The 2026 World Cup (WC) brought Bill Shankly’s statement to mind. One can discuss any issue in the world through the WC lens. In this article I focus on some common thinking biases, using the events of the 2026 WC as an example.
Black and white thinking
Was the 2026 a great WC or a terrible event? This is a black and white question and it is misleading because most things in life fall in the grey area between black and white.
The 2026 WC was the largest ever WC bringing together 48 teams. Organizing such an event with all the logistics of the matches, travel, accommodation, etc. is not an easy task. The stadiums were impressive and so were the ceremonies around the games. On the other hand, the best African referee was banned from entering the U.S., and the Iranian team had to leave the U.S. territory the same day after their game. We also saw over-commercialization of the games including hydration/advertising breaks sometimes occurring under rain. Worst of all, we saw a referee and FIFA red card decision cancelled following the intervention of the U.S. president.
There were fantastic games and boring ones. We saw good and poor refereeing, fairness and biases, kindness and viciousness. We saw humanity at its best and worst.
We need to get into the mental habit of assessing the positive and negative aspects of any situation, just as in real life.
Mixing emotions with reason
I’ve also noticed that when I asked people about their predictions for a game, they almost always predicted a score in favor of their favorite team, and hardly ever a draw. We have an optimism bias that makes us confuse what we want with what to expect, often leading to disappointment. We also hardly ever predict that a game would end in a draw because a draw doesn’t involve emotions.
Emotions such as fear, anger, or joy come to us as a fast and subconscious reaction. We can’t avoid emotions and we shouldn’t try to. But after our initial fast emotional reaction we need to step back and assess the situation in a slow and rational way.
We are not thinking machines that feel; rather, we are feeling machines that think. Antonio Damasio
Confirmation Bias and Lack of Objectivity
The confirmation bias is the tendency to look for information that supports our opinion and to ignore information that does not support it. When the match between Egypt and Belgium ended in a draw, Egyptian fans thought Egypt should have won and cited some missed opportunities by Egyptian players, yet they ignored opportunities missed by Belgian players. Egyptian fans identified Egypt’s cancelled goal against Argentina as a case of referee bias against Egypt, but they ignored the cancelled goal for Iran against Egypt. We notice what’s in our favor and ignore what’s contrarian.
We see the confirmation bias everywhere from children fights in school to couples’ arguments at home to economic and political debates.
A healthy mental habit to develop is thought experiments. Simply, practice putting yourself in the other person’s shoes, or imagine how you’d think about the situation if the actors, or football teams, were reversed.
Judging too quickly
One of the common errors of interpreting current events is rushing to conclusions before enough evidence is available.
A famous anecdote often attributed to Zhou Enlai, Chinese prime minister (1949-1976) is that when he was asked whether the impact of the French revolution (1789) was positive or negative, he responded by saying: it is too early to tell.
We saw people rushing to judge the Egyptian team and its coach before the World Cup and after each game depending on the result of one game going from one extreme “This coach is not fit to be Egypt’s coach” to the other extreme “This coach is a genius.” Like everyone else, the coach has some strong points and some weak ones.
For any activity involving human performance such as football, we should expect performance to vary between one event and another. Luck also plays an important role in football and in many other human affairs.
We need to practice suspending judgment until we have enough evidence to judge, at least a full season for a player or coach in the case of football.
I speak therefore I am
The French philosopher Rene Descartes said “I think, therefore I am.”
Almost 400 years later we seem to have changed this saying to I speak, therefore I am.
Following WC articles and video clips on the Internet clearly indicates that everyone thinks they are a football expert with absolute knowledge of the game’s rules, strategies, and tactics.
This tendency to voice our opinion about a topic extends beyond football to politics, economics, medicine, diet, etc.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect says that people with low ability in any given field (business, politics, medicine, etc.) tend to overestimate their ability.
We have to remember that we don’t have to have an opinion on everything. In fact, it is important not to have an opinion on everything. We should limit our comments to our areas of expertise. There is nothing wrong with saying “I don’t know.”
Think before you speak and read before you think. Fran Lebowitz
Hindsight Error
We commit the hindsight error when we state that we predicted the recent outcomes, when we didn’t. We convince ourselves, and try to convince others, that we could see it coming “I knew we were going to win/lose” is a common utterance, even if we had predicted the opposite of what actually happened.
The problem with the hindsight bias is that it is an impediment to learning. We fool ourselves into thinking we were always right and so we never learn anything new. Thinking is changing your mind. If you don’t change your mind, you’re not thinking. You are simply selecting evidence to confirm what you already believe. You are rationalizing, or telling “rational lies.”
Conspiracy Theory and Conspiracy Theory Conspiracy
It is naïve to think that everything is a conspiracy but it is also naïve to think there is no conspiracy.
Conspiracy theory doesn’t believe narratives of officials and mainstream media and provides alternative explanations based on a combination of holes in the official story, making connections between seemingly unrelated events, and the assumption of the presence of a conspiracy by intelligence agencies and power lobbies who benefit from the official story. In essence, it is an interest theory.
Skepticism and questioning everything are essential elements of critical thinking. But this should be followed by a search for hard evidence or at least logical analysis, and not ignoring alternative explanations.
The conspiracy theory conspiracy puts the label of conspiracy theory on anything that doesn’t agree with the mainstream narrative. History tells us that many narratives labeled conspiracy theory proved to be true later on. As a witty observer once remarked: The difference between conspiracy theory and truth is often six months.
Both, conspiracy theory and conspiracy theory conspiracy, are lazy interpretations of reality. When evidence is lacking, we should think in terms of probability, not certainty, suspend judgment, and update our position when additional information becomes available.
Did Egypt lose against Argentina due to refereeing biased decisions driven by a conspiracy or a result of weaknesses in Egypt’s performance including physical exhaustion and wrong substitution decisions? Both are probably true. The referee was biased, though it is hard to tell why with certainty, but Egypt mainly lost due to its own weaknesses.
We should not escape to a conspiracy theory to absolve ourselves of responsibility. Even if there is a conspiracy, being ready and doing our best will help us overcome the conspiracy.
We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. Cora L. V. Hatch
We presented a few thinking errors individually for ease of explanation. In reality these errors are often combined and so are harder to detect. For example, we might have an emotional bias towards one club against another (mixing emotions with reason), so we see everything about the ones we like in a positive light and everything about their opponents negatively (black and white thinking), we then collect anecdotes that support our position and ignore evidence that does not (confirmation bias), we explain that our failures are a result of a conspiracy against us (conspiracy theory), and, of course, we could see it all coming (hindsight Error).
In conclusion, well done to the Egyptian team and fans. Your performance and achievement are unprecedented for Egyptian football. Step back and think about the 2026 WC performance objectively. Build on what worked well and address what didn’t, and do better next time.
Omar Mahmoud is a Geneva-based commentator
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