More than just a beautiful game

As physicians, we spend much of our time helping patients navigate life after something has gone wrong. By the time they arrive in our offices, illness has often begun its quiet work of narrowing a life. Chronic pain can reduce a person’s world to the dimensions of what they can carry, lift, or tolerate. Depression can make ordinary tasks feel implausibly heavy. Loneliness, although harder to chart and easier to miss, may be one of the most corrosive conditions of all: a gradual withdrawal from the people and places that once gave shape to joy and purpose.

We are well trained to respond to disease processes. But lately I find myself drawn to a different kind of clinical question: What keeps people connected, active, and tethered to the communities around them?

This summer, the beautiful game offered one answer.

The FIFA World Cup 2026 is easy to dismiss as an overpriced, commercialized sporting spectacle. And yet every few years it performs a social miracle. People gather in restaurants, parks, and city squares with a collective energy and an expectation to socialize with all those around them. In our current day, when so many of us spend copious amounts of time staring at our screens and relying on technology for even simple tasks, witnessing this level of connection and community is becoming uncommon. It seems the answer to our unprecedented levels of loneliness is simple—more community-centred events.

The World Cup gave people around the world a reason for friends to connect and family group chats to endlessly debate referee calls and last-minute goals. For a few weeks, people who may have little in common had shared rituals, conversation, and connection through a common experience. In my clinic, many appointments began not with symptoms but with conversations about the previous day’s match. More than once, I ran behind schedule because we found ourselves reliving a dramatic finish or debating a controversial call. Those conversations may not appear in a medical record, but they remind me that strong health care is built not just through ordering medications and procedures but also through our relationships and connections with patients.

From a public health perspective, this type of connection matters. Loneliness and social isolation are increasingly recognized as serious threats to our health. Depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline, frailty, and premature mortality are all connected to chronic social isolation. We often speak about the importance of exercise and diet when it comes to chronic disease prevention. But our health is shaped by more than just our individual choices and risk factors. People and communities are healthier when they have a sense of belonging and social connection.

The World Cup represents more than just a corporate sporting event. It has demonstrated that what we have quietly forgotten is a core part of our mental well-being—human connection. For all the efficiencies of modern life, human beings still want to sit shoulder to shoulder, share a conversation, argue over a missed call, and feel that they are part of a collective experience, not just an individual behind a screen.

With the tournament now behind us, I hope we remember what it revealed. Healthy communities are not built solely through hospitals and clinics. They are built through parks filled with people of all ages who have access to affordable, inclusive sporting activities, community festivals, and public spaces where people can gather without needing an invitation.

As a physician, I will continue to advocate for movement and exercise, because they prevent disease. But perhaps I should be just as willing to advocate for the community infrastructure that allows people to connect with one another.
—Inderveer Mahal, MD, CCFP