World Cup 2018: Before focusing on the game’s elite, let's pay tribute to the great football travellers

For those heading home, their lives will not be the same, they cannot be the same, because they have competed in global sport’s biggest show

Think of global football as a path, a path where the World Cup is a milestone that comes along every four years and allows us to asses where we are, to suggest where we might be headed and to look back and marvel at some of those who have come along for the ride with us in the past.

The future is where most like to look while we are wrapped up in the present merely trying to work out what we are seeing, but perhaps it’s that last one that is most important, because the World Cup evokes such nostalgia; each edition lodging destinations in our memory that tell us where we were and when, and why that was so important.

We started with 32 teams in Russia but only 16 can continue into the business end.

Of the half remaining you will hear and read much more but those going home exit the world’s biggest stage and step out of the world’s gaze and into silence.

And yet their lives will not be the same, they cannot be the same, because they have competed in global sport’s biggest show, its greatest event and for all of them it will be transformative, albeit to different degrees.

Take a tale of two goalkeepers.

Alireza Beiranvan ran away from his parents as a teenager as they tried to force him into the working world. “I want to be a footballer,” he dreamed, and so he took a bus to Tehran where he sometimes slept on the streets, taking odd jobs around his training schedule as he strived to make it as a professional.

Last Monday night, with the eyes of the world on him, Beiranvan saved a penalty from Cristiano Ronaldo that gave all of Iran hope of an improbable, implausible progression from the tournament’s hardest group.

A year ago Berianvan was a professional footballer, a month ago he was the formerly homeless goalkeeper about to play at the World Cup and now he is the man who saved a penalty from one of football’s greatest-ever players – a man so impossibly rich and successful in comparison that he is like Prince Ali to Berianvan’s Aladdin. But it is the goalkeeper who is now the prince, Iranian World Cup royalty furnished with a moment of history that nobody will ever be able to take away.

Just ask Hannes Halldorsson.

The Icelandic goalkeeper made a name for himself as part of Iceland’s stunning Euro 2016 campaign. There was the dentist coach, the part-time left-back and then Halldorsson, the shotstopper who directed films, including, most notably, Iceland’s 2012 Eurovision entry.

Hannes Halldorsson returns home a hero (Getty)

Now he is the showstopper who saved Lionel Messi’s penalty. Argentina almost brought as many fans to Russia as there are people in Iceland and yet this one man, the director, stood tall and held them at bay. His life will never be the same, and stories like his and Beiranvan’s are legion.

Focus at this World Cup now turns to the 16 teams and 368 players that remain – the creme de la creme. But by and large they are the ones whose lives will be least affected by the tournament as it goes on. Sure, some will have caught the eye of other clubs and will secure an impulsive transfer based on a small sample size of performances that the buyer may come to regret, and then there are the 23 who go all the way and win the thing but the majority of those playing in the last 16 are already millionaires and will earn great salaries and play in big matches for the rest of their careers.

But for those 368 for whom playing in a World Cup was a barely credible dream, a moment imagined while kicking balls around dusty streets or playgrounds turned into a reality, their time in Russia has been something far greater. On the long flight home they will wonder if it was real, having temporarily transformed them into stars on the world’s biggest stage. On football’s great path, they have been travellers of note.

The World Cup has changed everything for Felipe Baloy (Getty)

For the likes of Felipe Baloy – who had played 102 times for Panama since 2001, only to score their first-ever World Cup goal at 37, sparking wild celebrations even in defeat – or Essam El Hadary – who saved a penalty on his way to becoming the World Cup’s oldest-ever player at 45 – this tournament has changed everything. There are many more like them too.

The World Cup is a transformative thing. Obviously it turns one team into a world champion but this is the greatest sporting event on the planet for its scope as well as its importance, watched by more people than any other both in person and around the world.

The remaining elite will strive for the great prize but for those headed home, they already have theirs and nobody will ever be able to take it away from them.