World Cup can rise above pomposity and political fawning to demonstrate football’s true power

The preamble might have lasted an hour. It may have been much more. So percussive, so overwhelming, so violent was Fifa’s attempt to sell itself and its wares to the mass of the American people — or at least one American person — that it had, after a while, a desensitising effect, the impression that this was an assault of deliberate shock and awe.