I agree with most of what you say, but probably the worst ever world cup was Italia 90. Sterile and defensive, teams playing for penalties topped by an awful final. People remember it more friendly because of England getting to the semis and Gazza's tears. But there were a lot of crap dour games. Argentina stunk with Maradona in decline but bored their way to the final, Brazil were boring and dour and we're knocked out in the second round by a negative Argentina. Spain, the Netherlands, USSR, Sweden, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia all under performed from what was expected of them. Cameroon played with a lot of joy and openness, Italy were good (if typically Italian), Germany were good but stunk in the final and England played arguably the best football of anyone there and were certainly involved in most of the best and exciting matches (Belgium in the 2nd round, Cameroon in the quarters and Germany in the semis). Take those four teams away and the rest of the tournament was very poor with only a few decent games. South Africa probably comes next as the worst tournament, but until Russia 2018 you had a succession of poor or underwhelming tournaments. USA 94 was an improvement on Italia 90, but was an overall mediocre tournament. France 98 was better (probably the best until 2018), but pretty forgettable overall. 2002 was "meh" with quite a bit of controversy especially regarding South Korea getting to the semis. Germany 2006 was poor and pretty negative, most of the best games were in the group stages. 2010 was awful and Brazil 2014 was pretty poor with a lot of forgettable matches. It's a fluke that the last two tournaments carried so much controversy about them beforehand but produced two excellent tournaments in terms of football. Personally I don't have high hopes for this tournament. It's bloated, too many teams, awkward scheduling and external issues because of Trump that could impact badly on it. I'll watch it and hope I'm wrong, but I'd not be surprised if it's poor.
