The curse of Donald Trump: where he goes, sporting defeat follows

Donald Trump watches Game 3 of the NBA finals between New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks lost. Photograph: Samuel Corum/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Donald Trump watches Game 3 of the NBA finals between New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks lost. Photograph: Samuel Corum/Getty Images Analysis The curse of Donald Trump: where he goes, sporting defeat follows Adam Gabbatt The USMNT’s World Cup crashout is the latest episode to suggest the support and intervention of Donald J Trump brings bad luck This was originally published in This Week in Trumpland. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday Breaking a mirror. Walking under a ladder. Spilling salt. A black cat crossing one’s path. After the events of this week, it feels safe to add one more item to the list of things said to bring bad luck: the support and intervention of Donald J Trump. The president waded into the fortunes of the US men’s soccer team over the weekend, personally asking the Fifa president, Gianna Infantino, to overturn a red card shown to the team’s star striker, Folarin Balogun. It worked. Balogun’s red card was controversially reversed , prompting uproar from the global football community but allowing him to play against Belgium on Monday. Before Trump’s intervention the US had been in the middle of arguably their best World Cup run in decades. After, they collapsed, crashing out of the tournament with an insipid performance that ended in a 4-1 defeat. The team had suffered the curse of Donald Trump . Yes, an increasing body of evidence suggests that where the president goes, sporting defeat follows. From the basketball court to the Nascar ring, from the golf course to the NFL stadium, Trump’s presence serves as a harbinger of defeat. The rumors picked up steam after Trump attended game three of the NBA finals in June. The Knicks were in imperious form, riding high on a run of 13 consecutive wins until, with Trump watching on ( amid naps ), the Knicks slumped to their first defeat in weeks. A pattern was emerging. Last November, Trump became the first sitting US president in nearly 50 years to attend a regular season NFL game, when he traveled to the Washington Commanders’ stadium to watch them play the Detroit Lions. The Commanders got battered, 44-22. Earlier in the year, Trump had visited the Daytona 500 . The race was subjected to three and a half hours of weather delays. When Trump served as grand marshal for the same event in 2020, it was suspended after just 20 laps, rain causing the race to be postponed until the next day for only the second time in history. The examples keep coming. View image in fullscreen Trump speaks to press before departing the Ryder Cup golf tournament in September 2025. Sep 2025 Photograph: Andrew Leyden/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock In September, the golf-loving Trump was front and center at the Ryder Cup, watching the US take on Europe. Europe won ,