned it into a street, color, noise, commerce, television, party, nostalgia and also a mirror. There's something beautiful about that. Few things come as naturally to us as turning a global event into an expression of its own. Football enters through the huge door of the sponsors, but ends up on the bench, in the family, in the stall, on the old screen, in the scream that does not ask for permission.
But that's precisely why you have to say it without fear: football also eats up too much space. While the whole country learns to look towards the stadium, there are athletes from other disciplines who train with fewer cameras, fewer brands, fewer interviews and less public patience. There are athletes who carry years of work to receive a minute of attention only if they win a medal or if their story can be sold as an extreme sacrifice.
The other sports also count
I'm not talking about despising football. I'm talking about not letting it be the only way to measure sporting value. There are athletes in diving, athletics, boxing, taekwondo, archery, gymnastics, Paralympic sports and so many disciplines less spectacular to the public eye that they live a brutal demand without the same symbolic prize. For them, sport is not a constant national holiday. It's routine, injuries, transportation, uncertain scholarships, family sustaining, coaches doing too much with too little.
The World Cup reminds us of the power of the show. The other sports remind us of the power of the trade. And if we really love sports, we shouldn't need everything to look like a final to look respectfully at those who train away from the show.
Football deserves a party, but no show deserves to stay with all the light.
David Mateos
Protest doesn't ruin the party
The people who demonstrated that day also matter. They matter even if it suits power that they seem uncomfortable. They matter even if a stream prefers not to watch them. They matter even if the official story wants to sell a country without cracks, without claims, without fatigue, without mothers looking for, without workers demanding, without communities saying here we are.
A protest during a huge event is not a stain on the party. Sometimes it's the only way to remind us that the party happens within a real country. The problem is not that people complain while there is football. The problem would be to demand silence from those who have not been heard for too long.
Mexico can celebrate and, at the same time, listen. You can show off the stadium and, at the same time, look at the street. It can welcome the world and, at the same time, accept that there are internal pains that do not disappear because there are international chambers. That maturity makes us better hosts, not worse.
What doesn't come packaged
That's why videos like Eva Maria Berinstain's and pieces that circulate under names like School Project feel like a respite. Not because they replace journalism or because everything that appears on the internet is automatically true. They are a respite because they remind us that not everything is what they give us in the conventional average. Sometimes an imperfect, homemade, rare, or emotional piece opens a question that polished coverage had already closed too quickly.
The conventional average usually comes with framing, sponsorship, timing, priorities, and silences. The independent look comes with other risks, of course, but also with another temperature. It may be uncomfortable. It may be exaggerated. You may be wrong. But you can also show the human edge that does not fit in the official summary.
I want coverage that can love football without obeying it. That it can celebrate Mexico as a World Cup venue without turning enthusiasm into blindness. That I can recognize the show without forgetting the athletes who train outside it. That I can say that the causes of those who demonstrated matter, even if someone tries to make them invisible with music, fireworks or unity narrative.
In the end, football is one of the least important things that matter most to us. That's why you have to take care of it from the most comfortable lie: believing that because we get very excited, we no longer have to look at the rest.
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DM
David Mateos
Founder and AXO Ecosystem Editor at AXO News, focused on clear reporting, transparent sourcing, and useful context for fast-moving digital systems.
