World Cup 2026: Round-of-16 notes

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Preface: The is the fourth installment in a coverage series. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here.

Football is the world game because it gets into your soul. Each nation wants an international football team they can be proud of, and the cost of entry is relatively low. Respect in football is measured by results in big tournaments & how you play the game. If the game is not officiated fairly, it’s not football. It becomes rugby or American rules football if excessive & reckless physicality is allowed. Fans come to watch football skill, not players being hacked.

France v Paraguay was a painful game to watch. Paraguay hacked & flopped all over the field, and were never issued a yellow card in the match, while France had three. Paraguay characterized their performance with shameless play acting, referee pleading, provocative baiting, time wasting, mind-game garbage, dirty tricks, and unsportsmanlike behavior that was allowed for the entire match.

FIFA controls the officiating, so this disgraceful match is mostly on them. Paraguay losing 1-0 to France in the round-of-16 is remembered as a travesty. It was a professional performance for France, as the excellent Fox play-by-play announcer John Strong eloquently described at the end. Strong & Stu Holden are one of their best analyst teams for the World Cup, and you could sense them pleading with FIFA off-mic to make the officials to get the game under control. That’s an entire referee crew that needs to be sent home. “Stay in CONCACAF where you belong until your chops get better,” should be the FIFA message to them.

VAR is what saved this match from further disgrace, as the game-winning penalty kick for France was only awarded after VAR finally interceded. This illustrates why VAR is so necessary. It used to be that reckless hacking style teams like Paraguay could get away with that, with no replay review of these obvious fouls. Paraguay are specialists at fouling off-the-ball, where the refs aren’t usually looking.

Teams hack because they lack the skill to play without hacking. Paraguay players flop & act as if they were hit in the face, when there is no contact. I’m convinced I saw them practicing getting fouled and going to the ground (with two hops on a leg) as they were coming out of the tunnel & warming up for the second half.

It’s a way to play football, but not a good way. Paraguay leaves the 2026 World Cup in disgrace, even though they upset Germany in the-round-of-32. This reflects poorly on all the people of Paraguay, which is the biggest shame. A national team can go to a World Cup and not meet expectations as far as results go, but they can’t disgrace the people of their nation– and that’s what the Paraguayan team did. The game of football is about respect. Paraguay don’t respect players who play football the correct way. They disrespect the best footballers, whom everyone else respects.

In sporting competition, you must always maintain respect for your opponent and the game itself. If you lose this spirit, then you lose your sporting soul. This means you can never win, and will always fall short of earning opposition respect. It leaves such a team with nothing to build on, and often ends up being the type of team football fans try to forget.

This describes the difference between being a nationalist fan, who only cares about winning, versus the international football fan who respects the game’s best. That is sacred. That love & respect is the soul of football which connects so many fans globally. It can’t be earned through cheating or false trickery. Respect in sports is about always playing the game the correct way.

Jesse Marsch is the manager of the Canadian national team, who lost 3-0 to Morocco in the round-of-16 today. Football fans have a lot of respect for how Canada played, and how they handled defeat. Canada pressed against Morocco, especially in the first half, and tried to win the game. They just ran out of steam in the second half, and honestly they weren’t good enough.

Jesse Marsch knows this. He also knows this bold style leaves his team more room for improvement,than if they just play it safe and defend. That’s good football managing. If you do things correctly & take risks, you give yourself a chance of getting better, which is what Canada needs. Canada needs talent and a lot of luck, but if correctness isn’t part of their process, they have no shot. That is Jesse Marsch’s message and he is correct. Canada have a long climb to qualify for World Cup 2030, after getting the automatic host bid this time. Hosting is what catapulted Canada to their 2026 run where they met expectations on the easy path they were given by FIFA, but did no more.

A final word on host paths. FIFA wants the host national team(s) to have a good World Cup run. It’s good for everyone if this happens. That’s why Canada, the US & Mexico were all given favorable draws & brackets in 2026. It is fair? No. Is it good business? Yes.

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Watching these matches you hear a lot of commentary on line-ups, formations, and players moving around to help their team get an advantage, etc. The same principles apply for a World Cup television broadcast. In summary: Rebecca Lowe, Thierry Henry & Zlatan Ibrahimović are the “A-team” for Fox in the studio. Jules Breach is pretty & has enthusiasm, but little else, while Peter Schmeichel is slow. Javier “Chicharito” Hernández has to cover Mexico’s games, and he’s a plus. Mikel John Obi needs to slow down (like Thierry Henry does) because of his thick foreign accent. My advice to him would be to repeat this sentence, “In Hartford, Hereford & Hampshire hurricanes hardly ever happen.”

Alexi Lalas is a problem because he’s Alexi Lalas, so he’s finally been moved off the Rebecca Lowe A-team to the Rob Stone B-team. This is the “USMNT announcer” line-up with Landon Donovan & Clint Dempsey. Landon Donovan does a nice job handling Alexi Lalas, so I like him more & more. Clint Dempsey understands the game & is honest, but he isn’t as sharp & well-spoken as Landon Donovan. That’s a broadcasting team dynamic which works, since Fox insists on Alexi Lalas. I say Lalas should have been red-carded out of the 2026 World Cup long ago, but what do I know about soccer? Anyway, this is how the Fox broadcast has “grown into the tournament” and created a winning formula for itself.

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These two matches discussed briefly above were played on the 4th of July. The Declaration of Independence is an enlightened document of monumental historical significance. For 250 years, Americans have said no to kings. The Declaration of Independence empowers the American people (and people of the world) to resist & overthrow any form of tyranny. It is a democratic & enlightened document which can NEVER be deemed irrelevant. That is what real Americans celebrate on the 4th of July, while fascists & conservatives promote nationalism & militarism.

The American Revolution of 1776 inspired the French Revolution of 1789, yet all Fox broadcasters could talk about was the Statue of Liberty & Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) as a Philadelphia icon– and that’s per Donald Trump to Rupert Murdoch & FIFA. Perhaps the best Fox television moment of this cerebration day was a football fan outside of Philadelphia dressed-up as Thomas Jefferson looking into the camera holding up a red card, to presumably King George III, and signaling him off the field. That’s true modern football spirit from a country built on sense-of-humor, which finally gets it.

Sat 04 Jul 2026 11:30 PM CDT

In 1994 the US v Brazil in the round-of-16, there was a red card handed out to Brazilian defender Leonardo, who viciously elbowed Tab Ramos fracturing his skull. Tab Ramos was hospitalized for weeks where he was visited by Leonardo. Brazil played most of the match a man down, yet the US still mostly stayed in their protective defensive shell. Eventually the US tried to attack and turned the ball over which led to a Brazilian fastbreak goal from Bebeto– 1-0, the winning goal.

The rub came when the US still stayed in their defensive shell after going down a goal, indicating their willingness to lose 1-0 to Brazil. Brazilian players roundly criticized this US style as cowardly, and by winning the World Cup in 1994 it validated that sentiment. That, and the tragedy of Andrés Escobar are why I never viewed the 1994 World Cup as a victory for US football/soccer. It established a flimsy beachhead for US soccer, but left a lot of work to do. In 1998 the USMNT lost every game in group play and finished 32nd– dead last.

As discussed above, sometimes the story of a national team from a particular era(s) can get so ugly that football fans prefer to not talk about it. The MLS MVP award is the Landon Donovan Award. He’s best position player the USMNT ever produced. The goal of the 2026 USMNT is to (at least) go to the quarterfinals. Landon Donovan led the USMNT there in 2002 as the best young player in that World Cup held in Japan. It’s the furthest the USMNT has ever gone in the World Cup.

In the 2006 World Cup in Germany the USMNT crashed out in the group stage, as Landon Donovan had no goals or assists. I vaguely remember it as Brian McBride being the only other guy the USMNT had as a scoring threat with Donovan. It wasn’t nearly enough. A lack of quality in the final third and a shaky defense defined that team.

Landon Donovan played every minute for the USMNT in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. He scored twice in the group stage to help the USMNT draw and win a game, helping them finish top of their group for the first time ever. Landon Donovan scored a penalty in the round-of-16 against Ghana, but the USMNT lost 2–1 in the extra time shootout. Landon Donovan’s five World Cup goals is the most for any man representing a team from CONCACAF.

As discussed in an earlier installment, Landon Donovan wasn’t selected in 2014. In May 2014, Donovan was named to the preliminary squad for the upcoming World Cup and joined the team in training camp, but was then clumsily omitted from the final USMNT roster shortly after by manager Jürgen Klinsmann. Landon Donovan was still the best player the USMNT had, and this was going to be his last run.

Landon Donovan helped the USMNT get into the 2014 World Cup, then he was cut from the team just before it began. That’s a shabby way to treat the best American soccer/football player ever, and that bad blood relationship philosophy carried over to the USMNT not qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. I notice that Landon Donovan & Clint Dempsey don’t discuss this 2014 World Cup slight when analyzing the USMNT for Fox.

In Qatar 2022, the USMNT made it out of group play, but lost to the Netherlands 3-1 in the round-of-16.  In 1998 & 2006 the USMNT was eliminated in group play. “Home before the postcards,” as the English say. That’s how things currently stand.

Landon Donovan says the USMNT is now better than Belgium, and will win– which gives me hope. Landon Donovan also tempers that optimism with the reality that it is really close and very much a coin-flip game with Belgium. He says it’s mission accomplished either way, I say the USMNT needs this game badly. If they lose, it’s a massive disappointment. If they win, they’re football heroes.

In 2014, the US lost 2-1 to Belgium in this round, in a game they weren’t expected to win, and over-performed due to Tim Howard in goal. This time the USMNT is expected to win, so the pressure is on. The MLS has gotten better since it’s inception in 1996, but I still watch the Premiere League on NBC versus MLS on Fox for a reason. The USMNT needs to beat a European or South American powerhouse (or two) for the MLS to get any international football respect.

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The round-of-16 is strong, with only three teams (in my judgment) that didn’t belong there. Paraguay, Canada & Switzerland were beneficiaries of favorable draws & bracketing as discussed already. Two have already been eliminated, while Switzerland plays Colombia in a few days. Every other game looks like a cracker of match in this round.

I’m therefore selecting the Netherlands, Senegal & Cape Verde as the three most-deserving round-of-16 teams in 2026 that fell a game short. They are followed by Japan, Croatia & Germany and these should be (or approximately be) the new FIFA men’s rankings after the World Cup.

If a 48-team field is to be the new World Cup format, then FIFA rankings from say ten to around fifty have to better reflect reality & results on the pitch. Blood-soaked Middle East oil monarchs bought their way into hosting the World Cup in 2022, and had too many teams in the 2026 field.

The football leagues in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc, are all homegrown players of mediocre-to-poor quality. They pay well to keep their own, but have a hard time attracting international talent. It’s like LIV, where oil monarchs offer crazy money to top golf talent, but eventually the top players come to realize they need to be on the PGA to seriously compete for the top prizes– majors.

Qualifiers are there for a reason. It keeps the World Cup tight. A compact schedule reduces injuries. Now the best teams have to play an extra game (round-of-32) which is a big factor in a knockout tournament, from an elimination & injury attrition perspective. New Zealand was a joke. So were Haiti, Curaçao, Tunisia, Iraq, Jordan & Uzbekistan. Home before the postcards.

I earlier mentioned the Azteca in Mexico City as the most beautiful football field in the world. Wembley Stadium in London is the only argument, even if it’s not the original Wembley. England is the birthplace of football, and Wembley is the cathedral. The Cup is always coming home for English football fans. It’s just part of what makes the Mexico v England match such a cracker y una fiesta grande.

The English way to prepare for a cracker of a football match is to fix a cup of tea, or toss down a few pints. The Mexican way is to drink tequila with cerveza chasers while smoking marijuana. This is a fascinating contrast in styles that becomes too difficult to analyze. Whichever team wins gets to claim their style is best. That’s the World Cup.

Sun 05 Jul 2026 06:00 PM CDT

World Cup 2026: President Donald Trump reportedly called FIFA’s Gianni Infantino to review Folarin Balogun’s red card suspension

Above is the Yahoo headline about two hours ago. So far, I’ve written over 10,000 words on the 2026 World Cup. Somewhere early I reviewed FIFA corruption & politics. This was done for the express purpose of educating sports fans who are new to FIFA. Then this happens, and it’s no longer a conspiracy theory– it’s an actual conspiracy. This morning FIFA announced that its disciplinary committee was suspending US striker Folarin Balogun’s red card from the previous match.

First and foremost, the red card was unjust. But the bigger issue is FIFA ethics. Would FIFA do the same for a player in a similar situation for Ghana, or say Iran? To ask the question is to answer it, and it’s why football fans (especially Belgian supporters) are so upset over this. A US President used his personal & business influence with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino to secure an unprecedented World Cup ruling in favor of the USMNT.

In the end, it’s questionable whether this will help the USMNT against Belgium. It feels very much like when Trump showed up in Madison Square Garden to support the Knicks in the NBA finals a few weeks ago. That’s the danger for the USMNT here– the Trump effect, which is always negative. On the other hand, I’m happy the kid can play because he deserves to.

Why did it take FIFA so long to make the reversal decision? Who are the FIFA disciplinary committee? What is their response to these optics? What did the USMNT do to influence this decision? Why does Trump feel the need to intervene on behalf of the USMNT?

International football fans will be demanding serious answers to these burning questions. This isn’t the WNBA where tough questions can be ducked & deflected because the liberal corporate media has the same agenda as the league. Media from around the world are going to be asking US manager Mauricio Pochettino & his players these tough questions over & over for awhile.

Mon 06 Jul 2026 07:36 AM CDT

Donald Trump will be presenting the World Cup trophy to the winners on July 19 in NY/NJ Stadium. He insisted on that, and Gianni Infantino readily agreed. FIFA is about money & power at the highest levels, so of course there is backroom influence & corruption. Trump’s “FIFA peace prize” is proof of that.

There have been hysterical denunciations of Trump’s pardon of Folarin Balogun. The Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) issued a statement yesterday expressing their sharp disagreement with the FIFA ruling. It even contained a veiled threat of possible legal action in the future. Their best response would have been to keep quiet and take the high road, but no one does that anymore. Instead, everyone gets on their soapbox and preaches their version of integrity. The RBFA have cast themselves as the victim with a hashtag cause, as Trump takes a victory lap knowing his heavy-handed intervention achieved the result he desired. The blatant hypocrisy all-around is nauseating.

This closed-door politicking has become the story of US v Belgium, which is a shame. Trump has his black hand all over this World Cup. Those who hysterically claim that Trump has ruined the World Cup with this action, simply haven’t been paying attention to what’s been going on. Corruption & backroom dealmaking have been there from the start. All this hand-wringing has become fodder for those who create party-line talking points & convenient political narratives.

To be clear– this game tonight will be decided on the field by the players who participate. The sanctimonious outrage from the Belgian manager & company was a bad play. Most Americans understand the mechanism of corruption involved in this process, as they’ve experienced it many times before with Trump– and don’t approve. The most severe & effective criticism of this FIFA corruption is coming from within the US.

For sports-loving Americans, it speaks poorly that a US President arm-twisted FIFA into this special favor. Everyone sees it and understands it, so from a Belgian football perspective there is no need to posture as a victim. It smacks of whining and creating an excuse to lose, which makes Belgium look weak.

If Folarin Balogun scores two goals tonight and the US wins 2-1, football fans will never hear the end of this. If the USMNT loses, then the narrative becomes they couldn’t win even though they had a special advantage handed to them from above. Trump’s meddling has put the USMNT in an impossible situation, where they can no longer win with honor. It’s a terrible thing Trump has done to the USMNT, and he did it (as always) to satisfy his own ego & interests. He wants to hand the Jules Rimet trophy to the USMNT on July 19, and will shamelessly do whatever it takes to see that happens.

This has raised the temperature of the US-Belgium match to a fever pitch. As I’ve explained repeatedly, the World Cup is about a lot more than football.

Mon 06 Jul 2026 10:36 AM CDT

Gregg Berhalter took over as manager of the USMNT after the Jürgen Klinsmann/Bruce Arena disaster era of 2011-2018, which has been outlined already. The USMNT didn’t make it out of group play in Qatar 2022. When the USMNT failed get out of group play at the 2024 Copa America, Gregg Berhalter was canned.

Mauricio Pochettino has done his job well since taking over as manager of the USMNT in 2024. His task was to organize the talent on an underperforming USMNT roster into a respectable 2026 World Cup team. Everyone in football agrees he’s done that. As a result, this is probably the best USMNT ever produced for a World Cup, as far as competitive ability & overall talent goes.

From here on in, it’s all about the USMNT players and how they perform. There is only so much a manager can do, as his job is to organize the team, select the roster, and decide who plays– where & when. Tactics & game-planning are certainly important, but once the start whistle blows a manager’s role is greatly reduced as far as influencing the result. At that point it’s on the players, as there are no excuses or crying allowed in the World Cup.

The only match I’ve seen in the 2026 World Cup where I felt the manager cost his team a chance to win was Australia v Egypt in the round-of-32, when he substituted his fantastic young goalkeeper late in extra time to put in a cold veteran keeper for the upcoming penalty shootout. I felt badly for both keepers, the young one who deserved to be in the game, and the veteran keeper who was put into an impossible situation by his clumsy manager. The penalty kick takers Australia selected were also a bit curious. That’s over-coaching, and the kind of tactical blundering which deserves scrutiny.

Latest news: The Folarin Balogun situation is now being appealed by Belgium, with a final FIFA ruling expected later today. What a disgraceful mess, and one has to feel for Folarin Balogun who just wants to play for his team. First he was victimized by poor VAR officiating, Now he has been thrown into a situation where he really can’t speak for himself, due to all the rotten politics in the air. Folarin Balogun is somehow now the bad guy (to much of the world) if he plays, and this is an example of how dirty politicians use people for their own purposes, and then discard them without regard for the consequences.

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The r-r-rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.   –Eliza Doolittle

Sometimes off-beat analysis is what’s needed. I really like Darren Fletcher & Owen Hargreaves calling a World Cup match as they did with Mexico v England cracker last night. But must I confess there are times I just can’t understand what the heck they are saying due to their heavy English accents. They do work brilliantly together. Do you suppose they would understand if they were told to take a lesson from professor Enry Iggins? For the record, I love the “Fletch count” on James Corden’s After Hours. Good fun at the World Cup.

I honestly don’t know if the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain, but I do know they have an excellent national team. This is a team that can beat France. First they have to get by Portugal. I heard Fox play-by-play announcer John Strong refer to the Brazilian Ronaldo, who helped them win the World Cup in 2002, as the “real Ronaldo” during a recent telecast. I laughed, I will confess.

Cristiano Ronaldo has scored enough professional goals to laugh at that too. He’s a great player who just hasn’t had the support needed to win a World Cup. Football is the ultimate a team game. The playing pitch is far too big for one person to dominate by himself as Michael Jordan could in basketball. Cristiano Ronald is an all-time great footballer, but not winning the World Cup is seen like not winning the Indianapolis 500 in racing or a Super Bowl in the NFL. You aren’t considered at the very top if you don’t check that box. Whether that’s truly fair or not is what fans love to debate.

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Clarence Seedorf is a legendary Dutch footballer whom I saw play in the World Cup. Charming may be the best word to describe him. He’s got a warm, inviting presence that adds to any football broadcast. I prefer the less-is-more analyst style in any sport. That means speaking well when it’s your turn, while being charismatic, clear & concise. Always be professional in your style.

Carli Lloyd is there as an analyst to remind the US men that they have never won anything at the World Cup. She usually just sits there smiling, and it’s written all over her face. It’s great. Carli Lloyd was the linchpin in the second golden era of the USWNT with Alex Morgan & Megan Rapinoe that won two World Cups. The original Michelle Akers-Mia Hamm USWNT (1991-1999) won two World Cups also. Those are the great World Cup teams Americans remember with joy.

Mon 06 Jul 2026 01:10 PM CDT

Gianni Infantino is an international businessman. FIFA is the most powerful sports entity in the world. Those are facts. FIFA must deal with all nations when it comes to hosting tournaments and attaining visas for foreign teams, travel & lodging, etc. This requires the cooperation of governments and their corporate partners.

So when the president of the US asks FIFA boss Gianni Infantino to do him a favor during the 2026 World Cup, you can start to understand why this is such a big issue– much bigger that a football match. Gianni Infantino is friends with Donald Trump and this is a mafia relationship. That means everything is done in secret and there is an understanding among the two. “FIFA disciplinary committee” is a smokescreen. Trump told Infantino what he wanted and Infantino made it happen. So now Gianni Infantino has to explain to the world all the hows whats whys & wherefores of this murky affair.

That’s not the kind of friend you like to have if you’re Gianni Infantino, but what can he do? He sits with dignitaries of every nation throughout the World Cup. We see him on camera taking in the action at every big match. He has to maintain delicate relationships with countries like Belgium who are outraged that they can’t even have a World Cup anymore that isn’t rigged for the US. This has foreign relations repercussions that Trump hasn’t even considered.

As discussed above, football is about respect. Trump had no respect for due process or transparency when he arm-twisted Gianni Infantino. The Belgian national team had no idea there was an appeal in process. They received the news of the lifted red-card suspension as fait accompli, like everyone else. FIFA is still adjudicating on the matter with 6 hours to go before the match. These are not professionals in charge, these are prejudiced clowns. I expect Fox coverage of this to be poor, because it’s gotten so political. Sports analysts don’t want to talk politics and neither does their boss.

As I was finishing this section, FIFA ruled in favor of the USMNT, so Folarin Balogun will be available tonight. He has no choice but to play, and I’m sure he wants to play. This is what happens when overblown wannabe’s meddle where they don’t belong. Over & Out on this.

Mon 06 Jul 2026 09:50 PM CDT

Belgium 4, US 1. Yes, the Folarin Balogun situation absolutely affected the USMNT. Carli Lloyd was afraid of that before the game too. You could just feel it coming– if you were paying attention. The quality isn’t there at every level for the USMNT to consistently beat a world-class team. The cupcakes the USMNT feasted upon up until now made them sluggish, tentative, overconfident & not ready for serious World Cup pressure. They needed more competition in group play to prepare them better, IMO.

The progress isn’t there. The USMNT desperately needs more depth. Unfortunately, everything I’ve written this World Cup on the USMNT needs to reviewed and taken seriously. We don’t have enough good coaching at the youth levels, where the technical skills need to be learned & mastered to keep up in international football. Belgium’s response to the USMNT after the game was “Overturn this.” Leaves you speechless as an American, doesn’t it?

Respect for the game needs to be emphasized at the youth level. Coaches need to be required to appreciate the best international players who kick the USMNT’s ass every World Cup. The USMNT gets a ‘C’ for this tournament. I don’t believe American fans fell in love with this team, that was all Fox hype. They weren’t around long enough for that. I’m still not sure who the USMNT’s best player is. I didn’t see enough of them against good competition to really be able to accurately judge. Malik Tillman probably.

Lots of shame to go around after all the FIFA shenanigans, which were a bad idea from the start for reasons I explained above. How much did Folarin Balogun actually help in that 4-1 humiliation? It’s about doing things the right way. When you try to take shortcuts or cheat for advantage, this is how you get clipped. The officiating was tight against the USMNT the entire match, and that’s how Belgium got their edge, after the USMNT got their’s with a red card suspension suspended before the match. It wasn’t worth it. Sometimes you need to accept a bad ruling against you, to use that as inspiration to overcome adversity.

The ‘Trump effect’ here was real, just as it was in MSG when he showed up (mostly) unwanted for game 3 of the NBA finals a few weeks ago. Trump sucks all the juice out of whatever he gets involved with, which in this case was the USMNT during the 2026 World Cup. It’s a bad way to blow the opportunity of a lifetime for the USMNT. The process needs more work & refining before US football fans start seeing significant improvement in USMNT World Cup results.

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The millstones of the World Cup knockout rounds grind slowly, but exceedingly fine. Like everyone else, I like Argentina v Colombia as the final quarterfinal match-up to be determined tomorrow. This is a STRONG final 8. I still like France, but Spain is impressing me and Norway is tantalizing me. The USMNT needs a striker like Erling Haaland. That’s what I’m talking about with difference makers. Without Erling Haaland, Norway is already eliminated. With Erling Haaland, Norway can win the World Cup. You need to discover & develop that magical player.

Those are the type of players that need to be homegrown in the US & Canada for those national teams to improve, and that takes time, care, and a lot of hard work. Corporate America is mostly interested in hyping shortcuts, and too busy making money to understand this, which is the root of the problem. Speculating in crypto seems more sensible to these American business leaders, who understand little about building something real that people actually care about.

Among former US national team representatives on Fox in Seattle today, it was Carli Lloyd signing the most autographs. The USMNT needs to be much more grassroots, in-touch & organic with the kids, as previously successful USWNT’s were. To the USMNT: Stop promoting yourselves as stars when you aren’t. Be real. Don’t be bitcoin. “Take a few more cues from Carli Lloyd,” would be great advice for the entire USMNT & its cheerleaders.

To get really good at something, you first need to admit you stink. Then you can get better. The truth hurts and it’s painful, but it also inspires. You have to be honest to improve, and it starts by looking in the mirror. I’m still waiting to see these qualities in US men’s soccer/football.

We’ll see again in 4 years in Spain/Portugal. With the expanded 48-team field, the USMNT should certainly qualify. I see it as the same bar in 2030. They have to make the round-of-16, and it would be great if they finally won that game. Landon Donovan is still our best footballer ever. No disrespect to him, but that has to definitively change for the USMNT to earn more international football respect. He’s taken American soccer as far as it can go, so it’s up to the future generations to build on that. Thank you, Landon Donovan. This is what Thierry Henry was talking out post-match with levels.

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Every match in the quarterfinals is looking to be a cracker. I’m looking forward to see who the Fox broadcast teams will be. I rate Ian Darke/Landon Donovan as their best, followed by John Strong/Stu Holden & Darren Fletcher/Owen Hargreaves. Ian Darke can carry a World Cup broadcast by himself. He’s the Vin Scully of international football. Amazing. If any of these aforementioned broadcast teams are calling the match, you’re in good shape and really should pay attention. The rest on Fox are a level below that mark, meaning they are still very competent, but lack chemistry or whatever.

I’m curious to see if Owen Hargreaves can keep a clean sheet on the Fletch count. It’s usually gone by the first hydration break. At the Azteca before the England-Mexico match, Owen Hargreaves joined Jules Breach & company during the pre-match rain delay. Jules Breach looks great in a wet poncho, but she couldn’t carry the delay alone, so guests were trotted-in including Owen Hargeaves who admitted he had had a few tequila shots with the Mexican fans outside the stadium beforehand. It’s that kind of brilliance that makes you fall in love with the World Cup.

Tue 07 Jul 2026 01:09 PM CDT

Argentina 3, Egypt 2. One of the great World Cup matches ever. It had everything including a blatant VAR overreach in favor of Argentina which took a goal away from Egypt. Rob Green spoke eloquently on the spot for football fans on that, and for it Derek Rae/Rob Green deserve the final quarterfinal broadcast assignment along with the three teams already mentioned above.

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Whispers around the White House report Trump called Gianni Infantino after the Belgium match last night to request the FIFA boss “find 4 more goals” for the USMNT. I got that from a Yahoo commenter.

Mauricio Pochettino has a lot of thinking to do before he decides if he will return as USMNT manager. He could go anywhere, as he’s respected in international football. The USMNT is an unsolvable paradox and I’ve outlined why. This job is a huge headache (with all the corporate politics involved) that leads not to heartbreak, but despair. America needs the best talent managing the USMNT, but more than that it needs a great US player. Or two, or three… We have so few great players in our history. The international standard is getting better, but the US is falling behind– again. Egypt, Senegal & Cape Verde have much better World Cup teams than the US.

Tim Howard was one former USMNT player who didn’t jump on the World Cup Fox bandwagon. He said early on elsewhere the USMNT needed to play four perfect matches from the round-of-16 on to win the World Cup and that wasn’t realistic. Tim Howard works with Rebecca Lowe covering the Premiere League, so it seemed like a natural fit he would be part of the pre-match team, especially since Fox did a feature on his 16-save game, but he wasn’t there last night or at all on Fox. Apparently, Tim Howard didn’t want to be part of the USMNT slow motion train-wreck, so he wisely stayed away. Tim Howard shunning the current USMNT was another early tip-off for me on the US-Belgium match and the state of the team in general.

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You can’t grow into this tournament if you are being helped along. Soft groups and easy-path bracketing were the short-cut choices of the three host nations. They all had their early glory, but now instead of going home they stay home. Hopefully their young fans will watch & appreciate the rest of the World Cup. That’s where it starts as far as the next cycle goes.

Chauvinists turn off when the US is eliminated. Real sports fans stay to watch the best decide the matter. Football fans watch every World Cup match they can with wonder & enthusiasm. The USWNT got this concept long ago and have won four World Cups for it, while the USMNT continues to be mired in outdated dogma combined with corporate arrogance & ignorance.

I watched the US v Belgium game as a neutral. I wasn’t rooting for or against the US. Instead I said, “Prove yourselves.” As the match progressed, I felt that all-too-familiar disappointment. The lack of skill, control, poise & connectedness. Too many guys still don’t know how to play. We get beat technically & tactically at every level. It’s going to take a magical young player to change this, and it isn’t anyone you saw on the pitch last night.

Wed 08 Jul 2026 12:03 AM CDT

Frenchman Jules Rimet founded the World Cup in 1930 as a way of uniting nations in sporting competition after the massacre of WWI. Let’s have a World Cup instead of killing each other was the spirit. Italy under Mussolini won it in 1934 & 1938. The fascist movement used sports as propaganda to promote nationalism & racial superiority.

When Hitler annexed Austria in March 1938, Goebbels compelled the Austrian national team to play for Nazi Germany in the 1938 World Cup held in France. An Austrian player who refused was murdered by the Nazis. Adolf Hitler coveted the Jules Rimet trophy, which Italy held from winning in 1938. FIFA officials in Italy during WWII hid the Jules Rimet trophy from the occupying Nazis in search of it. The World Cup is serious politics so know your history. Over & Out

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World Cup 2026: Round-of-32 notes

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Preface: This continues as the third part in a series on the FIFA World Cup. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.

Video Assisted Replay (VAR) has played a prominent role in the 2026 World Cup. Let’s review the good, the bad & the ugly in FIFA VAR so far.

Belgium v Senegal in the round-of-32 was an astonishing game that had it all, an example of World Cup football at its best. VAR came into play late in extra time with the score tied 2-2. A penalty kick was correctly awarded after VAR consulted with the referee and had him check the monitor replay to review his initial no-call. Watching the play initially I thought it was a foul. The Belgium player was about to put a cross on goal from 3 yards away and the defender fouled him to prevent that. That’s a penalty kick. Excellent use & application of VAR.

Germany v Paraguay, also in the round-of-32 was an example of VAR over-application and taking jurisdiction on a play the referee initially called correctly. Germany gets a header goal on a corner kick. The crowd goes wild, while VAR signals to the referee to review for goalkeeper interference on Germany. Fox analyst Peter Schmeichel, who was for 8-seasons the keeper for Manchester United called the VAR overturn “soft.” That was my impression of the play also. The Paraguayan keeper falls to the ground after minimal contact from a German attacker. The FIFA idea is goalkeepers need to be protected. Everyone agrees on that, but there is also an element of physicality that is inherent to the game.

Players are tugging each others shirts, grabbing & holding all over the field and it’s mostly no-calls; and then you bail out Paraguay with that weak stuff? Germany should have been ahead 2-1, in a game they lost in a shootout. Fox loves the drama the VAR overturn created, so immediately it gets you thinking about the motive for that overturn. Former USMNT-er Clint Dempsey earned his analyst stripes on Fox by backing Peter Schmeichel as “a solid member of the goalkeepers union,” or something to that effect and agreed with an all-timer great goalkeeper’s assessment of that soft VAR call.

For the record, Germany looked slow & old, and would have been destroyed by France in the round-of-16, so I don’t lament their World Cup exit. Paraguay will give France a better game because they play with more passion & energy. But with that said, VAR is the huge historical asterisk in that game.

Note: VAR applied this keeper interference rule more correctly in the first half of the Spain v Austria round-of-32 game.  Spain was disallowed a goal off a corner kick on a correct VAR ruling. The rule should be interpreted as the goalie has to play strong in the box in order to get a keeper interference call. Germany-Paraguay was a bailout call, in NBA terminology.

England v DR Congo in the round-of-32 had a really bad no-call on a foul by the Congolese goalkeeper on Harry Kane in the penalty box. Kane was about to touch it and shoot into an open goal to tie the game 1-1, when the keeper wipes him out. The referee missed the call, but after a 10-second VAR check it’s play on. Before most people even had a chance to see the replay, the no-call had already been upheld by VAR. Obviously VAR needed to recommend the referee take another look, like it would with Belgium-Senegal later that day.

This is a decision which VAR officials should have to answer directly to the sports media. Fans really want to know why the referee wasn’t instructed to AT LEAST take another look at that play. This is the World Cup, and you have to get those calls right for the fans to fully believe in the game. That needs explaining and full transparency to avoid repeating itself in a more crucial later match.

Switzerland v Qatar, was a first-round group play match. The Swiss got a goal on a set piece that looked clearly offside on all replays, but VAR never showed the 3-D image of the play to confirm it onside. Switzerland’s goal counted in a game that ended in a 1-1 draw. Four-and-a-half hours later FIFA declared a “technical outage” happened on that play, but that it was confirmed just before and unfortunately no image exists to confirm this. It sounded an awful lot like the official explanation of Jeffery Epstein’s death by suicide. I mentioned this incident in my initial discussion of FIFA VAR in part 1 of my 2026 World Cup coverage.

United States v Bosnia-Herzegovina in the round-of-32 was another over-application of VAR. US striker Folarin Balogun was sent off with a VAR recommended red card, on a play that deserved only a yellow. This makes him ineligible to play against Belgium in the round-of-16. Folarin Balogun is one of the USMNT’s best players, so this adversity will test their depth & resolve against a world-class team.

Belgium is about two levels below France & Argentina who are clearly the best teams in the World Cup. They’re below Brazil & Spain too, which puts Belgium & probably the US at the middle-to-bottom of that mish-mash with England, Portugal, Colombia, Morocco, Norway & Mexico. These are mostly good, but not great teams.

As I’ve outline from the start, the draw and bracketing have put the USMNT in the best possible position. From now on, they have to beat a good team. Bosnia-Herzegovina couldn’t score, even when the US went a man down. Belgium, and what comes after aren’t such cupcakes.

Once a team wins a match at the World Cup, all its fans instantly believe they can win the World Cup. Call it irrational exuberance, but that’s the level of excitement this tournament brings. It never fails to bring athletic beauty, competition and controversy to life. It’s reach is so global & powerful that it can’t be resisted. All I attempt to do is analyze based on my experiences. It’s tough to predict, and I’m not a betting man anyway. For me it’s about understanding what’s going on– on & off the pitch.

Some form of VAR is used in all sports. Who controls this technology and when & how it’s applied are the critical questions for players, managers & fans. If replay officiating mistakes aren’t acknowledged & understood, then they will continue to occur. That’s true in all professional sports.

Belgium v US in the 2014 round-of-16 was a legendary match that gives fans context for this upcoming contest. Tim Howard had 16 saves and was Superman in goal. Belgium should have won 2-0, or 3-0 in regulation, if not for a superhuman effort from Tim Howard. Belgium won 2-1 in extra time. Clint Dempsey had a chance to tie it at the very end, but the Belgium keeper made a great save. The USMNT maybe could have used Landon Donovan in that game but manager Jürgen Klinsmann didn’t select him for the team.

This version of the USMNT is stronger & better managed, and should do better against Belgium. On the flip-side, Belgium has shown resilience and the ability to play from behind, which makes them extremely dangerous. This is by far the toughest test yet for the 2026 USMNT. In many ways, this is the match that will decide their World Cup fate. If the USMNT wins, it will silence its long-term doubters who have been mostly correct for so long. If the USMNT loses, it establishes their ceiling as a good, but never great team– kinda like Mexico. This is World Cup pressure, and the round-of-16 is where it separates the men from the boys.

Thu 02 Jul 2026 08:58 PM CDT

The best teams eliminated in the round-of-32 were the Netherlands, Croatia, Senegal, Japan & Germany. Note that this is published before Argentina v Cape Verde & Colombia v Ghana. The Netherlands rightly belong in that group of above mentioned good-but-not-great teams in the 2026 World Cup. They were given a brutal bracket to accommodate the host national teams’ chances of success. The Netherlands were bracketed with Morocco in the round-of-32, and those murky dynamics were discussed in part 2.

Estadio Azteca, or Aztec Stadium in English, is the most beautiful football field in the world. It will host one final match in the round-of-16, Mexico v England, which should be a cracker. Rebecca Lowe will recommend leaving plenty of time for cup of tea before kickoff. Ian Darke recommended football fans record the match times in their diary, so they don’t miss them. And after hearing all this & more, I’m chuckle to myself and think along the lines of professor Henry Higgins, “Why can’t the English learn to speak?”

More 2026 World Cup matches deserve to be played at the Azteca (& Monterrey), but instead, converted NFL stadiums will host the remaining matches in the US. I glanced on the politics of this in part 1. Unless there’s a major upset no one saw coming, that’s it for this inaugural round-of-32 knockout stage in the World Cup. Notice how all the small-nation feel-good stories have disappeared, or are about to disappear. The level of difference between many of the teams remaining and those just eliminated is very slight, but that fractional difference in quality & team play has a way of shining through to get a winning result.

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Italy was the best team to not qualify for the 2026 World Cup. For the 4-time tournament champions, this signals changes need to be made with the Italian national team. For brief context, Italy’s Serie A is one of the “Big 5” football leagues in Europe, along with the Premiere League (England), League 1, (France), La Liga (Spain), and Bundesliga (Germany). Most of the top players on all these national teams play (or have played) in at least one of these top leagues, which again are all in Europe.

Italy gets criticized for playing not-to-lose, ugly football. The Italian style traditionally emphasizes defense, scoring on set pieces, and being aces at penalty kicks. The traditional issues with their national teams are creativity & lack of scoring. Italy last won the World Cup in 2006, and it was in their style.

But in this modern game, speed & explosiveness– particularly seen from the African national teams in this World Cup– expose the deficiencies of this type of outdated football thinking. In short, I don’t believe an “Italian style” can win anymore, just as I don’t believe the “German style” of playing in the air and being physical can win either. Those great players aren’t there anymore. Meanwhile the rest of the world has improved, the rules have changed, and we have VAR now so traditional World Cup national styles matter less than ever.

Even the “Brazilian style” of controlled passing in tight spaces can be neutralized with disciplined packed-in defenses in the box, so they play in the air as needed. Both Germany & Italy need to re-think & re-invent their playing styles if they hope to win a fifth World Cup. World Cup winning teams play all these above-mentioned styles, as needed. Plus, you need young legs to create goals & prevent them. Teams that tried to hang on with older players got outpaced at the 2026 World Cup. That’s modern football.

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World Cup 2026: final group play notes

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Preface: This piece continues discussion on FIFA World Cup 2026

The sixteen 2026 World Cup teams eliminated in group play were (in order): Haiti, Türkiye, Tunisia, Jordan, Panama, Czechia, Qatar, Curaçao, Iraq, Uruguay, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Scotland, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Iran. The mild surprise in that group is Uruguay, who could manage only draws against Saudi Arabia & Cape Verde. I’m not going to miss any of these teams, and neither will most football fans. I still insist that most (if not all) of these teams shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

Cape Verde advancing to the round-of-32 has been hailed as a feel-good story which validates expanding the World Cup field to 48 teams. I’ve discussed the mercenary, free-agent character of these smaller national teams in my earlier World Cup piece, so I’ll rest on that. I’ll only add that Cape Vere plays Argentina next, and that’s when reality sets in for these smaller World Cup teams.

Of the 32 remaining teams, there still remains much mediocrity in: South Africa, Canada, Paraguay, Sweden, Ecuador, Congo DR, Senegal, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Austria, Switzerland, Algeria, Australia, Egypt, Cape Verde, Ghana. That’s 16 teams listed, and a few play each other in the round-of-32, so some will survive into the round-of-16 simply due to bracketing advantage.

Meanwhile, two very good teams– Netherlands & Morocco– face off in the round-of-32, which illustrates the clearing-out of other brackets to appease the host nations, while opposite brackets such as this one are stacked with good teams. It smells of FIFA corruption. Football fans know that Switzerland v Algeria, Australia v Egypt, Canada v South Africa, shouldn’t be knockout-round games, but there they are. I’ll pass on those games for sure.

The manager of Ghana even said the game has been diluted as the expanded field isn’t good for the World Cup. This was after his Ghana team benefited from the new format by making the round-of-32 as a 3rd-place team. Even enabled beneficiaries of this expanded field don’t support it. It would have been nice if the current field of 32 teams could have been selected through a fair system of qualifiers, instead of diluted group play. Much of group play was painful to watch, and I skipped a lot of it.

The issue is that FIFA wanted to expand because it meant more money, power & influence. FIFA boss Gianni Infantino has a bloc of African nations, CONCACAF, and Middle East oil sheikdoms under his control. FIFA helps them with their national team aspirations in exchange for supporting his ideas like expanding the World Cup field & mandatory hydration (3-minute commercial) breaks. As a result, impoverished Caribbean islands, African semi-colonies and Middle East monarchies get more of their teams into the World Cup, in exchange for fans having to watch an inferior version of World Cup football with more commercial interruptions, and Fox analysts not telling fans why this is.

The synthetic turf at US NFL stadiums have all been converted to natural grass per FIFA. This has been done at great cost & time expense, especially for the domed stadiums in Dallas & Atlanta. This has led to renewed discussion among NFL players as to why they can’t play on natural grass. The bottom line is these NFL stadiums also host rock concerts, tractor pulls, rodeos, motocross races, etc, so it best serves the stadium owners to use synthetic turf which holds up better than grass.

As a sports fan, I don’t feel much sympathy for NFL players anymore. Their behavior towards others is generally atrocious, and their impulses towards violence are far too frequent. The NFL does everything it can to keep all this ugliness quiet, so I view the NFL players as spoiled, as many others do. Until American football players learn to behave more humanely towards women and the educated public in general, I’m not so interested in their labor grievances. These overblown gladiators thoughtlessly serve corporate America & US imperialism with their brand of unrestrained mayhem. Placated & enabled from the youth level with sports corruption & privilege, these professional athletes turn around and expect the oppressed working class to care about turf v grass. In terms of their politics, they couldn’t be more lost.

The grass will be ripped out after the World Cup. and all these stadiums will go back to their pre-existing playing surface. This is a touchy subject among NFL owners, players & fans. FIFA is a game that insists on being played on natural grass because it protects the players and allows for a better game. American football insists on synthetic turf because it’s about the stadium owners being able to profit from a multi-use facility. That defines a major difference between FIFA & American football.

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We have learned in 2026 that FIFA has the power to dictate stadium naming rights, which is an eye-opener. For instance, AT&T stadium in Dallas is where the Cowboys play. But in the World Cup it’s renamed Dallas stadium because FIFA dictates. This demonstrates powerful international authority. All this also explains why tickets are so costly for this World Cup. The above discussed turf-to grass conversions took ~10 weeks of non-use for these stadiums, to allow for 5 weeks of World Cup play.

That’s a lot of cost & lost revenue, but it’s more than made up for by FIFA in ticket sales & event buzz. There is nothing like the World Cup. It’s bigger than the Super Bowl because it’s global and only happens once every four years. I like it better than the Olympics because there is only one competition– football– which is the world game. The World Cup gives every nation (except Russia) a chance to qualify, and earn the right to compete in the most-prestigious athletic competition in modern sports culture.

There is nothing like hosting the World Cup. It allows the host nation(s) to automatically qualify, which in 2018 was an issue for the USMNT, who didn’t qualify for the World Cup held in Russia. World Cup 2026 is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the USMNT to capture the hearts & minds of Americans who mostly call this game soccer. They kinda did it in 1994, but not really. All we got out of that was MLS.

The USMNT needs to beat Belgium in the round-of-16, and at least give a good showing in the quarterfinals against a world-class team to call this tournament a success. The lesson in their last-second 3-2 loss to Türkiye in group play is this team can only go so far. Temper your expectations because they aren’t that good. Rabid USMNT supporters say they believe in miracles. The reality is the USMNT would need four miracles to win the World Cup– starting in the round-of-16. A perfect game is a sports miracle, and it means you play your best as a team, while your opponent who normally over matches you, plays poorly.

It can happen once, like when a pudgy Italian-American kid named Mike Eruzione scores the winning goal for the US hockey team against the USSR machine in 1980. In 2026, sports miracles are manufactured by the mechanisms outlined above. The problem is when the hype fails, and fans are left with resentment due to unmet expectations. Promotion is double-edged. If performance & results don’t match the hype, the USMNT is finished as far as ever competing for a World Cup. That’s what’s on the line as the USMNT enters the knockout rounds. Bosnia-Herzegovina are their first opponent, and they should be dispatched easily by the USMNT playing at home.

Belgium will be more problematic. I’m presuming they will beat Senegal, but nothing is guaranteed at this point. Belgium looked sluggish for much of group play, yet still won their group. Senegal is a murky African team. They were stripped of their Africa Cup title, after the team left the pitch to protest a penalty kick given to Morocco, in a game Senegal eventually won 1-0. This FIFA matter is now being decided in court, and it’s a huge mess. Senegal is talented, but there are team issues and they were fortunate to advance. Senegal is one of those teams that can be dangerous if they put it all together, but more than likely won’t.

This why I’ve always seen a US v Belgium match-up in the round-of-16. Belgium is going to create all kinds of problems for the US, to which I don’t believe they have an answer. It’s this match that is probably going to decide the ultimate fate of men’s football/soccer in the US. Hosting gives your national team a huge home-field advantage that only comes around now. The USWNT has already left their legacy, four World Cup titles. The men have only reached the World Cup quarterfinals once– in 2002. This is their chance to do that again, and if they do so, they will have earned a substantial amount of respect in international football. Those are the lofty, yet still doable expectations for the USMNT.

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I’ve previously discussed ‘football v soccer’ as far as sports terminology goes in the US. Soccer became popular in the US in the 1980’s. It was coached largely by adults who never played the game, and often didn’t even watch the World Cup or European league football. They barely knew the rules, much less how to play. As a consequence, the US developed its own distinctive style of football known as soccer, which is a punt & run style of football. Soccer coaches love the kid who can boom the ball the furthest down the field. That’s their center midfielder. Accuracy, pace & timing don’t matter so much in the soccer school. Punting, physicality, and dribbling through multiple defenders is how the ball is typically advanced in soccer. Trying to get 11 players to work together and methodically control the ball was unheard of in US soccer early days. This losing football style has always ended is hard failure at the World Cup for the USMNT.

If you watch a team like Brazil pass the ball around in every World Cup, you realize why they are always competitive and a 5-time champion. You must control the ball as a team, while producing magical playmakers to win at football. US soccer has failed to produce a USMNT that is competitive at the World Cup because its team consistently lacks quality at every position, save goalkeeper. It values the wrong kind of players, while teaching poor strategies & bad tactics.

You must control the ball, one touch pass under pressure, and maintain a connection with all your teammates to compete with the best at the World Cup. The USMNT is at least two levels short of top tier, as the long-taught soccer style continues to stunt football from flowering in the US. The talent is there, but the correct skills, style & philosophy aren’t being taught early enough to produce the great players needed to compete with France, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, etc. Youth coaching needs to improve by several levels for the US to seriously compete at the World Cup.

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Specifically– being able to clear, trap, pass, serve into the box, and shoot with your left foot (assuming a right-footed player) is required in football. Too many US soccer players have no left foot, and that shows under pressure. Good teams will press your weaknesses until you crack, and that’s typically how the USMNT gets beat in the World Cup. With no left foot you’re half a football player.

As far as team play goes, you can’t be connected if some players don’t have the skills to control the ball under pressure. In football, every player needs to have these ambidextrous foot skills. On US teams that have competed in past World Cups, typically 3-4 players (at most) have international quality. I’m being generous on that, but the point is you can’t connect as a team when two-thirds (or more) of your players just aren’t good enough.

This leads us to USMNT manager Mauricio Pochettino, who in my judgment has done a fantastic job with this team. Mauricio Pochettino had to rebuild a USMNT that was crushed when the Jürgen Klinsmann/Bruce Arena led team failed to beat Trinidad & Tobago to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. That was the nadir for football in the US.

Christian Pulisic was on that team. Mauricio Pochettino has stuck by his best player, and now their hopes rest on Christian Pulisic creating some real magic for the USMNT. He’s been hurt, so we haven’t seen much of him. Their group was among the weakest (with Canada’s), so it’s really hard to know how he’ll fare against some real competition. Remember the USMNT didn’t need to qualify this time, so most American sports fans haven’t heard much about the USMNT before this World Cup. This USMNT is still basically untested & unproven.

All-time leading U.S. scorer Landon Donovan was left off the final roster for the 2014 World Cup by Jürgen Klinsmann, which was considered to be one of many of his managerial mistakes. Today, Landon Donovan is probably the best US analyst of World Cup football. He works well with Ian Darke on Fox. He has an understated, compact color analyst style, a quality I always felt was mostly lacking among my youth soccer teammates. I had criticized Landon Donovan earlier, but I take it back– he’s much better than Cobi Jones, Clint Dempsey, or Alexi Lalas.

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Alexi Lalas has stuck his foot in his mouth repeatedly as a Fox 2026 World Cup analyst, and he personifies so many problems the US has in international football. Alexi Lalas always insisted he was better than he actually was. He was good at cutting a figure and politicking in a way that elevated himself while diminishing his teammates. He would publicly project a team spirit, while backstabbing & bad mouthing those whom he thought would expose his phony act.

The best players on the 1994 USMNT, which put US soccer on the map, were Kasey Keller, Eric Wynalda & Cobi Jones. Alexi Lalas was a hanger-on who politicked & promoted himself very well. With “teammates” like this, US soccer has always underachieved on the international stage. Selfish, conceited mediocre players like Alexi Lalas stealing the spotlight for themselves is a major reason why so many American kids quit the game early. You just can’t win playing with people like that.

Eric Wynalda recently summed up the Alexi Lalas schtick quite well in saying, “I think it’s been unwatchable at times. Yeah, I think, I mean, I think a lot of people feel that way. I mean, Alexi is, kind of true to the Fox brand, has been told: this is what we need you to do, start a fight, say some things, insult some people, say something outlandish that no one will believe, and we’ll see how many people will click into that. I think the American public has grown up now. I think our community, our soccer community is way too knowledgeable to fall for that anymore.”

It is from the perspective of a youth player who didn’t make it, that reveals some major deficiencies in US football/soccer. There were thousands if not tens-of-thousands of other kids like me, who had football ability, but were frustrated with the lack of coaching & skills among teammates. Honestly, I’m glad I didn’t go into professional sports, because it’s just too physical for my liking, so I’m not bitter about any of it. But I do know there were many others who could have helped a USMNT achieve better World Cup results, if only they had been recognized & properly coached. That is the difference Eric Wynalda is referring to concerning football IQ & level of play in the US today, versus the riff-raff of Alexi Lalas in 1994 & before.

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The point of all this is to illustrate & illuminate what’s been going on with the USMNT since it took flight in 1994. None of its former players & coaches, especially those who have become analysts for the World Cup on Fox, will honestly describe to the public what I’ve discussed. Even though all the best players know that what I’ve described to be absolutely true. It’s too shameful, as the consistently poor USMNT results speak to a bad process & poor leadership. Every player who participated is complicit by association, and I feel for those who really, really tried to make it work. The USMNT just didn’t have enough of them.

Facts are stubborn, and it’s an inflection point when amateurs can outshine overpaid professionals. It’s more about being honest about basic issues than access to top talent & media glitz. The point is there really isn’t any top US-born football talent to speak of. The best we’ve produced (outside of goalkeeping) are good, but not great by international standards. This is a shortcoming that isn’t honestly discussed, therefore it doesn’t ever get addressed, much less remedied.

The ball has energy which is directed by foot, leg, chest or head as it travels across the pitch. Each of the eleven players need to touch this energized ball at the right time, in the right place, with skill, continuity & connection. It takes a lot of serious practice to get to that. But there’s still too much politicking at the top levels of US soccer, which negatively affects youth football development. All the other top football nations have had their youth infrastructure in place for a long time, while the US is still trying to figure it out.

All this should be understood before jumping on the USMNT 2026 World Cup bandwagon, lest you look like a fool when they only do what they’re expected to do and no more. That’s the standard they’ve set. It’s up to this team to break through. Last chance. I’m neutral on all this. I don’t root for the USMNT, I watch them and take notes during the World Cup. I expect the USMNT to prove themselves worthy before I support US soccer again. I’m an international football fan first.

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Strategy’s STRC bitcoin timebomb

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Preface: This is the second part of a current series. Part 1 is here.

Strategy’s STRC is a high-yield, dividend-paying preferred stock that was first issued in July 2025– about a year ago. STRC was specifically created to raise capital to buy bitcoin by offering high annual income to investors. The stock is designed to maintain a stable par value of $100. Dividends are distributed to shareholders semi-monthly in cash.

Currently STRC is trading ~$75, with an effective yield that is about to go up from 11.5% to 15% on June 30– which is this Tuesday. As the STRC stock price goes down, the investor yield goes up. This fundamental capitalist feedback loop is now becoming the weakest link in the crypto house of cards.

Note this early promotional image below from Seeking Alpha of STRC. which was presented as analysis, capping the STRC dividend level at 12% over the next 16 years. As discussed above, STRC is already at 11.5%, and about to go three percentage points off their yield scale (to 15%) in less than a year. In other words, STRC is about to break through the yield projection models that were presented as legitimate crypto analysis less than a year ago.

Ever since Grayscale won their Supreme Court lawsuit against the SEC in August 2023, the nature of crypto has been flipped. Bitcoin is now publicly traded on Nasdaq, NYSE, etc, in the form of Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) that allow investors to get into bitcoin/crypto without actually buying bitcoin/crypto. The fact that bitcoin needs ETFs to attract investors who don’t really know (or care) what bitcoin is, tells you a lot about the nature of the crypto industry.

Nearly three years later, no one left in bitcoin/crypto advocates for it as decentralized finance. Bitcoin/crypto is now mostly traded in the form of stocks which are highly manipulated by the futures traders in the derivatives market. Most futures traders are shorting the market now because they no longer believe in Michael Saylor’s Strategy.

Note that STRC has no direct bitcoin backing, as it merely represents a claim on the company’s residual assets. Strategy’s only “asset” is the 846,000 useless bitcoins it holds for which it is ~$16,000/bitcoin underwater. This sinking ship, the USS Strategy, keeps trying to reshuffle deck chairs to maintain the illusion of rational business management.

How can Michael Saylor’s Strategy pay their ever-increasing dividend obligations to investors when no one wants to buy bitcoin anymore? Everything depends on the price of a useless asset (bitcoin) going up, and that’s not going to happen because the word is out.

Donald Trump, Elon Musk, etc, are widely seen as the leading crypto criminals. The Clarity crypto bill which Trump advocated for so strongly in 2024, is now dead in Congress. This crypto-sponsored legislation, along with the stablecoin bill, were designed to give a legitimate regulatory framework to crypto, in order for it to be eligible for a taxpayer bailout if the industry needs it.

The industry will definitely need a bailout to survive, the issue is the political pressure lawmakers have received over the Clarity & stablecoin bills. Traditional banking leaders have argued crypto capital requirements & consumer protections aren’t there. The fear is a crypto crash could take the entire financial system down, and they are correct.

The Fed will not be lowering interest rates anytime soon, which chokes crypto out. Bitcoin came out of the post-2008 subprime mortgage crash, as a new form of financial manipulation based on perpetual near-zero interest rates. After 2008, interest rates were kept near zero for over a decade, stimulating speculation into high risk assets such as crypto. Bitcoin mining is dependent on low energy costs and low interest rates, neither of which exist anymore.

Everyone in crypto wants to spin their narrative. No one in the industry wants to rationally look at the entire picture, gather all the facts, and come to an objective conclusion. In a macro-political sense, bitcoin is dead because Trump tariffs & his foreign wars (Venezuela. Iran, Lebanon…) have raised the cost of doing business for everyone. The crypto industry survives on cheap credit and small margins, which have been obliterated by the increased cost of living since Trump began his second presidential term.

The entire crypto market is dependent on bitcoin. Bitcoin is entirely dependent on Michael Saylor buying more bitcoin. When Strategy can’t buy any more bitcoin, and in fact has to sell bitcoin to pay its high-yield dividends to spooked investors, that’s when the big one hits. If Strategy tries to sell more STRC, the value of that stock will continue to decline, as the investor yield goes up, so that’s a downward spiral. If Strategy tries to sell bitcoin, well we saw what happened when word got out Strategy sold 32 bitcoins a month ago. Bitcoin went form $73k to $60k within a week, where it’s tenuously stayed since.

Who wants to give Michael Saylor the bailout loan he so desperately needs? He’s close to Trump, so he’s in the right circles, and that’s what’s kept him solvent up to this point, but patience is running out with big finance, and Trump has never been a partner in business that could be trusted. Trump’s own personal family fortune now rests on crypto, under his Trump Media umbrella, so he definitely has vested interest in keeping the bitcoin Ponzi scheme going. The question is now becoming, who is going to pay the bill on all the unpayable debt invested in useless crypto/bitcoin? That question has revolutionary implications which are not too far off. That is the question which bourgeois economists/politicians can’t/won’t honestly answer.

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The bitcoin squeeze

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Bitcoin mines at $78k per coin, while it is currently trading at ~$60k. Bitcoin has been mined at a loss for the last 5 months. One million bitcoins are left to be mined, requiring greater & greater computing power to produce– meaning higher mining costs in the future. But miners can’t continue to mine bitcoin as a business when it loses that much money. New supply of bitcoin is being squeezed due to thin liquidity and weak demand.

Furthermore, Strategy (MSTR) can no longer afford to make massive buys of bitcoin. After selling 32 bitcoins in late May to test the market, bitcoin quickly dropped from ~$73k to its current $60k level. What this revealed is that Michael Saylor can’t sell any bitcoin without causing a massive slide in bitcoin price. Michael Saylor has been the only large scale buyer of bitcoin for some time now. He has financed his bitcoin buying with MSTR preferred stock sales, promising healthy monthly returns to investors, which he soon won’t be able to pay.

The Block reports that if bitcoin slides to $50k, then MSTR stock will fall to $60; if bitcoin goes to $40k, then $36; if bitcoin falls to $30K, then $13. Strategy stock needs to trade at $100 and over for Michael Saylor’s dividend plan to remain solvent. Strategy is currently trading at $85 and falling, and Michael Saylor is running out of cash.

Strategy can’t sell bitcoin, because when it does the crypto market crashes. Strategy has reached its limits in selling stock as investors are losing confidence in the bitcoin market. It is a market waiting for buyers– and there aren’t any. ETF outflows on bitcoin are now ~$500M/day. Futures traders (the derivatives market) are betting on bitcoin going down.

Bitcoin faces downward pressure in retail & institutional buying (ETF outflows), derivative shorting, and Strategy being tapped out. Their debt is massive, and unpayable from any rational perspective. But rationality left the station long ago in the world of capitalist finance. In this post-2008 crash era of financial manipulation & parasitism, bitcoin rose to prominence as ‘digital gold’, the future of money, decentralized finance free from government regulation, etc. Today bitcoin personifies the Ponzi scheme hucksterism which inhabits the crypto-fascist White House.

Coindesk just reported that of the approximately 20 million bitcoins now in existence, ~11 million of them are held at a loss. Back in early 2020 when COVID hit the US, bitcoin was <$10k. After rising to $126k last October, it has more than halved in trade price since. This means the losses for each bitcoin holder who is underwater are much, much greater than any previous era, and they represent 55% of all bitcoins held.

This is unsustainable. You can’t have a supposed currency which few people use that is a net loss as an investment for over half of its supply. As discussed in the earlier linked piece, if bitcoin falls to ~$20k it’s lights out for crypto. With the latest data that’s been made public, the bitcoin ‘kill price’ is probably now closer to $30-40k– due to Strategy be so over-leveraged & cash-strapped. The important thing is that bitcoin doesn’t need to go to zero (or anywhere close) for the entire crypto market to crash.

It’s a death spiral for bitcoin, for which there is no way out. Bitcoin will soon crash, and when it does, the banks and large financial institutions that have loaned hundreds of billions of dollars to bankrupt crypto ventures will be demanding another US taxpayer bailout. Bitcoin/crypto has very little public confidence anymore. Many early Kool-Aid drinkers have been pushed out of bitcoin, and lost their money to crypto whales. Only inside traders & Ponzi scheme chieftains are benefiting in crypto.

Capitalism is an unfair, rigged game, and that is the lesson Libertarians refuse to learn. They thought bitcoin would change the world. Instead it became just another financial bubble, deeply tied to US imperialism & corporate financial swindling. Bitcoin in its 15-year-or-so history has risen from obscurity to become a global get-rich-quick phenomenon, which is now an albatross for the entire global financial system.

All eyes in crypto focus on Strategy and what Michael Saylor will do. He’s the massive whale on the hook, with over 850,000 bitcoins he bought at an average price of $76k. His ‘buy high & hold’ strategy is in ruins, with no hope for a price recovery, as all the big tech money is shifting into AI. MSTR needs a bitcoin buyer and there aren’t any.

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White Lightning is Back!

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An Eye for an Eye (1981) is the great lost Chuck Norris movie, if there is such a thing. Chuck Norris died a few months ago and I let his death pass unnoticed. I’ve already reviewed his movies here & here. This will be my final critical review of Chuck Norris and his impact on Hollywood.

The story in An Eye for an Eye is about a Chinese drug smuggling operation into the US, which Chuck Norris is hell bent on stopping. His police partner gets killed early, then his partner’s wife. This leads to Chuck Norris resigning from the police force to become a vigilante. Chuck Norris unwittingly confides in a police buddy who is working with the drug-dealing Triads, and is surprised (stunned silence) at the end when he discovers this betrayal. Every character is a stereotype that can be deciphered in about five seconds.

Chuck Norris doesn’t kill the main villain in the end, so it really isn’t the Biblical revenge promised in the movie title. It’s a lot of James Bond type explosions & helicopter chases, with hitmen who are often reluctant to use their guns & automatic weapons when facing Chuck Norris. This allows Chuck to kill many bad guys, which is the point of the movie. Christopher Lee sits in his palatial mansion with spreadsheets & a prospectus for all his well-healed partners in the heroin trade, going over every typed-out detail of the illicit operation, just as SWAT & the SFPD are about to raid them. There’s no real purpose or wrap-up at the end, as An Eye for an Eye stumbles towards the closing credits as the plot fizzles out.

I firmly stand by my controversial thesis that Chuck Norris movies must been seen as unintentional comedy– hideously silly tripe– for there to be any value in watching them. An Eye for an Eye is the third movie in his peak-era trilogy, following A Force of One (1979) & The Octagon (1980).

Upon final viewing I’m rating An Eye for an Eye as Chuck Norris’ second-best movie, behind The Octagon. It’s better filmed, directed, lit, edited & produced than A Force of One, which is grittier and more 8-track than the direct-to-VHS classic An Eye for an Eye. Chuck Norris movies seem to look better on TV for some unexplained reason. USA Network & TBS is where his movies lived in the 1980’s. The constant commercial interruptions on basic cable were often welcome relief to this Chuck Norris film buff.

Movies start in the public as a trailer. You view it before the main feature, or see a commercial on TV, and decide whether you want to go to the theater and see it when it comes out. In An Eye for an Eye, the trailer is better, much better, than the movie– and that hooked us back in the day. The music is better, the promo announcer adds to the excitement, and no doubt about it– action fans wanted to see this movie. White Lightning is back…

There was no social media back then to warn kids this movie is a turkey– you had to pay up & learn the hard way. Word-of-mouth reviews from Chuck Norris fans were unreliable at best.

To watch Chuck Norris movies you need to be able to absorb pain. The cast in An Eye for an Eye is mostly good enough, it’s Chuck Norris who keeps delivering the pain. He just doesn’t care, and clearly won’t do a second take when a scene needs one. With that established, let’s meet the rest of the cast.

Professor Toru Tanaka (above) played the henchman Oddjob in Goldfinger (1964) who wore a Square-Crown Bowler hat that doubled as a guillotine. He appears as a club-footed assassin in An Eye for an Eye. Diminished somewhat, but still a menacing villain, to me Oddjob doesn’t look like he’s aged a day since he battled James Bond to the death. He’s a perfect foil for Chuck Norris because he doesn’t speak, he growls & grunts while letting his wrestling moves do most of the talking.

Maggie Cooper is probably the best lead actress with whom Chuck Norris ever worked. Again, that’s a controversial statement, and I’m sure this will set Chuck Norris message boards ablaze with debate. There’s detectable chemistry for the first, and perhaps only time in his acting career. She really goes for it, but it appears in retrospect that it didn’t get her very far. Like so many other actresses before her, Maggie Cooper’s career wilted & died after working with Chuck Norris– and it was probably for the best. In this she best compares to Jennifer O’Neill in A Force of One, for the powerlessness she brings to her role.

Chuck Norris fears two things in his movies: intimacy & truth. Chuck Norris exits virtually every scene alone, always having to be the tough guy who walks out & rejects the other person first. When asked a serious question, he freezes like a block of ICE.

Mako was a Japanese-American actor who plays martial arts mentor to Chuck Norris in An Eye for an Eye. Mako had some talent and tried his best to lend some dignity to this movie, but Chuck Norris just wouldn’t allow it. Mako constantly reminds him to concentrate, but Chuck always shrugs him off with a smile. It’s not clear if Mako is referring to his sloppy martial arts or stunted acting, but he repeatedly implores to Chuck Norris, “Concentrate!”

Richard Roundtree [Shaft (1971)] gets a plum role in An Eye for an Eye, as Chuck’s boss in the SFPD. The best line in the movie is early on when Shaft remarks how well Chuck Norris’ left shoulder has healed, only a few scenes after he has taken a bullet wound. Chuck Norris apparently compensates for this by always punching the bad guys with his right hand throughout the movie.

Most kicks, punches & strikes in An Eye for an Eye are cut-away shots. Chuck Norris by now is relying more & more on editing tricks because he can’t do the martial arts well enough to impress/fool his audience. Many scenes are very well-composed, with impressive backgrounds and expert cinematography in An Eye for an Eye. The problem is when Chuck Norris enters the frame. He typically says little and does nothing. The idea in entertainment is to ‘get through the glass’, and reach your audience. Instead, Chuck Norris shrivels-up in front of the camera every time he’s asked to act. It’s comical. There is no one else who became such a big star, who was that bad artistically.

When Chuck Norris decides to go for action in An Eye for an Eye, he does stupid stuff like set fire to a freighter cargo hold full of fireworks because he couldn’t stay quiet & hidden. You must riff Chuck Norris movies to get through them without a lobotomy, and this leads us directly to the main villain in An Eye for an Eye— Christopher Lee.

The title character in The Castle of Fu Manchu (1969) was the role Christopher Lee was born to play. When you are a name actor who stars in possibly the worst movie ever made, that’s the role you were born to play. Christopher Lee, the UK-born actor, plays Fu Manchu like no one else can, making that film impossible to remake because you just can’t do that anymore.

Billed as a horror-adventure film, I feel there is an Andy Warhol quality to The Castle of Fu Manchu that has been overlooked. Unfortunately it’s so vague & indecipherable, I can’t define it– and neither can anyone else. If I had been paid to review movies at the time, and was asked by my editor to do a write-up of The Castle of Fu Manchu, and be kind; I would have written something like, “Fu Manchu is an assault on your senses!!”

Anyway, Christopher Lee brings his boring overblown act to An Eye for an Eye, and he becomes a comic delight as the evil bad guy whom no one is afraid. He makes speeches, acts indecisively, then cuts a figure for the camera on his closeups, while doing everything wrong in order to allow Chuck Norris to capture him in the end. Basically, Christoper Lee mimics his role as Fu Manchu. Gesundheit.

If you watch An Eye for an Eye in this spirit, the riffs will come and you’ll be thankful for them. This was the last movie where a studio invested in a decent script, crew, etc, to try to make a good Chuck Norris movie. After this it’s turds like MIA Braddock & Delta Force franchises, and then finally Walker Texas Ranger where Chuck Norris was permanently consigned to the small screen where he always belonged.

I’ve always felt Chuck Norris would have been best suited to be on a game show as some kind of mascot or attraction. Maybe a sidekick to the host. He could just stand there and be Chuck Norris and people would laugh & jeer. Imagine Chuck Norris as the co-host of Love Connection… now that would be entertaining!

In my alternate version of this classic dating game show, Chuck Woolery still hosts, but any date that goes badly would require the contestants to visit with Chuck Norris for romantic advise. Something like:

Chuck Woolery: Roberta & Jeremy had issues on their last date, so we’re sending them to Dr. Chuck to see if he can help them make a Love Connection…

Roberta [to Chuck Norris]: Jeremy doesn’t get aroused when I flirt with him. How can I remedy this?

Chuck Norris:

 

Roberta [to Chuck Norris]: Jeremy likes to drink beer and becomes abusive when he’s drunk. Does this need an intervention?

Chuck Norris:

 

Roberta [to Chuck Norris]: Jeremy likes to shoot his guns, sometimes more than he likes being with me, I feel. Is that a healthy relationship?

Chuck Norris:

 

Roberta [to Chuck Norris]: My vagina needs special stimulation before intercourse, can you give Jeremy any tips on that?

Chuck Norris:

 

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FIFA World Cup 2026

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Preface: This will be a serial piece, reporting on noteworthy events as they happen over the next few weeks through July 19.

The most prestigious international sporting event after the Olympics is the FIFA World Cup. Politics always plays a part in the World Cup, and the money involved is immense. Because of this, the World Cup organically invites & breeds corruption.

For the USMNT, it’s about advancing out of group play and finally winning a match in the knockout round. Note that there is a possibility the US could play Iran in Dallas, if both teams finish second in their groups, so watch for that. Iran has had issues getting visas for support personnel for their national team. Also, ticket allotments to Iranian national team fans have been reduced by FIFA. It must be understood that Donald Trump is closely allied with FIFA president Gianni Infantino for any of what’s going on to make any sense in this World Cup.

The game on the field matters less than ever, and that’s a shame. The USMNT has been handed a comfortable draw with Paraguay, Australia & Turkey in Group D. They didn’t have to qualify being a host nation, and that’s what kept the USMNT out of the World Cup 2018 in Russia. That year, 2018 was probably the lowest point for US men’s soccer since it came onto the international scene after hosting the 1994 World Cup and advancing out of group play for the first time.

The USMNT needs to advance to the round-of-32 and win at least one game for this World Cup to be successful for them. A problem with US men’s soccer is that there isn’t enough pressure on them to perform. No one who knows anything about futbol/football expects this team to do much, and it probably won’t. But the hype is there, that’s for sure.

By contrast, the US women’s national team has won the World Cup 4 times: 1991 (inaugural), 1999, 2015 & 2019. The US men haven’t been able to put any kind of competitive team on the World Cup stage ever, and 2026 represents a crossroads for men’s professional soccer in America. With all the advantages the US enjoys, not the least of which is having US imperialism literally destroy much of the global competition for the USMNT. Colombia, and much of Latin America can’t field a competitive team due to US-led violence unleashed on these impoverished nations. Iran surely has been diminished by US imperialism since Feb 28, 2026. Russia and it’s allies aren’t even allowed to compete, due to cynical US-led sanctions. Rotten politics permeate World Cup 2026.

The tournament has been expanded to 48 teams, from 32. This makes winning in the first knockout round (now a round-of-32, not 16) much easier for the USMNT, and it strangely feels like that was a primary reason for the expansion of the World Cup field. Anyway, more nations than ever are in the World Cup, but there has perhaps never been a greater disparity between the true contenders and the pretenders who are mostly just happy to be there.

Of course, every team wants to win, but the difference in quality between the world class teams and the rest will typically be made clear by the round-of-16. The US play Paraguay in its opener, just an hour away as of this publication. The US is playing in Los Angeles and should win easily, as they are better and have every advantage. The problem is, this is when the USMNT has historically spit the bit and laid an egg. Those are the storylines going in. It’s now time to let the players & teams decide the matter, as much as they are allowed. More on all this when the game is over.

Fri 12 Jun 2026 10:10 PM CDT

Mandatory hydration breaks by FIFA this World Cup have turned these games from two halves into four quarters, more resembling American sports. It’s an acknowledgement of global warming, and the need for player safety especially after Qatar 2022, Brazil 2014 & South Africa 2010 where world class athletes were being broken by the heat. I believe it helps the USMNT to play with this rule. Of course, the real purpose of this FIFA rule is to insert another round of commercials during each half, similar to when NASCAR went to stage racing a decade ago.

Coincidentally, a US player finally scored after the first hydration break in its opening match against Paraguay on their way to a 3-0 lead at halftime. Not much of a match, with Paraguay unable to clear the ball out their zone, repeatedly turning the ball over, giving the US multiple resets in the box, barely mounting a serious attack of their own, while tallying an own goal in the process. Hardly a game, and an illustrative example of how far away from competing these small & impoverished nations are in the World Cup.

The US has definitely improved from its disastrous setbacks of the 2010’s, where they completely lost their direction. The USMNT made the quarterfinals in Japan 2002, which is their best result ever in a World Cup, but have flopped since. The USMNT is definitely better organized, and there is finally some real talent on the team that can put the ball in the net, but I’m not convinced they can hold up against serious competition, which they probably won’t face until the round-of-16 at the earliest. Therefore I don’t get too excited over the USMNT dismantling Paraguay 4-1. The result virtually ensures the US will go on to the knockout stage, especially with their goal differential, so it’s a nice start but not much of a test.

The inaugural World Cup was in 1930, with 1942 & 1946 cancelled due to World War II. Brazil (5) has won it the most, with Germany & Italy (4 apiece), Argentina (3), and France & Uruguay (2 apiece) as the only multiple World Cup winners. England (1966) & Spain (2010) also won it. That’s the list. France is considered the favorite in 2026. Spain, England, Brazil & Argentina (2022 winner) all have strong teams and can win it. Beyond that there is a tier of 4-6 teams that can be dangerous. The USMNT isn’t considered to be on that list.

Early impressions: With FIFA expanding the field to 48 teams, the World Cup has been severely diluted, and the ramifications should be understood. Normally in the traditional 32-team World Cup field, there are 3-4 teams that have a poor showings and don’t win or draw a game in group play. They have a hard time even scoring a goal, and are sent home early in ignominy.

This time there will be ~20 teams that really don’t belong in the World Cup– ~40% of the field. Increasing the field by 50% only dilutes the quality of play, as FIFA has allowed too many third-rate national teams into World Cup 2026. Qualifying has traditionally been the method of ensuring only the best make this tournament. Now it’s a much lower bar to qualify, which doesn’t help the game.

This aggressive expansion will lead to many tedious games that will be sparsely attended & hardly watched. High ticket prices aren’t helping either. On average, ticket prices for World Cup 2026 are 5x higher than Qatar 2022. Who in America is interested in the Ivory Coast v Curacao match? Saudi Arabia v Uruguay, etc? Who will win Brazil v Haiti? Mismatches, along with boring match-ups are the story of group play in World Cup 2026. It was all done so FIFA could extract more money from fans & sponsors.

There are now 12 groups instead of 8, with some having 2-3 teams/group that aren’t internationally competitive. See Groups E, G, H & J, and decide for yourself. These ‘also-rans’ will win a few games, because they are playing opponents (40% of the field) who are at their level, but they aren’t World Cup teams in any traditional sense. The ‘group of death’ moniker no longer applies, as all the best teams are alone at top of their groups with a bunch of cupcakes below them.

Travel restrictions have also become an issue, as many foreign fans have decided to not attend the World Cup in North America for these reasons discussed above. Being detained by ICE is a very real risk, and who wants to pay inflated prices for inferior competition, while exposing yourself to the danger of being detained by the American gestapo?

The vastness of North America is also an issue, as the distance between the stadium venues is hundreds, if not thousands of miles. That’s too much travel, in an era of high gas prices along with the soaring costs of attending major sporting events. Watching the World Cup on television is simply a more sensible option for the vast majority of football/soccer fans in 2026.

Sat 13 Jun 2026 03:20 PM CDT

Video Assisted Replay (VAR): Switzerland v Qatar had an event which illustrates the corruption that is FIFA. At 17 minutes into the first half, after a Swiss buildup, the ball is played deep into the Qatar box, resulting in a violent collision between the goalkeeper and a Swiss attacker. A penalty kick was correctly awarded by the referee. All of these calls are reviewed by VAR these days. We the TV viewers get one quick look at what appears to be the Swiss attacker being offside. A VAR ruling of offside would nullify the penalty kick. We the viewers never got a VAR look of the play, even though Fox had “VAR check” on the screen and everyone is waiting for a decision. Why weren’t we given a VAR look at that play? Thierry Henry asked that same question at halftime after he analyzed the play. Clearly, the reason was the Swiss player was indeed offside, but FIFA wanted Switzerland to have the PK. Switzerland leads 1-0 at halftime. They outclass Qatar, but that is blatant VAR prejudice from FIFA. This is what fans mean when they say it’s less about the game on the field than ever. Click.

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Automated Balls & Strikes (ABS) has come to MLB in 2026, and it was long overdue. What really annoys sports fans are players who spend an inordinate amount of time complaining about calls to the umps, refs, and officials. ABS has elegantly taken care of much of that in MLB. My favorite ABS moment so far was a game a week or so ago when a hitter challenged strike 1, and strike 3 in a single at-bat– and lost them both as it wasn’t even close on either call. He foolishly & arrogantly exhausted his team’s challenges in the middle-innings, on a low-leverage plate appearance, and hurt his team while making himself look really bad. It was quite a feat to behold. I was so glad I finally saw something like that happen. As a neutral fan watching the game, I’m on my feet in front of the TV saying, “STFU & hit!” I’m guessing his manager & teammates also said something similar to him after the game, out of earshot of the media.

Flopping is the soccer equivalent of arguing balls & strikes in baseball. FIFA uses VAR to review all fouls, questionable offside, touchline in/out, and will even advise the referee to issue a card. VAR is an advance, but only if it is used fairly. Flopping is the biggest competitive issue on the field in football/soccer. Kids are taught at a young age to flop, so by the time they’ve reached the professional levels they’re experts. Each flopper has their own style, an individual reflection of their need for attention & special consideration, channeled into team sports tactics. It’s not only how you flop, it’s also when & where you flop. If you flop in front of a home crowd, during an important moment in a match when emotions are running high, this can often induce a desired whistle from the referee, along with a friendly nod & wink from FIFA VAR. This could win the World Cup for your country someday, so every flopper out there is trying their hardest at this. Click.

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FIFA Men’s Rankings are linked here. Sponsored by Coke. There are 211 teams ranked, with San Marino currently last on their list. The lowest-ranked 2026 World Cup qualifiers (FIFA rank in parenthesis) are: New Zealand (85), Haiti (83), Curacao (82), Ghana (73), Cabo Verde (67), Jordan (64), Bosnia and Herzegovina (63), South Africa (61), Saudi Arabia (60), Iraq (57), Uzbekistan (51), Qatar (50), Congo DR (46), Tunisia (45), Czechia (43) & Paraguay (42); all of whom sit outside the FIFA top-40. These are all teams that shouldn’t be there, and wouldn’t be there with a traditional 32-team field. If you’ve seen any of these overmatched teams play already, and objectively watched their level of play, then you know.

Only an outlier or two outside the FIFA top-40 (at the most) traditionally qualifies for a World Cup. Sixteen are listed above. I sense a form of gerrymandering is going on behind the scenes as far as these qualifying groups go. This is where things get murky murky with FIFA.

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Alexi Lalas was a defender on the 1994 USMNT. Their success in that tournament springboarded soccer in America by establishing the MLS, and boosting the USWNT who finally broke through in 1999. Alexi Lalas was best known for his red afro with corresponding facial hair, and being an original MLS name player for the New England Revolution. “If you want American soccer players to stay in America, then you need to pay them,” was the quote I remember best from him after the USMNT was eliminated by Brazil in World Cup 1994. I remember it sounding more like a plea, than a threat to leave for Europe.

Alexi Lalas wasn’t coveted by the top teams in Europe. On the other hand, Colombian defender Andrés Escobar was. When asked to speak about his 1994 experience as a Fox analyst in 2026, Alexi Lalas didn’t mention Andrés Escobar.

The 1994 World Cup was won by Brazil over Italy in a shootout. The player who made the biggest impression on me was Hristo Stoichkov, the Bulgarian striker. The event I will never forget from World Cup 1994 was Andrés Escobar scoring a devastating own goal for the US in group play that virtually eliminated pre-tournament favorite Colombia. Andrés Escobar was murdered by drug-gang hooligans in Medellín, Colombia less than a week after Colombia was eliminated from the World Cup.

The dirty, US-led drug wars of the 1980’s & 1990’s devastated futbol in South America, Colombia in particular. Two Escobars (2010) tells this tragic story well. Any discussion of World Cup 1994 that fails to mention the tragedy of Andrés Escobar is disrespectful on every level.

Final thoughts on 1994: To be fair, it’s organically impossible for Alexi Lalas (or any other member of that USMNT) to say the truth about that World Cup– the first hosted by the US. The big money involved created a viable soccer league in the US when MLS was inaugurated in 1996. If he could be honest, Alexi Lalas would say, “We benefited greatly, more than most fans could ever know, by the destruction of Colombian soccer by the US government & military. It was probably the biggest reason the USMNT made the knockout round in 1994. US imperialism not only destroyed soccer in Latin America, it wrecked all of its societies with violence that maintained inequality, meaning poverty for the masses & soaring profits for American capitalists. We were used as a propaganda tool by FIFA, US imperialism & its corporate interests. I am proud of our team’s performance in 1994, but deeply ashamed of the cost that went into our achievements. That is why it is important to remember Andrés Escobar.”

Response to this statement from Fox would be swift & clear, “Alexi Lalas, you’re fired. You will never work in television again.”

Sun 14 Jun 2026 02:23 PM CDT

There’s not much left to say at this point. Football/futbol/soccer is the world game. The US was simply the last country to embrace that concept. Drunk Americans who incessantly chant, “U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A,” expect a miracle from the USMNT– like Lake Placid in 1980. Of course, US hockey gold in 1980 wasn’t a miracle. Of Miracles and Men (2015) tells the rest of that story– which most Americans don’t want to hear either.

All this is why I don’t believe the hype on this USMNT. They need to beat a good team in the knockout round of the World Cup for me (& the rest of the world) to be a believer. Historically, the USMNT’s best players have been their goalies– Kasey Keller & Tim Howard. That speaks volumes about the level of football in the US. Today, the USMNT finally has some scoring talent on the pitch. They’re at least dangerous now, when before they were pushovers. In 1994 the USMNT packed everyone into their own box and held on for dear life against Brazil. Obviously you can’t win like that in the World Cup, so things had to change for the US to become respectable in international football. We won’t find out the answers to the USMNT until probably the round-of-16– due to this diluted field.

The stadiums are still full, despite massive price-gouging, visa issues & rising inflation. FIFA is still corrupt, with murky politics everywhere. Expansion of the field fits the interest of FIFA, so it’s here to stay. So are mandatory hydration breaks.  Fifty percent expansion has turned group play into a warm-up exercise for the best teams. They no longer have to worry about being eliminated in group play.

The best group play match-up was Brazil-Morocco- which ended in a 1-1 draw. Both teams played not-to-lose in the 3rd & 4th quarters. It was a gentleman’s draw, as the rest of their group are cupcakes. That was the best match-up in group play. The rest is an exercise in evaluating the best teams for when the knockout stage begins, or teams playing that absolutely won’t make the knockout round. This is day 4 of the World Cup and I’ve seen enough for now. I’ll check in on a few matches of interest as they arrive, but mostly this story is already written until there is a possibility that a good team could be eliminated from the World Cup.

Dilution means more product that is weaker. Also, just like the Olympics, many of these small nations have only a few players (if any) who were born or live in the nations they are playing for in the World Cup. Many have NCAA experience, and almost all have played professionally in Europe, the US, or South America. What this means is there isn’t really a Curacao national team. It’s a bunch of guys who have ancestral ties and can use that to become part of the World Cup. It helps their careers, and provides FIFA with cheap labor from which they profit handsomely. The few millions FIFA sends these impoverished nations for participating in the World Cup are pennies compared to the wealth they rake in broadcasting these diluted games. Germany over Curacao, 7-1. Alexi Lalas on Fox post-game refers to those criticizing this expanded World Cup field as “cynics.” Click.

Mon 15 Jun 2026 12:39 PM CDT

Late last week US president Donald Trump suddenly began pushing hard for a ceasefire deal with Iran. It seemingly came out-of-the-blue, for no apparent reason, as many things do with him. Trump never honestly explains why he does anything, so it’s left to people with functioning brains & integrity to figure it out and explain it to others who would like to know.

Trump’s reasons for signing a 60-day ceasefire agreement with Iran (terms of which are murky and to which Zionist Israel still hasn’t agreed) are: 1) this war was never popular, hasn’t achieved any of its stated objectives, and is hurting Trump & his party; 2) oil prices were about to spike dramatically as US reserves have nearly been exhausted; and 3) the World Cup match featuring Iran today in Los Angeles is expected to bring massive protests, which Trump wanted to blunt with this agreement. That explains his sudden rush to get a deal (any deal) done. All this is cynical public relations & optics– nothing more. Trump will renew hostilities with Iran whenever he pleases, with full approval of the Democrats. The entire world knows it, so don’t expect this worthless agreement to diminish any planned protests.

Iran plays New Zealand today at 6:00 PM PDT. The Iranian national team and its coaches have had to answer endless questions from the media that have nothing to do with New Zealand. They have been placed in an impossible situation, and therefore deserve every serious sports fan’s support.

Iranian head coach, Amir Ghalenoei, stated the other day, “We only think about our country. We are not political people.” Unfortunately this is ignorant babble, when clear thought & expression are desperately needed. In fact, countries are political entities by nature. Before capitalism, in the era of feudalism & the Church, nation states (countries) didn’t exist. It’s ridiculous that no one in the corporate media even points out this historical & political fact. If you strongly identify with your country, that defines your politics.

Those who insist politics should be kept separate from the World Cup are naive fools and/or cynical liars. The FIFA World Cup is an international event, which only ramps up the politics because every nation is competing against all others. Money, power & prestige are involved– which is politics. Visas are required to travel, and for that national teams, fans, media, etc, need host government approval. The process of being selected as a host nation by FIFA is highly political. I could go on & on– all politics.

“Diaspora” is a term that has been frequently used during the World Cup. It refers to a nationality that has spread globally, creating a larger pool of players and fans for a particular national team. As briefly discussed above, Curacao has a diaspora that has led to the formation of their national teams, etc. So when Amir Ghalenoei says to the American media, “The Iranian nation, we respect each and every one of the Iranians,” he is referring to the Iranian diaspora here in the US (& everywhere else) as well as the citizens of Iran. He is appealing to reactionary nationalism, as opposed to international solidarity. That’s the ignorance & danger of his words, which only adds fuel to the fire for Trump and his fascist cabal in the White House.

Diaspora means emigration & immigration. To have a diaspora, free movement of the global population needs to be possible. As we all know from bourgeois politicians & ICE on television every day, immigrants aren’t actually welcome in the US– or any other first-world nation. Especially poor immigrants. Yet the Fox announcers at the World Cup keep gushing about “diaspora” influencing the game of football in such a positive way, etc. The hypocrisy & cynicism is staggering, and often leads to the mute button in my World Cup viewing.

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In Group H play, Spain v Cape Verde ended in a 0-0 draw. This was a dud of a match, and another red flag. I watched the first quarter, then switched off at the mandatory hydration break to write & publish the installment above. I finished around the conclusion of this match. From what I saw (and I’m glad I didn’t see most of it), Spain didn’t even look interested in playing hard.

Perhaps it’s somehow to Spain’s advantage if Cape Verde makes the knockout round, or there were diplomatic issues involved, etc? Or maybe Spain just didn’t care to compete in this diluted field. Spain possessed the ball for a staggering 74% of the match time, but showed little energy, with their players being passive with the ball and not really attacking. That’s what I saw at the beginning & the end. I’m sure if I had the sound on, I would have heard Fox announcers hyping the performance of Cape Verde as historic, a boost to their national pride, etc.

How many Cape Verde national team players actually live in Cape Verde? I asked Google AI: one. The rest are diaspora. How can the population of Cape Verde be proud (from a nationalist perspective) of a national team that has only one citizen on it? Will there be a “homecoming” for this national team after the World Cup, so Cape Verdians can celebrate with “their” players– most of whom they have never met & don’t know? Identity is so fluid these days, it’s hard to take any of it seriously. There is a mercenary, free agent quality to many of these lesser-known national teams that outweighs the humanitarian, feel-good narrative.

One thing people who have never played need to realize is that it is very difficult to score a goal in football. It’s probably the hardest thing in major sports, and that’s why most professional matches end 0-0, 1-0, 1-1, etc. If you pack everyone into the box and stay there, it’s difficult for even a very good opponent to find the net. Overmatched teams often employ this strategy because the World Cup is about results. Cape Verde gets their national glory in a 0-0 draw, Maybe someday the Cape Verde national team will score a goal against a good team in the World Cup. Anything is possible. There is an element of nationalist enabling and ‘participation trophyism’ that rings hollow in all this.

Gonzo journalism: I suppose you could call this ‘gonzo journalism’ if you’re reading me here. I was never a huge fan of Hunter Thompson, but he had the right idea in that it’s about a lot more than the game on the field. Other people’s thoughts & ideas matter just as much, if not more. Without fans there is no spectacle, and the World Cup is a massive global spectacle. Gonzo journalism becomes an influential style when it grasps & reveals deeper truths that most participants miss. It means no rules, no bourgeois editors censoring content– in a word, freedom. I prefer to bring a rational, materialist, and yes Trotskyist perspective to my gonzo writings, as opposed to confused, drug-crazed anarchism.

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Hunter Thompson is a complex figure. I spent one summer in college reading books from the library. I spent a week on Hunter Thompson, William Burroughs, Henry Miller, etc, and didn’t like any of them. I can read them in bits & pieces, but they jump around, drop existing threads to go off on tangents, and generally can’t hold a story together– which frustrates me. I don’t read to be frustrated, so I usually leave them on the shelf, so to say. Hunter Thompson arguably worked best in a magazine format. This allowed installments, which are easier to deliver than a good finished book, which typically takes years.

I don’t like a lot of things Hunter Thompson did & said, but I credit him for contributing a very important concept to modern writing. BTW, this is a good way to negate prejudice towards a flawed person, by crediting them on something important. Also note italics as a gonzo technique. It’s about cutting through the noise and getting directly to a hungry reader with something exciting & important.

Readers always crave enlightening gonzo journalism because the corporate media is all propaganda & lies, as Hunter Thompson recognized. You aren’t allowed to say that on television, even though most people know it. Bourgeois society is afflicted with a severe case of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Gonzo journalism brings free-form humor & humanity to all this madness, which “serious news” people aren’t allowed to present. All they do is selectively recite numbers and lifelessly churn out narratives. If done well today, gonzo journalism easily eclipses all corporate media content, because truth matters foremost.

More than ever we need gonzo, so thank you Hunter Thompson. To all this, I imagine Hunter Thompson would tell me to fuck off, and that’s fine. He has that right & freedom. As long as he doesn’t slander or violently attack me, he can do what he wants. Since Hunter Thompson is long dead, I am addressing his fans who carry on his thoughts & ideas. It’s really hard to find people who respect each other and think this way anymore, and that’s surely what frustrated Hunter Thompson into becoming a gonzo journalist. People aren’t black or white, they are many shades of grey; and therefore people who insist on black-white binary thinking need to be outed as reactionary philistines. That’s the aim of gonzo journalism.

Fri 19 Jun 2026 05:42 PM CDT

For the USMNT, who will easily win their group, it’s going to be a 3rd-place team in the round-of-32 on July 1, a match they should easily win. Then it’s likely to be Belgium (10) in the round-of-16. Portugal (7) or Spain (3) in the quarterfinals are the-most likely match-ups for USMNT, if they advance that far in this World Cup. That’s ambitious and I don’t see the quality for the USMNT to get past a team like Belgium, but stranger things have happened.

Their ugly 2-0 win over Australia today was an own goal and a misplay by the keeper going to the ground when he didn’t need to. That’s not going to happen so much against the top teams. The US defense is shaky at times, and hasn’t really been tested under constant pressure during this World Cup. I still don’t see a magical player for the USMNT. Christian Pulisic is injured, and he can now be rested until the round-of-16, but he isn’t Ronaldo, Messi, or Zidane. The USMNT still doesn’t have that great international player who puts them over the top. That limits how far they can go.

Turning the matches from two halves into four quarters is deeply unpopular with fans & players. That, along with the diluted field are the stories of this World Cup so far. Everyone correctly sees this as a money grab for FIFA. There are a lot of uninteresting games I don’t even bother watching. FIFA and their sponsors are playing to the FOMO crowd which cheers for anything. Those who turn on the World Cup to see consistent quality are seeing far too little of it. We will have to wait until the second week of July for that. I’ve seen far too many good teams going through the motions in the first round of group play. That shouldn’t happen at the World Cup.

Russia once again is prohibited from competing. When Russia hosted the World Cup in 2018, four members of Pussy Riot crashed the final in Moscow. France-Croatia was interrupted in the 52nd minute as political hooligans Veronika Nikulshina, Olga Kurachyova, Olga Pakhtusova, and Pyotr Verzilov staged their pitch invasion. They somehow obtained police uniforms, which they used to disguise themselves and get close to the field. They were quickly hauled off by police, but later sentenced to only 15 days in administrative jail.

Pussy Riot have been declared foreign agents by the Russian government since December 2021. If you are going to try a political stunt like this in front of Vladimir Putin in Moscow, you had better have CIA protection like Pussy Riot does. That’s the lesson of pitch invasions at a World Cup, as Pussy Riot reeks of provocation..

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After the first round of group play, I like France. Germany & Argentina also look strong. I’ve noticed the FIFA bracketing has those teams far from the USMNT. None of this is random chance, as these brackets are intensely scrutinized & planned by FIFA, as are the draws that determine the teams in each group. Sponsors want to know (as much as possible) what they are getting. What I’m saying is much of this World Cup is scripted, and so far everything is going according to FIFA’s script.

I like the intensity & togetherness of the US team so far. It probably is their most talented team ever at the World Cup. The problem is the US is so far behind the rest of the world in football. The US is playing soccer, while the rest of the world is playing football. When you say “football” in North America, sports fans think of the Super Bowl & Rose Bowl. Football is the NFL, CFP & CFL. We have Major League Soccer as the highest level of football in North America.

Note that the rest of the sporting world refers to the game played in the NFL as “American football”, a game that developed in the 20th century. It is presumptive & arrogant to name your sport after a much older & more popular game already existing around the world, but you aren’t going to get NFL owners to give up football. There is a point of pride at the international level on this nomenclature, and to a certain extent it hurts the US in World Cup football.

The first written evidence of a football match came in England in about 1170. When kings heads were publicly guillotined, as the Industrial Revolution swept through Europe during the 18th & 19th centuries, their fleshy skulls were kicked around the streets by the jubilant masses– an early form of football. The game was codified in England during the 19th century. Knowing this rich history helps understand the deep working class roots in the game of football. Many great professional players, of yesteryear & today, grew up poor. Football represents the idea that talent (instead of privilege) rises to the top and always deserves our respect.

Sat 20 Jun 2026 03:50 PM CDT

Rebecca Lowe hosts NBC’s US coverage of the Premiere League. Football fans LOVE her because she’s passionate & knowledgeable about the game. Too many women in sports journalism are there just to be a pretty face. Rebecca Lowe is so much more as she is quick-witted, presents well, and is always spot-on with everything Premiere League football. Rebecca Lowe checks all the boxes.

In case you haven’t noticed, every World Cup team has multiple starting players who are playing in (or have played in) the Premiere League. Football is a tough game, and it doesn’t get any tougher that England’s Premiere League. Having Rebecca Lowe along with multiple teams of former European players as analysts really makes Fox’s broadcast a vast improvement over past US telecasts of the World Cup.

Former USMNT players (Alexi Lalas, Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey) don’t add much by comparison. I understand why Fox wants a few of them there– it’s to lend credibility to US soccer by featuring a few voices of their own, but many football fans feel the current US team will best speak for itself– on & off the field. It feels like a lot of bandwagoning from former US players, who never really did anything in the World Cup– or anywhere else.

This entire World Cup tournament needs to be reconsidered as far as what is accomplished and what it means. Forty-eight teams now comprise the field, which will be cut to 32 after group play. What this means is making the knockout stage is no longer a major accomplishment. It’s now the same thing as qualifying for the World Cup used to mean. The round-of-32 now accomplishes what group play used to do–reduce the field to 16. This round is what football fans are waiting for when they watch the World Cup.

Once we get into the round-of-16, it’s important to ask– who is the host nation for this World Cup? Seven of the eight games in the round-of-16 are to be played in the US, as will all the games in the following rounds. Canada & Mexico have been junior partners to the US in hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2026. Notice how this politically mirrors US president Donald Trump’s desire to make Canada the 51st state and renaming the Gulf of Mexico for America.

This expanded field has opened up opportunities for smaller nations to make an impression on the world stage. That is the only benefit to the expanded field. Does that outweigh diluting the World Cup? Many football fans feel the rigorous World Cup qualifying process should narrow the field to the best 32 teams. But how fair is the qualifying process? FIFA has so much murkiness & corruption beneath their surface that it’s hard to berate their decision of expanding the field. There may actually be a few impoverished national teams that deserve more respect than they have gotten and the World Cup is their chance to prove FIFA’s rankings incorrect. That’s the debate here.

At this point, I’ve written all I need to on World Cup 2026, so I’m signing off. The results will confirm or nullify all the narratives.

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Elon Musk’s big money grab

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This SpaceX IPO, set for today, is the largest scam in financial history. Roughly 93% of its projected $1.75T value is in AI, and Elon Musk’s xAI/Grok models are garbage.

Only Starlink makes money, as all other SpaceX divisions lose money. SpaceX leases CPU to Anthropic, it’s competitor, and that is SpaceX’s biggest revenue stream in AI. In other words, it’s an AI infrastructure leasing company being given a big tech valuation. Just how is a leasing company considered an AI innovator?

Their IPO prospectus (sample above) is a joke, an exercise in science fiction & fudging the numbers. SpaceX is claiming a ‘total addressable market’ of $28.5T, which is almost the entire US GDP ($30T). Shareholders will have no vote or say in how SpaceX is run, as Elon Musk will control 85% of the shareholding vote, meaning he can never be fired and will pick his successor, etc. He can even start a new rival company that competes with SpaceX, if that suits him. This is a huge circular deal that rewards all of Elon Musk’s cronies, and keeps him afloat despite SpaceX’s annual net losses & massive debt obligations.

This deal is being hyped because all the right people are getting paid and it keeps the music going. This IPO is also how Elon Musk is meeting his debt obligations for his overpay of Twitter in 2022. There is massive working class resentment over this institutionalized graft, which is widely understood in online comments, blogs & forums, but isn’t seriously discussed or analyzed in the corporate media which accepts this blatant fraud as legitimate business.

Here’s a good video explaining this SpaceX IPO fraud in detail:

As mentioned in an earlier article, SpaceX according to its IPO disclosure holds 18,700 bitcoins purchased at ~$35k each. Therefore, crypto Kool-Aid drinkers are expecting a bitcoin price bump with this IPO, even though there is no rational reason why. Bitcoin has been backsliding since its primary booster, Michael Saylor’s Strategy, sold 32 bitcoins in late May to pay stock dividend obligations. Because Elon Musk is a big crypto booster, and Space X has a sizable stash of bitcoin, this IPO must be a bitcoin price booster. That’s the logic of the market, where casual correlations become influential narratives, and no one cares to explain how it all happens.

Bitcoin/crypto, like the SpaceX IPO, is a huge con built on the cult of personality. Both mirror when Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) went public in March 2024, This fake company, TMTG, operates the Truth Social platform and World Liberty Financial, Trump’s crypto venture. TMTG operates at a heavy loss, with little revenue. Trump Media & Technology Group’s IPO price was ~$79, and just over two years later it trades at $8.25 per share. As of this publication, Trump’s WLFI tokens exchange for $0.06. This should give anyone with any financial sense, a clear idea where SpaceX’s IPO is heading. That 2024 TMTG IPO was simply a handout to Donald Trump from his wealthy supporters, as he desperately needed the cash; just as SpaceX’s 2026 IPO is nothing more than a supporter-backed bailout for Elon Musk.

In conclusion, the IPO price for SpaceX has been set at $135 per share, with a $1.7T valuation because Elon Musk says so. That’s not normally how it works, but we are in a new era of high finance. It’s all in that ridiculous prospectus, which the banks who are making hundreds of millions of dollars off this fraud, barely scrutinize. This IPO is expected to raise $75B for SpaceX, and make Elon Musk the first trillionaire. Of course all this is fictitious value, as all of the value of SpaceX is based on lies & cooked numbers— especially its bitcoin. Elon Musk simply put himself at the head of the line when it comes to AI-company IPOs, and that’s what’s getting him top dollar for his SpaceX junk. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

OpenAI & Anthropic are expected to follow with ~$1T IPO valuations. These companies actually have workable AI technology that people use, but they are part of a massive tech bubble that will burst upon us all. By the time these companies go bankrupt, they will have looted all the money that can be squeezed out of the system. They will be among the biggest companies in the world, and thus deemed too-big-to-fail, and we know what that means: More taxpayer bailouts for these fraudsters, because all the wealthy elites & political players are in on it. The ruling oligarchy tell us what’s what, and we the workers must always obey them. Those are the rules, until a revolution comes along and consigns all this detritus into the dustbin of history.

Fri 12 Jun 2026 05:52 PM CDT

Epilogue: SpaceX stock opened at $150 and rose 19% to $160, after reaching an early high of $172. One particular aspect that has serious investors upset is Nasdaq changing its own eligibility rules for index funds, which acts as yet another hidden boost for Elon Musk. How does he do it? Most human commentors on social media believe the pre-IPO buyers will take their money and wait for the crash, then buy the dip & hold. Plenty of xAI bots attacking these comments. What a rigged charade, as at least two-thirds of the American people aren’t the least bit fooled by this orchestrated fraud.

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Trump crashes at MSG

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On the ABC pregame, NBA commissioner Adam Silver covered for Trump by saying he’s a long-time Knicks fan who was invited by owner James Dolan to attend, and that sports shouldn’t be divisive, etc… Question: If sports are to bring us all together, then why does Trump need so much security & isolation at MSG?

Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Draymond Green, Shaq & Ernie Johnson just sat there quietly during Adam Silver’s false explanation, even though every basketball fan knew how hoops fans really felt about it. If any of these analysts had contradicted Adam Silver, they would have been fired. Disgraceful coercion & capitulation all-around. It was nothing more than a photo-op and a chance to insert himself into the narrative of the NBA finals, everyone knew it, and it was a complete disaster for Trump.

As for the Knicks, they had one of the greatest home court advantages in sports flipped on them because Trump had to make his presence felt. When the MSG crowd is right, they are feverishly cheering for the Knicks, appreciating extra effort & hustle, and exposing phonies on the opposing team. To understand what has happened, we need to take a step back.

The person most responsible for reviving the New York Knicks is Tom Thibodeau. As their head coach from 2020-25, he re-instilled defense as the Knicks bread-and-butter, echoing the Patrick Ewing years when the Knicks were last competitive. Tom Thibodeau is considered an innovator of basketball defense, insisting on player accountability, connectedness, and strict help-side rotations to clog up the middle. Players must rotate early & hard to force a kick out pass, then recover & contest. Repeat until the possession is over. This involves sitting in a stance and literally working your ass off. It takes a lot of serious coaching to get players to buy into this, but it’s what wins.

Knicks fans who have attended games at MSG over the years know & appreciate this. The Knicks made the finals this year because they came together defensively. This is the Knicks most-talented roster in decades, and that deserves most of the credit. The Knicks under Mike Brown now have the players to make Tom Thibodeau’s defensive system work effectively, and it’s gotten them this far.

That defensive energy translates directly to the basketball crowd at MSG. Even the entertainment celebrities understand it. But when someone who ALWAYS demands to be the center of attention, and it widely despised, proclaims that he will be at game 3 in MSG, it sucks a lot of juice out of the building. For the fans & players, it’s no longer about the game; it’s about Donald Trump, and that doesn’t help the home team.

It wasn’t just a jinx that Trump brought into MSG in game 3, it was all the crap we watch sports to forget about for a few hours. Every fan in the building felt it, because they all had to go through extra security, etc, and it diminished their experience of the game. When you pay what it costs to attend a game like that, you feel cheated. You’re angry, and it affects your ability to cheer for the home team. That is absolutely real, and has nothing to do with a jinx.

Game 4 will still have the remnants of Trump– extra security and longer waiting in line to get in. Donald Trump has managed to neutralize the MSG crowd, which severely hurts the Knicks. I didn’t think it was possible, but everyone saw it. How can Donald Trump call himself a Knicks fan after falling asleep in game 3? For the NBA record, Trump distracted everyone in the building who wanted the Knicks to win, and that is carrying over for the rest of the series.

As far as who will win the series, game 4 will tell us a lot. I believe the Spurs are a better team, but the Knicks are close & more experienced. The best team doesn’t always win (see Celtics 1984), and sometimes something that has nothing to do with basketball can influence events on the court. Not since COVID-19 temporarily halted the 2019-20 NBA season has such a disruptive outside force influenced the finals.

For context, what I have written here is from a basketball fan who is not a Knicks fan, but appreciates this historic NBA franchise. Below is a 10-minute video which shows how Knicks fans (& New Yorkers in general) feel about Trump. Warning: It turns into a shameless promo for the Democrats after ~5 minutes, but the first half captures the essence of the moment well enough in its NY style.

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Final WNBA scouting report on Caitlin Clark

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This is the third essay in a series on basketball. Part one is here. Part 2 is here.

I watched the Indiana Fever-New York Liberty game on CBS, and everything I’ve mentioned about Caitlin Clark’s poor defense helped lose a game the Indiana Fever should have won. Beyond that, Caitlin Clark’s offense is limited in ways that aren’t being discussed by WNBA announcers & analysts.

For starters, Caitlin Clark has no left hand– weak dribble, weaker passing, and won’t even try finishing in the paint with her off hand. For a guard, that needs to improve. She’s a good passer with excellent vision, but tries to make too many passes that aren’t really there. She’s trying to make her teammates batter with her passing, but it’s still too much of a mixed bag. No left hand (off hand) limits her as a player.

Beyond that, Kelsey Mitchell needs to be the one with the ball for the Indiana Fever, and Caitlin Clark needs to learn to play without the basketball. Playing effectively without the ball is an advanced offensive skill which requires complete court awareness & better spacing on Caitlin Clark’s part. She’s not the best player on her team anymore, so her game needs to adapt for her to be a winning player in this league. Learning to play on the weak side and being a spot-up 3-point threat is how her offensive game needs to develop. In short, her defense must improve; along with her left hand, and playing without the ball.

Reggie Miller

I’ve mentioned Steve Alford as Caitlin Clark’s best NBA comparable. The NBA player she needs to emulate to be successful in the WNBA is another Indiana basketball legend– Reggie Miller. As the Pacers shooting guard from 1987-2005, Reggie Miller was a master at coming off screens & moving without the ball. It takes patience & discipline to stayed properly spaced, until the time comes to shoot or move quickly & intelligently without the ball.

All her career Caitlin Clark has had the basketball in her hands, but her weak off-hand is leading to too many turnovers in the WNBA. She’s not quick enough, nor does she have the handles to be a point guard. Reggie Miller had to work hard just to become an average NBA defender, but that effort made him a Hall-of Famer because it kept him on the floor. He didn’t let his defensive effort become a liability that kept him off the court at crunch time. He didn’t often get into foul trouble, which would put him on the bench and the other team on the free throw line. Individual & team defense are separate, essential skills in basketball.

2008 Celtics

Caitlin Clark isn’t cut out to be the team leader, she’s not good enough, so she needs to channel Ray Allen with the Boston Celtics behind Kevin Garnett & Paul Pierce. For the Indiana Fever, Kelsey Mitchell needs to be their primary facilitator & scorer, with Aliyah Boston as their option in the paint if there is a mismatch, and Caitlin Clark being a roving 3-point shooter. That’s (maybe) a championship formula that can eventually work if everybody does their part. It starts with having the game to compete, and then playing connected as a team, which isn’t happening on either end of the floor with the current Indiana Fever roster.

Team defense basics: As I mentioned in the first essay, A’ja Wilson is (far & away) the best player in the WNBA, the only player who needs to be double-teamed every time she touches the ball. To beat the Las Vegas Aces, opponents need to pressure the ball to deny her an easy entry pass, then come with a quick, hard double-team when she does get the ball and force her to pass out of it. WNBA teams all know how to double-team & rotate to open shooters on defense. Not all WNBA teams can actually execute it well, but all the coaches & players at least know what they should do, and that’s a measure of growth in the women’s game.

Rotating out of a double-team is objectively measured by who gets the open look and for how long. If the opponent’s second-best scoring option gets a clean look, then the rotation is poor. If the third option gets a look, it’s average at best. If the 4th or 5th option is the one made to shoot, then the defense is dictating and doing its job. If no one gets a look, or a turnover is created, that’s elite team defense. Team defense is five players on the floor, connected together, each busting their butts to cover for each other in order to prevent the opposition from scoring. A scouting eye sees this better than analytics.

Team defense is hard to measure & evaluate, largely because there are a lot of players (boys & girls at all levels) who don’t give much effort on defense, and have learned ways to blame others in order to deflect criticism. Your teammates can make you look bad in basketball, by not being there for you when you need help in recovering, etc. All kinds of egos are clashing in basketball, and trash talking is how a lot of it gets worked out amongst the players. Learn the game (old school), and your trash talking (new school) will take care of itself.

Team defense means you get on board, or you’re benched or traded. Team defense is an old school ethic, with new school science & applications. For example, in today’s game you can’t give up an open corner 3 to a good shooter, at any level, as that’s like giving up an open lay-up in the pre-3 era. For every player, team defense & playing without the ball are about being efficient & effective with angles & spacing to help your team win on both ends of the floor.

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