World Cup Recap No. 4
the last four and anyone but [REDACTED]
Well, folks, we’ve made it to our fourth World Cup installment here at Hmm HQ. Not sure if there’ll be a fifth, given that this is coming to you live from a girl who’s had Wonderwall stuck in her head for two (2) days. The situation, I fear, has never been direr.
(I do owe you a Q1 books recap, and that is on its way, but please consider the fact that I have been ill, sleep deprived, generally overwrought, and on the verge of passing out multiple times over the last week. I am keeping my favorite brand of electrolytes in business all on my own and it is not just surviving, it is thriving. It’s humiliating and I’m seriously thinking about finally joining a gym in the hope that working out will make me a less fragile individual. But not to worry, the twelve books read April-June are being written about as we speak.)
Last time we spoke, Brazil and Norway were setting up to play. In fact, I was late meeting my friends at the bar because I was putting the final touches on the newsletter, and thank God, because I think that was the first World Cup recap I sent without typos or mistaken stats.
I did, however, say this last week:
I’ll be watching Brazil v. Norway ahead of England v. Mexico, and while I do find Erling Haaland and the Norwegians charming, I am very much predicting a Brazilian win, and not just because I’m tired of the Viking row schtick.
Not only was my prediction wrong, I was also surrounded by more Norwegians than I’ve ever seen in my entire life while witnessing the effects1 of my wrongness. A grim existence I led on Sunday, but what doesn’t kill me, etcetc. I still do find the Norwegians charming, and I can begrudgingly appreciate Haaland’s commitment to court jesterdom, but I cannot say I was particularly upset to see them lose against England on Saturday. I know; I’m as shocked as any of you.
Which brings me to the following: now that we’ve reached the semi-finals, most of us have taken the time and arrived at the objectively correct conclusion. Anyone but Argentina.
Mind you—mind you—I was personally pleased in 2022 when Argentina beat France in the end. One of the most thrilling World Cup finals in recent memory, what with Mbappé’s frantic, heroic, and unhinged 97-second run in minute 80 to erase Argentina’s two-goal lead and deny Scaloni’s squad a win in regular time. I just rewatched that wild eight-minute period and suggest you do the same. For the endorphins. We deserve them.
But it’s four years later, and the vibes are different. The skill levels have shifted. The French team was good—great, even—in 2022, but to watch them play this World Cup is to watch a squad that has attained the Platonic ideal of football. There’s a rhythm and an understanding and a cohesiveness that is nearly poetic. Takes your breath away.
Maybe I’ll have to eat my words when France plays Spain on Tuesday, but this World Cup, it’s hard to imagine Deschamps’ men scrounging for a win. They haven’t, this entire tournament, been caught on the backfoot, had to dig deep to come from behind, or needed to make tough substitutions to eke out a win. The closest they got to danger was against Paraguay in the Round of 16, and those are circumstances unlikely to be replicated against either Spain on Tuesday or Argentina/England this coming Sunday.2
Here, for perhaps the last time, are the moments I’ve been thinking about from the fourth (!!) week of the World Cup:
1. Watching Egypt blow its two-goal lead against Argentina caused me actual, literal anguish.
This one hurt even more than the Cape Verde loss against Argentina, because Egypt had it. They were 1-0, then 2-0, and we could taste the historic upset before minute 79 hit and Cristian Romero scored the first goal for Argentina, followed by Messi’s equalizer four minutes later, and finally, at a devastating minute 93, Enzo Fernandez’s header that finished the job and locked Mo Salah’s squad out of the quarterfinals. 14 minutes of pure agony, made bleaker still by a few questionable refereeing choices that left the field open for a variety of conspiracy theories that may or may not hold water.
2. If watching France play is poetry, then to see Spain and England on the pitch is a study in prose.
It’s work, and the effort is visible. I can appreciate it, even if the style of play rarely really excites or inspires me. In other words: I never assume Spain or England will win a match, necessarily, but I’ve seen enough to know that they will eventually put their playbook to work and whether by set piece, penalty, or break, pull out a goal and defend stubbornly enough to maintain a lead. It’s hard to tell if this will be enough to beat France or Argentina, respectively.
But just for shits and giggles, I guess, here are my predictions for the semi-finals: France will win relatively handily in regular time and England will, by the skin of their teeth, win in extra time.3 Tuchel’s squad reads, to me, as hungrier than Scaloni’s, not to mention less dependent on one star player to deliver victories.4 They’ve also played a more diverse set of opponents than Argentina and I think that’s made them more adaptable. We’ll see how I do.
3. It’s hard to cheer for a squad whose striker brags about playing golf with Donald Trump.
Here’s Harry Kane, unaware that he’s making life difficult for the millions of people wishing to see Argentina fail on Wednesday:
His golf is pretty good, to be honest with you. I hope I can play golf as good as him when I’m his age, that’s for sure. A unique experience, but I was just grateful that he invited me to play. (BBC)
And in case you think I and the BBC are making this up, here’s the snippet from the press conference:
Why. Why. How do you have all those teeth and spout so much nonsense. Because for what reason might a person be grateful to spend time with Donald Trump, famously a blight upon the world? Jesus Christ. There is no winning.
Of course, let us not forget how earlier this year Messi joined his Inter Miami teammates at the White House and gratuitously posed for photos with Trump. Whilst smiling in public, which is something Messi is traditionally and historically against.
Do you see what I mean? Atrocious options we have at our disposal here. Scraping the bottom of the barrel. This is why so many people are rooting for France, btw. It pains me to say it, but the French squad is sitting rather pretty at the intersection of most skilled and least problematic. De-so-lée.
4. Uruguay might already have a new coach.
Gonna sneak this in here even though at this point it’s only tangentially related to the World Cup, but per the rapidly swirling rumors, it looks like following Marcelo Bielsa’s unceremonious exit, Diego Forlán has been tapped to lead Uruguayan football, at least temporarily. More as the story develops, I suppose, but I am cautiously—tepidly—optimistic. See you in 2030, babes.
5. Every World Cup, people remember and/or realize just how racist Latin Americans can be.
As a Latin American myself, the recurring nature of this is embarrassing.
Last week, we saw a Paraguayan senator hop on Twitter/X to racistly mock Mbappé’s background and appearance, to which the French player responded:
Madame Celeste Amarilla, you are a despicable woman and unworthy of your position.
You do not represent Paraguay, that country which has sweated passion and honour throughout the competition.
Through your recklessness and your brazen racism, the entire world has already forgotten the journey and the historic effort that your players accomplished during this World Cup, making way for an incompetent woman who gives the worst possible image of her country.
I will never allow people like her the freedom to spread their hatred and racism across the world.
That’s not all. During Argentina’s match against Cape Verde, there were multiple recorded instances of American streamer IShowSpeed, né Darren Watkins Jr., being on the receiving end of racist abuse from Argentinean fans in Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.5
FIFA has responded with the boilerplate “racism has no place in football” statement, but the thing is, if you’ve ever attended matches between European or Latin American countries and African countries, none of these occurrences will be a surprise to you. The racism among is casual and pervasive, and while it is true that an individual or even a team cannot single-handedly eradicate a country’s or a fanbase’s culture of entrenched racism, it’s hard to imagine that someone with a platform like Messi’s would have no impact if he did decide to take a forceful and unequivocal stand against it. If wishes were horses and all that.
Again: this is in large part why people are finding it increasingly distasteful to root for Argentina. Behavior like this (rightly) becomes impossible to ignore.
*
Anyway. Happy last week of the World Cup to us all.
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Seeing a Viking row reenactment in person.
That being said, the Spanish defensive line is probably the best that France will have played against thus far.
The former is objective, the latter is more of a wishful forecast.
Although, after the game against Norway, I suspect Jude Bellingham might like a word.
Respectfully, I am so out of tune with the streaming of it all, I had never heard of this young man, but he seems to have 56 million YouTube subscribers so he is presumably well-known to quite a large subset of the population.
Devastating as an American to be actively cheering for the French.
Harry Kane is rather lacking in brain cells unfortunately. Jude +/- Gordon is England's best hope on Wednesday 🤞🏻