​Goodbye, then, to Fox, to its band of upbeat Brits and grown men dressed in suits and sneakers. Goodbye to constant cutaways to Gianni Infantino in the stands, his eyebrows a mournful tipi, his nude head sprinkling under the summer sun. Goodbye to Landon Donovan and his special gift for announcing every celebrity sighting (“And there’s Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz”) as if delivering the results of a colonoscopy. Goodbye to Rebecca Lowe saying “OK, OK” whenever she’s needed one of her on-set personalities to zip it so she can throw to a break. Goodbye to the momentum graph, which only flashed on screen when a match’s momentum needed no explanation; goodbye to “no golden goal” on the scorebug during extra time, referencing a rule that has not been in force at a World Cup for 24 years; goodbye to the connected ball, which never seemed connected when we needed connection most.Goodbye to Geoff Shreeves, Fox’s middle-aged Oliver Twist chirruping on the sideline for the approval of his American masters. Goodbye to Tom Rinaldi, to his pocket squares and his “lyrical” meditations on balls and planets and stars or whatever. Goodbye to Chef Nick, now forced to rein in the extravagance of his early contributions (kangaroo corndogs, fufu chicken tikka masala) in the face of the tournament’s gastronomically subdued final four. And goodbye to Jameis Winston, the Fox fan correspondent, whose distressingly antic and sweaty stadium dispatches gave him the unvarying appearance of a man being electrocuted in the middle of a baptism.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementGoodbye to it all: Fox has been the English-language home of the World Cup on US TV since 2018, but with the media rights to 2030 and beyond still up for grabs, the future remains uncertain and potentially Fox-less. “Fox Sports, World Cup broadcaster” was an eight-year sociological experiment conducted by Harvard University. The study is now complete; thank you for your time.Was this World Cup on Fox as bad as we thought it would be? It was not. But was it good? It was not. Or rather: it was good only in parts. For me, the abiding TV image of this summer of soccer will be the glasses of beer plonked before each guest on James Corden’s murderously unfunny late night show. Throughout the tournament these beers have remained three-quarters full, headless, and flat – and have become, in time, their own potent metaphor. Even at America’s own World Cup, Fox has steadfastly refused to give us the full pour.Related: The French aristocrat and the all-American idiot: Henry v Lalas is the World Cup’s most compelling battleTo be clear, 2026 is a distinct improvement on what came before. And yes, it’s always possible to watch on Telemundo or mute, but this is a review for the masochists who like their punishment delivered in English with the sound on. For those who didn’t witness it, it’s impossible to overstate how abominable the coverage of the 2022 World Cup trul