For Dr. Céline Gounder, clinical associate professor of medicine and infectious diseases at NYU medical school and a medical correspondent at CBS News, this World Cup has hit hard. Her late husband Grant Wahl, for decades the preeminent soccer journalist in the United States, died at the Qatar World Cup in 2022, after collapsing while covering a quarterfinal match between Argentina and the Netherlands. The cause of death was an undetected ascending aortic aneurysm. Wahl was 49.
Gounder, who lives in New York City, knows Wahl would be writing, podcasting, and doing videos, with great joy, about the sterling performances from the likes of Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi, and Erling Haaland. Wahl would appreciate the packed stadiums and the cultural commingling at this World Cup: phenomena like Scotland’s Tartan Army and Japanese visitors trying Texas BBQ for the first time speak to everything Wahl loved about the planet’s most popular sport. At the same time, Wahl would have turned his critical eye toward those in power, especially after FIFA reversed a suspension earlier this week of American striker Folarin Balogun, following a phone call between FIFA president Gianni Infantino and U.S. President Donald Trump.
“It feels like there is a Grant-sized hole in the world right now,” says Gounder. “Because I know he would be going apesh-t on this.”
The Somali referee denied a visa into the U.S. The controversial treatment of the Iranian team during their World Cup stay. European officials and others crying foul over the perceived coziness between Trump and Infantino, who bestowed upon Trump an out-of-thin-air peace prize at the World Cup draw in Washington, D.C., in December: Wahl would have been all over these stories of geopolitical intrigue, while still expertly writing about the action on the pitch. Throughout his career, Wahl toed a fine journalistic line. He cheered the beauty and growth of soccer, especially in the United States, while in no way
