The uncommon sound of the beautiful game

The World Cup has trended noisier for nearly 100 years, but this time faint echoes of the first tournament briefly bucked the trend.

Football is a loud affair. Every game has shouts and chants and beating drums and relentless trumpets and partisan oohs and aahs. And some past world cups have had a signature sound.

1986 gave us the distracted ripple of the Mexican wave.

An infuriating swarm of vuvuzelas beset South Africa in 2010.

And Iceland brought their patient Thunder Clap to Russia in 2018. It sounded a lot like this year's Norwegian row.

All of these were heard loud and clear on radio and TV.

The first tournament in Uruguay in 1930, however, was barely heard. It was broadcast locally in South America, but radio was young and listenership low. Coverage that crossed the Atlantic came in print or silent newsreel. You had to be there to hear it.

Now it's noisy as hell and heard in every city on earth, in remote villages, on mountain tops, and onboard the International Space Station (although only French astronaut Sophie Adenot still has a dog in the fight).

There were momentary echoes of 1930 in Saturday's quarter finals when the video assistant referee (VAR) called the referee proper to the pitch-side screens. Had he mistaken an Argentine player for a Swiss? Had Erling Braut Haaland fouled Elliot Anderson in the build-up to a Norway goal? The referee looked again.

Just for a moment, there was quiet. Eighty thousand people fell into a tense, collective hush. Broadcasters leaned in: crowd mics dipped and commentary paused. We all held our breath.

But the real echo came in the minute’s silence before kick-off that marked the tragic death of South African midfielder Jayden Adams.

For a moment, we were back to that first muted World Cup with two halves, no ad breaks, and no overturned red cards. When tickets for the final cost an inflation-adjusted $99. When it was all about footballers and fans.