The football on show at the 2022 World Cup made one of the best ever in a sporting sense.

The group stage finales were thrilling, there were memorable knockout games, and the final had all the drama you could wish for including a happy ending to one of the game’s most prominent recent chapters.

Despite this, there have still been questions raised about the quality of the football on show, leading to discussions around whether what makes a World Cup good or bad is determined by entertainment or quality.

To find the answer it is worth looking at what makes international football so intriguing in the first place, and the answers lie both on the pitch and off it.

One of the best things about international football is that the teams have flaws. They are not always very good. Oftentimes they can be fairly poor. Games can drift into periods where not much happens, where there is a dip in quality and games hit a lull.

Though this is true of most football matches taking place across the world on any given day, regardless of the level, it is especially true of the more unpredictable, sometimes tentative world of international tournaments.

At times this global game is not very exciting to watch, but this is part of the flow of football. This is not to say these quieter moments within a game cannot be interesting, as they form part of the story of a game and are often key to teams, players and managers working each other out.

These laid-back verses of a match, or indeed a competition, make it all the better when the chorus kicks in, and the 2022 World Cup boasted one of the grandest, most anthemic choruses of all time as Lionel Messi finally lifted the World Cup.

The World Cup is supposed to be international football’s best-of, released every four years. 

The participating teams in this international version of the game are much less contrived than those in club football, which can make it more authentic.

In the more artificial world of the club game, teams at the extreme top level of the sport can use their seemingly unlimited funds in an attempt to create the perfect squad. With this mixture of Brazilian and French and Spanish and Portuguese maestros, they are really spoiling us.

There are no bad players at this level, and the success of these teams can lead to an artificial view of what good football looks like. It is near-perfect touch, technique, decision-making and levels of fitness, overseen by the game's greatest trainers and tactical minds.

Despite this, the very nature of the sport means even the most expensively assembled team is rarely consistently perfect. 

Association football’s inherent difficulty, controlling and manipulating a spherical object mostly with the feet, is one of the things that makes it so intriguing, popular, and fun to play.

It is relatively easy to pick up but far from easy to master. The infinite variables in the eleven-a-side game make it difficult to master as an individual, and near impossible as a group of eleven, leading to the development of tactics — all of which can be countered.

But all the best sports are defined by their flaws and difficulty — an inability to “complete” them as if they were video games with set levels and objectives.

Many said Messi achieved such a feat with this World Cup win, as he’s now broken numerous records and won all the major trophies available to him at club and international level, but even the greatest player of all time is not perfect. He wouldn’t miss penalties if he was.

International football is also more uniquely concerned with identity when compared to the club game  Many clubs have managed to retain their identity through the work of supporters, plus players and staff who embrace the club for which they are signing and its culture, but in this regard, international football is something else entirely. 

For better and for worse, international teams have a natural identity linked to a country and to patriotism. This can result in good things, such as the Iran players fighting for women’s rights back home, or bad things such as England singing in deference to a monarch before every game. 

(Though it has to be said this England group is much more likeable than previous editions as it feels like they represent more of the more positive aspects of the country and more of its people.)

International teams have a limited pool of players from which they can select their squads and starting elevens, which means they are more limited when compared to the ostentatious, hypercapitalist free-for-all that is top-level club football. 

Regardless of the pros and cons of the concept of football teams existing based on the political map, the whole thing provides an interesting way for football to be played and organised. 

It is also football that leads to increased knowledge of the world in general and increased awareness of what is happening in various countries.

The 2022 World Cup was the most political yet, and not just because of the widely covered issues in the host country, Qatar, itself.

As a result of Morocco’s success, a few more people might have learned about the goings on in the northwest of Africa and the Western Sahara conflict. 

Iran’s protest raised awareness of the treatment of women in their country and the death of Mahsa Amini. 

Ismaila Sarr’s celebration may have encouraged even just a handful of people to read about the ongoing conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The narrative around the One Love armbands that England and other nations wanted to wear, raised the issue of LGBT rights at home and abroad.

Western media can be conveniently selective and isolated in its coverage of global affairs, but the unavoidably global nature of international football can naturally introduce important issues that people may not otherwise be exposed to.

As Messi lifted his World Cup, with Gianni Infantino clinging to his coattails embarrassingly before being persuaded to let go by Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, we knew more about the host country and many more countries than we did prior to the tournament.

As the fight continues for workers' rights at home, there is now more knowledge of the many working in dire, often deadly conditions abroad who also need support as part of that fight.

It has encouraged additional reflections back home, where establishment backlash to the recent Gender Recognition Reform Bill in Scotland (passed by a large majority, not that the headlines reflected this) and often toxic commentary around it, shows there is still work to be done here on LGBT rights, too.

International football has the potential to open minds and raise awareness around participating countries and introduce new important topics to the world through football. 

It is one of the sport’s strengths that it is able to do this despite attempts by organisations such as Fifa try to control and narrow the narrative. 

Returning to the pitch, international football isn’t perfect, but it rarely is. Despite that, and indeed because of it, this was nevertheless one of the best World Cups.