The World Cup in an Age of Strongmen

The ball smacked the net. Germany had just scored for the fourth time in 26 minutes, brutally exposing the Brazilian squad. As I watched the match in my father’s São Paulo apartment, I heard a woman outside shriek, an understandable reaction. Ours was silence. Germany would score three more times before the referee’s merciful final whistle. Brazil—the only team to have qualified for every World Cup and the sole country to have won five times—had managed a single goal in the dying minutes of the...