MIAMI GARDENS — Magical month for Miami?
No doubt.
Best World Cup ever?
You bet.
A gift that keeps on giving?
It just may be, especially for fans of the other kind of football.
England edged France 6-4 in a crazy consolation match Saturday (July 18) that served as the seventh and final installment of Miami’s contribution to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Before the match, Rodney Barreto, co-chair of the South Florida host committee, told The Post he’d just signed papers certifying Miami’s interest in hosting one of the next four available Super Bowls.
“They are interested in us bidding,” Barreto said of the NFL.
It was in the spring that Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross revealed that NFL owners no longer considered Hard Rock Stadium suitable for the title game. The way site selections work now, cities can’t even bid on hosting Super Bowls unless the NFL asks them to. The fact the NFL made that request says South Florida is seen as a player again in the game, with eyes on any of the four Super Bowls commencing in 2031 (the title games until then are all spoken for).
“We’re bidding,” Barreto said.
Maybe it’s a coincidence that the NFL appears to have changed its thinking about Miami now. Or maybe the work of Barreto’s group, an army of volunteers and the response of this community to the World Cup made a statement that not even the mighty NFL could ignore.
We do big events. And the World Cup is, yes, bigger than the Super Bowl. It’s the biggest sporting event on the planet. All Miami has enjoyed over this past month are big-time teams, big-time players and big-time matches, including a classic round-of-32 epic that will be talked about for years.
Argentina and the GOAT, Lionel Messi, also came. And they went down to the wire in that classic vs. Cape Verde. Cape Verde! Brazil also came. Portugal. Colombia.
Norway’s fans took their rowing talents to South Beach. Scotland’s supporters took their beer-guzzling talents to our pubs.
And stars? Of the top seven scorers in the World Cup, only Spain’s Mikel Oyarzabal didn’t play here. How many hosts can match that? France’s Kylian Mbappe not only visited, he scored twice in the consolation match to give him 10 for the tournament, two more than Messi in the Golden Boot race entering the final vs. Spain. We also had visits by Norway’s Erling Haaland, England’s Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane, Brazil’s Vinicius Junior and France’s Ousmane Dembele. Oh, and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo. And who could have predicted the breakout stars would be Cape Verde’s 40-year-old goalkeeper, Vozinha, and his mom?
What’s the 30,000-foot view like of this past month if you’re Barreto?
“Oh my God,” he said. “I think this has been the best thing for Miami — not only Miami, but the whole country. It brought people together. Over 600,000 came through Bayfront Park (for the fan fest). There were no major issues. It’s been amazing — Scottish fans hugging Germans, Germans hugging Argentines. …”
There was a final group hug early Saturday evening, after the madness that was England-France, as the England team took a victory lap to thank the sellout crowd of 64,478.
This was a match neither team wanted to play in (by their own admission), yet once they showed up, they collectively seemed to say, What the heck, we’re already here.
When England jumped to a 4-0 lead, no one doubted the Brits’ pride.
When the French cut it to 4-3, no one doubted theirs, either.
No World Cup match since 1982 had this many goals, so it was only natural that three were scored from the 87th minute on.
First, Bukayo Saka completed his hat trick and exorcised penalty kick demons of the past by converting from the spot, making it a huge day for Arsenal. One of his goals was the 300th of this tournament. His club teammate, Declan Rice, earlier had a goal and an assist.
Still, Dembele scored in stoppage time to make it 5-4 before Bellingham slammed home the final goal just before the whistle, assuring England its best World Cup finish since winning the trophy in 1966.
The match everybody panned going in turned into a gem that had Fox’s announcers pleading for France to force extra time. If the Harlem Globetrotters played soccer, this is what it would look like.
Now, work begins on Hard Rock Stadium being transformed for its full-time tenants, the Dolphins and Hurricanes, after a hectic 2026 that included championship events in college football, Formula 1 and tennis. The facility now regains its formal name, ditching that “Miami Stadium” branding nonsense demanded by FIFA, which apparently is unaware the stadium isn’t, you know, actually in Miami.
Barreto, meanwhile, hopes to simply change hats from one planning committee chair to another. He’ll twist NFL arms with all the reasons to bring the big game back here. He said he can’t wait to show NFL honchos the F1 paddock area and its swank suites that are about to get even more swank.
“You can do a lot of entertaining,” Barreto said.
South Florida proved that this past month, with no small role in the best World Cup ever played.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Can World Cup help Miami return to Super Bowl rotation? | Habib
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