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.
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