Seth Meyers mocks Trump’s sports curse after Argentina loses World Cup final

Seth Meyers mocked Donald Trump as the “Sports Reaper” after Spain beat Argentina 1-0 in the 2026 World Cup final at MetLife Stadium, turning Trump’s public backing of Lionel Messi into another chapter in the online sports-curse meme. The joke landed because Trump had attended the match, drawn loud boos from fans, and then watched Argentina lose to Spain in a result that seemed to feed the superstition.

Before kickoff, Trump praised Messi and said it was hard to bet against him, a line that made the final’s outcome feel tailor-made for late-night comedy once Argentina fell in the championship game. After the match, Trump said Spain played better, and the contrast between his pregame support and the final score helped push the curse theory back into circulation.

Meyers did more than replay the outcome. In the segment, he mocked Trump as being “desperate” for “human connection” after what he called a FIFA “gambit,” and later ridiculed Trump getting a fake “peace prize” from FIFA. The bit treated Trump less like a conventional political figure and more like a recurring entertainment fixture whose public appearances are fodder for jokes about luck, loyalty and humiliation.

That framing has found an audience because Trump now sits at the intersection of politics, sports and spectacle. His appearance at MetLife Stadium, the boos that greeted him, and the postgame attention around his presence made the final feel like a cultural event as much as a sporting one. When Argentina lost after Trump’s Messi comments, the result did not just produce another joke for Meyers. It reinforced a meme in which athletes and teams linked to Trump are cast as victims of a bad-luck aura, a superstition that turns presidential celebrity into a pop-culture narrative with its own rules.