1. Cabo Verde: How good was that? Their game against Argentina was *the* game of the cup for me thus far. They gave as good as they got, and then some. They ended the cup with an undefeated record in regulation time. They were absolutely awesome: bold, effective both in defense and offense, and utterly unintimidated. Being the dumbass American that I am I kept assuming they must be one of those Islands in the Caribbean, so I skipped their early games. That right there shows you how smart and plugged in I am, because they turn out to be off the coast of Africa, despite the Spanish name, and have qualified by knocking Cameroon off the group. So yeah, that game was pure joy.
2. Japan: I was truly disappointed in seeing them go. I don't play the dark horse game but I was counting on them to make it farther than elimination in the round of 32 against Brazil. This may not age well, but I am still not impressed much by Brazil. Their game against Norway today will be interesting.
3. England: Speaking of games today, I am hoping that Mexico takes them out today. I will always and forever be rooting against England until they stop saying "It's coming home" before the cup. Stop saying that, and I'll be happy to see you win because the fans have suffered long enough. But that's the deal, simple enough. (Is England ever the top dog in any game they invented? Not in cricket, not in rugby, not in soccer... so stop it. You gave these games to the world and the world ran with them.)
4. Spain: I've been warming up to them. They haven't been as flashy in doing what they do, but damn, they get results. While the announcers and the press keep gazes fixed on Yamine Lamal ('coz the sport needs the next hot thing, no matter how young, all the time) Oyarzabal has been racking up some neat goals. I was especially impressed by their xGA (expected Goals Against) numbers in the first four games: 0.8, so they have been fairly tight on defense.
5. Portugal: Speaking of Spain, I need them to eliminate Portugal for a very simple reason: I can't stand Ronaldo. I don't know why. He's a nice dude by all accounts, but he constantly rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's his celebration, maybe it's how he expects the team to revolve around his presence at all times. But yeah, get that guy off the field and I'll root for you dudes. After all, my favorite team, Beşiktaş, has had quite a few great Portuguese players in the past and was known as Benfictaş at some point. But that guy? I can't wait till he retires. (I know I know, I'm just being irrational.)
6. Morocco: And that takes me to the third host nation on the next WC: Morocco. They are seriously good. They've played against a bunch of teams by now with slightly different styles and they've beaten them doing whatever needed to be done.
7. Refereeing: The refereeing is really really bad. I first started noticing how the non-white teams were getting jobbed in individual decisions, but now it has snowballed from there to blatantly and consistently bad. Maybe I should watch more games in mother leagues, but my god, I don't think I've ever seen so much pushing and shoving one the field as I've seen before, and so many fouls given to the wrong team. Announcers will tell you that the refereeing has been uneven and that there have been some good calls, but don't believe them. Those "good calls" they're talking about are the bad calls that went in favor of the said announcers' favorite teams. The refs have been screwing everyone over.
8. Offside: Which brings me to offside rules. I have to admit that I've been wrong in thinking that the involvement of more accurate technology would make the game better. It does not. When a goal is disallowed because some fine analysis of multiple camera angles reveal that the tippy toe of some played crosses the line defined by the top of the knee of some other player by a quarter inch or something, I'm out. These are not differences that human eyes can detect in real time, which also means the players themselves can't tell if they are on side or off side, which in turn means, they cannot "time" their run accurately even if they're the best at doing so. I feel like we kinda lost the plot on offside rule. The main point is to avoid goal hanging, right? So maybe we need to go back to the drawing board and try a different approach that does not penalize players for anticipating a pass but being a fraction of a second too early. I don't know, maybe a basketball style rule that limits off side to a full body across the line for three seconds or something like that. Or use the torso as the reference point. Something, anything to scale these rules back and let the game breathe a little. (God forbid if they're using AI to detect offside.)
9. Announcers: I've already ragged on them in a previous post and their super-annoying colonialist habits when it comes to any game that involves an ex-colony of any European has been power. I have to say that I also find the two-announcer back and forth format devolving into an "everybody has a podcast now" moment when they start shooting the breeze because they lost interest in the game. Dudes and dudettes, it's your job to talk about the friggin' game right in front of you. You are not the entertainers, the players are. We're here for them, not you. Stop inserting your stories and pet peeves into the game. Don't be a Bill-Walton-in-training.
10. Announcers 2: English announcers (and some American announcers who are paired with them) need to stop assuming that they are broadcasting to an English audience. Assume that your fans are US fans and keep your rah rah to the US and stop talking up the English team. Also please please stop constantly pimping players who play in the Premiere league as if that's the end all be all confirmation of a player's worthwhileness. Your own Harry Kean plays for Bayern forgodssakes. Sure, they do mention that so and so plays for Stuttgart, but to they get as dewy eyed when they mention that as opposed to some other player who plays for Nottingham? Not at all. Keep that to the English audience, will you?
11. As much as I love Morocco and want them to keep going because I'd love to see a new team and a new region to finally break through (can you imagine Trump presenting the cup if Morocco wins it all? He sure won't insert himself into the cup raising picture with people from a sh*thole country, for sure; that alone would be worth the price of admission), I can see a semi-final between France and Spain on one side, and Mexico (or Norway?) and Argentina on the other. If not Morocco, I'd be ok with Mexico receiving the cup from Trump. That would be another delicious scenario.