I love the World Cup. The best players from around the world, different playing styles for each team, passionate fans…it’s so much fun. So far I’ve watched a mix of highlights and some live footage while I work.
I’m rooting for a bunch of different teams: The US, Japan, England, Ecuador, and underdogs in general. I like teams that play relentless soccer, even when they’re up by a goal or two. I strongly dislike flopping, and I equally dislike hard fouls. I’m also not a fan of time wasting, and fortunately some revised rules for this tournament have largely prevented teams from doing that.
I’m often very critical of how the US plays on the world stage. There are so many World Cups when they just pass back and back until the goalie kicks a long ball that they lose control of. There are countless times when I’ve seen the US score some a great goal, only to spend the rest of the game timidly (and often losing as a result).
So I was pleasantly surprised to see a very different style of play from the US last week against Paraguay. They deliberately pushed forward for most of the game. Their movement in and around the box was excellent. They connected long strings of passes and largely avoided 50/50 balls. And when they took a shot, they often put it on goal instead of blasting it into the seats. (In other words, they played like Japan, who look great. Morocco also really impressed me.)
They definitely have room to improve: I don’t think I saw a single effective cross, and the few times their defense was tested, they looked confused and organized. I’m curious to see if they fix those issues in their next game.
Also, while it looks like many people were able to get into the US to watch the tournament, there are also many reports of people being blocked simply due to the color of their skin, which is such a terrible thing. I want us to be a country who welcomes all types of people and makes them feel at home.
I hope you’re enjoying the World Cup. What do you think so far?
The World Cup used to me my favorite time since 1990. But in the recent decade is has enshitified beyond much enjoyment for me. Sure I still watch it when I can but the money, corruption, choice of hosts, the size of the tournament really just pulled the whole experience down in my eyes. And now they have these mid half breaks… sigh just to push some more ads. Whenever I can I watch the games on Telemundo in Spanish. I don’t know Spanish but they are commentators are fun on decided on principal to not have commercials during “hydration breaks”.
Rooting this time for US, Mexico and Canada. And Germany as usual 🙂