![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/tf_freese.jpg\")
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And just like that, the World Cup is over.\u00a0 Este fue un viaje hermoso.<\/span><\/p>\n Not really, but with the eliminations of Los Estados Unidos, as well as Mejico, within the span of the last 48 hours, and even Canada, all host nations are eliminated from the tournament, as are their Cinderella dreams of deeper runs, and general interest in the World Cup, I would predict are about to take a massive hit, with most casual futbol enthusiasts seeing little reason in continuing to watch.<\/span><\/p>\n I know it\u2019s arrogant to predict such things based on the continued participation of the United States as well as Mexico, but I\u2019d be curious to see the Fox One data for the rest of the World Cup, compared to when the US and Mexico were still in it, once the tournament is officially over.<\/span><\/p>\n But not only is it a sad albeit inevitable fate that the host nations are all out, but to the point of my general criticism of the state of futbol globally and the World Cup, the remaining teams are mostly the same pool of countries that always remain, including France, Argentina and Spain; Germany and Brazil were unfortunate victims to some upsets courtesy of Paraguay and Norway, but for the most part, it appears that the general script of the World Cup is still on course to have a rematch of 2022 in the finals, between France and Argentina, primarily the matchup between Kylian Mbappe and the MJ of futbol, Lionel Messi, over who can extend their all-time World Cup goals record, and if Messi can presumably go out as a two-time champion, seeing as how he\u2019s possibly done with World Cup competition after this one.<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to say I wouldn\u2019t watch any more World Cup now that all of the teams I\u2019ve been generally supporting are out (Korea, USA, Mexico, Brazil), but personally my general enthusiasm for the rest of the field is mostly depleted, with a lingering hope for countries like Norway and laughably Egypt, to disrupt the status quo, but once they\u2019re out, it truly is just another copy\/paste field of World Cups prior and I can\u2019t say that I\u2019d have much interest if the finals do end up being comprised of France or Spain vs. Messi.<\/span><\/p>\n Circling back to the USA vs. Belgium elimination game, man I just knew, I knew<\/em>, that the United States was fucked as soon as the red card suspension controversy swirling around Folarun Balogun started, with our sad sack excuse of a dear leader meddling around and somehow got FIFA to allow him to play against Belgium in spite of the red card he had drawn against Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/span><\/p>\n The narrative powering the United States went from being the Greatest USMNT in History<\/em> that was actually starting to garner some respect from the global futbol community, to [Orange fuck] Meddles with World Cup to Give USA Unfair Advantage<\/em> and it was back to everyone hating \u2018Murica again; but more importantly igniting a fire under Belgium and giving them all the motivation in the world to shake off the nerves that got them to the Round of 16 looking vulnerable with just two wins and two draws and 4 goals allowed, to looking like a top-10 FIFA ranked team in the world again.<\/span><\/p>\n Not only was the motivation real for Belgium, but the distraction was palpable for the United States, who basically played like shit for 80 minutes against the Belgians.\u00a0 They couldn\u2019t pass, they couldn\u2019t touch, they lost seemingly every 50\/50, everything was challenging, they couldn\u2019t get the ball to the Belgian side of the field, much less have any attempts at goal.\u00a0 Pulisic was shaky and invisible, Dest couldn\u2019t dribble, Balogun being allowed to play was a complete non-factor, Remm was getting worked the whole match, and the whole team couldn\u2019t handle Belgium\u2019s pressure, and I can only imagine how pitiful their pass accuracy looked.<\/span><\/p>\n The Greatest USMNT in History looked completely outclassed and overwhelmed, and the prevalent thought going through my head throughout the whole match, as well as the Mexico vs. England match was that futbol of the Americas, unfortunately still has a long way to go when it comes to being able to compete with futbol from Europe.\u00a0 Both the US and Mexico were completely defeated by higher-tier European squads, and it\u2019s like they\u2019ve both figured out how to dominate against the CONCAF, but are completely clueless on how to compete outside of it.<\/span><\/p>\n Sure, Mexico defeated Czechia, and the United States defeated Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the US also got exposed by Turkey, and the conclusion is that European futbol is still in a class above North America, and this World Cup ends with continued head scratching on wondering what it\u2019s going to take for the US to ever catch up to Europe, if they ever can.<\/span><\/p>\n Regardless of the conclusion of Cinderella(s), I can still fondly opine that this has been the most beautiful and entertaining World Cup that I can remember since like, 2002, when Korea (and Japan) captured the imagination of the world when they hosted.<\/span><\/p>\n The amount of wholesome and wildly entertaining content to come from this World Cup have been stuff of legend, with tourists and visitors foreign to the Americas coming in and documenting and sharing their amusement, wonder and culinary discoveries with the internet, and there\u2019s been no shortage of happy entertainment over the whole tournament.<\/span><\/p>\n Mexico welcoming everyone, and making BFFs with everyone from Korea, Japan, Czechs, Uzbeks and even the English has been a delight to watch.\u00a0 Tourists from all over Europe and Japan making their journeys into the United States, and experiencing quintessentially American things like fast food, Buc-ee\u2019s, barbecue, Tex-Mex, \u2018Murican portions, MLB baseball and of course, ranch dressing, have all been amusing and helpful as an American to see what others actually don\u2019t hate about our country.<\/span><\/p>\n There was a great meme narrative that summed it up pretty well, along the lines of that the World Cup is showing that we don\u2019t all hate each other, we just hate our world leaders<\/strong>, and the World Cup is like a giant fun gathering of cousins where the parents all hate each other, and it really couldn\u2019t be any more true.\u00a0 The amount of unity, acceptance and general copacetic peace shown by so many throughout the United States, Mexico and presumably even Canada has been genuinely the best part of the whole tournament, completely regardless of the outcomes on the pitches, and even if the end result is yet another boring France or Argentina win, it doesn\u2019t change that this has still been the best World Cup ever.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And just like that, the World Cup is over.\u00a0 Este fue un viaje hermoso. Not really, but with the eliminations of Los Estados Unidos, as well as Mejico, within the span of the last 48 hours, and even Canada, all host nations are eliminated from the tournament, as are their Cinderella dreams of deeper runs, … Continue reading Nos vemos en cuatro a\u00f1os, Copa Mundial de la FIFA<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[176,56,164,22,103,83,165,156,58],"class_list":["post-51324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-murica","tag-food","tag-futbol","tag-mexicans","tag-motherland","tag-observations","tag-politics","tag-social-media","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51326,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51324\/revisions\/51326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}