In Reply to: Final thoughts on WC26 posted by blindness on July 20, 2026 at 12:27:57
nice post!
I'll use your numbering so you know what I'm commenting upon.
1. I noticed that at the 20 minute mark of most matches (brutally hot or not), many of the players are absolutely drenched in sweat. It's like every dude is Rafa. BUT. They don't get changeovers. I never see them sucking down packets of honey. I never see them guzzling bottles of pickle juice. HTF do they do it? I was watching the 120th minute of play yesterday, ARG played the ball back to the GT...and effing lamineyamal was on a full sprint towards the GT, pressing him. Damn. By contrast, has any baseball ever broken a sweat playing a game? Maybe if he's recovering from a bender from the night before. But it's nothing related to effort expended.
In tennis, when the combo of the heat and humidity reach a certain "somebody might die" level, the umpire calls a 10 minute break, regardless of what the score is or where we are in the match. There's no way to measure the internal body temp of each player. I don't think soccer dudes are going to consent to have a device perpetually up their butt to measure their core temperature. So I propose doing what tennis does: measure the immediate environment.
Also...only five subs per game? That means that five of the guys on ESP played all 120+ minutes of the game. (Like lamineyamal.) If you're Messi and you're walking/light jogging 80% of the time, ok. But very few of those dudes can play that way and get away with it. Only a super crafty, magical striker can.
4. I can't buy into this conspiracy theory. I don't think Infantino got any ESP players to fix the match. So that leaves only the refs. What if Infantino approaches an umpire with an offer of money to fix the match...and that dude is wearing a wire and blows the whistle on Infantino? Huge risk for Infantino to take. And he can't delegate the task to anyone else. To pull off the fix, he would have to umpire the match himself. Maybe that's why he was wearing the fvcking clownish white tennis shoes with a suit. Everybody who does that should be shot.
5. The African teams didn't relax. Quite the opposite. They choked. Ever watch Ucla football get tighttitghttight (shout out Tuco!) trying to hold a lead v Notre Dame or sc? You just know Ucla DBs are going to shiit themselves as they chant "please don't throw my way, please don't throw my way, oh shiit they're throwing my way, AHHHHHHHH, touchdown fvck"?
Yeah. Africa be like that.
9. John Brown and Stu Holden...I love those guys. I'd love Stu Holden even more if he'd stop sounding EXACTLY like Mary Carillo. I thought John Brown's calls of the last few minutes of the ARG/ENG match were some of the best I've ever experienced. Thank you, JB!
*****
Here's my own rant-tribution:
11. It's a copycat sport, like all sports are copycat sports. I fear that the majority of countries will try to become Floyd Mayweather in light of ESP's success, when I was really digging seeing a bunch of Mike Tyson teams running around the pitch.
More Mbappe! More Strikin' Vikin'! More Hey Jude! It will be a shame if lamineyamal wins the Golden Boot in 2028 scoring one goal. lamineyamal!