BRYONY GORDON: This World Cup has been a total blast - thanks to those geniuses OFF the pitch

In the collective misery that cloaked England on Thursday morning, there weren't many reasons to be cheerful.Knocked out of the World Cup by a team of gloating Argentinians, it felt like it was going to take a miracle to lift the national mood. Thankfully, the good people of the internet had just the thing.Within hours of crashing out of the World Cup, social media was ablaze with hilarious takes on the disappointing 2-1 loss to Argentina.Someone, somewhere, had clipped together a montage of Englishmen sobbing – from Paul Gascoigne at Italia 90 to fans at this World Cup in Three Lions shirts – and set it to the soundtrack of the Oasis song Stop Crying Your Heart Out.Above the weeping men were the words: 'No World Cup, no Ashes, no prime minister, no air conditioning.'And by the time I had stopped laughing, I realised that the memefication of this World Cup is partly what has made it one of the most enjoyable in recent memory.All of which is a surprise, given the endless controversy attached to this tournament.Ticket prices were astronomical, travel time across three separate countries was epic – and that was if the US let you in at all, given that a Somali referee was banned from entering the country. A meme generated by artificial intelligence (AI) depicted Argentina's Lionel Messi as 'Fifa's Princess'The inaugural winner of the Fifa peace prize, Donald Trump, was actively bombing one of the countries taking part, Iran, but still found time to call up Gianni Infantino to get him to overturn a red card that had been given to the US striker Folarin Balogun.There were new rules, the introduction of 'hydration breaks' that critics claimed had been put there to please American advertisers, and endless accusations that Fifa favoured Argentina.Most of them were peddled online by people who'd had a whole heap of fun dressing Lionel Messi up in an extravagant pink dress and crown, so that they could label the Argentinian captain 'Fifa's Princess'.And yet despite all of this, the 2026 World Cup has surely been one of the most successful, cutting through to people who are usually unmoved by football.Female friends – who dreaded the lobotomising effect tournaments always seem to have on the men in their life – have become obsessed. And it's down to the power of social media.At the forefront of this new appreciation for football has been Erling Haaland, who has introduced a different audience to the beautiful game, in part due to his highly meme-able looks, not to mention his penchant for Hermes bags and stuffed racoons.The bromance between him and Jude Bellingham quickly became the stuff of social media legend, with hundreds of videos showcasing their friendship while playing together at Borussia Dortmund, usually soundtracked by an emotionally-charged Taylor Swift song.In a nod to HBO's steamy series featuring two highly sexed sportsmen, for days the words 'Cleated Rivalry' were everywhere. Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland during their time playing for German club Borussia Dortmund togetherAlgorithms that would usually brim with fashion, wellbeing and travel content were for the first time filled with football. The Spanish striker Lamine Yamal's three-year-old brother has become a viral sensation due to his adorable behaviour in the stands.Cape Verde's plucky 40-year-old goalkeeper Josimar Vozinho, who usually plays second division football in Portugal, went from having just under 50,000 followers on Instagram to almost 30million.I realised one evening that I had spent two hours watching clips of people's pets predicting the scorelines of games.For the first time, fans have used AI to create ludicrous movie-style trailers, with Haaland in full Viking get-up and Harry Kane as a medieval English king.Social media has created the kind of drama and closeness that sports promoters could usually only dream of.For all its ill, social media is surely the greatest democratiser of sport where fans from Ghana to Gettysburg can scroll through the holiday snaps of their millionaire heroes.The Vogue writer Chanté Joseph posted to her 114,000 followers that though she had only 'discovered football last month', she was a proud 'Tuchelite'.'I am a Tuchelina. I am a Tuchel treat.' England's social media team did not need AI to bring fans closer to the players, with one dressing room clip showing John Stones pranking Thomas Tuchel with a feigned shoulder injury dance moveHer sentiments were echoed by all of Mumsnet, if not the armchair experts complaining about his tactics on Thursday morning.Though Tuchel's future is uncertain, the same can't be said of the team's social media manager, who deserves a pay rise from the FA.It was on Instagram and TikTok, through clever use of dressing room footage, that the England team became one of the most likeable at the tournament.Indeed, for all the talk of the ratings war between ITV and BBC, and the relative merits of having a studio in New York versus staying in Salford, it is online that has captured the imagination of viewers.Whether Spain or Argentina lift the trophy tonight one thing is certain: the real winners of the 2026 World Cup are Meta and TikTok, whose addictive algorithms have kept us scrolling deep into the night, long after the final whistle has blown.