Revisited despite the h8ers

 

Sometimes I like to go back into the history of clerkmanifesto and share something again, feeling that given five or six years to marinate the right sort of clerkmanifesto essay might really be ripe for the world. I especially like to do this when I am going to be away for a bit and need to set up a lot of posts to play out while I am... busy gathering new material.

I also like it because it seems like it will be an easy way to come up with a really good post!

Ha!

First of all, I always end up involved in writing some elaborate introduction for the old post. Like, look at this. You've been reading for hours already. "I wasn't expecting a novel!" some of you may have already muttered while reading this, and we haven't even gotten to the previously written stuff yet. We are still on the fresh writing! Which I am writing right now! 

I thought it was all gonna be a bunch of copy and paste and gleeful chuckling pride in my rich history!

Not that I don't like fresh writing. It's just that I was thinking I would be onto other things like an hour ago.

Second of all, going on a treasure hunt through the history of clerkmanifesto can be a mixed bag for me.

Sometimes it's like: But I'm so delightful, how do I pick just one of these?

And sometimes it's like: No, no, no, no, no, super fast and uncomfortable no, no, no.

And often it's a weird mix of the two. Which is hard to explain.

And third of all even when I find a nice old gem from the past, and I'm all excited about it, it just doesn't seem relevent to anything recent in my life.

At which point I might be inclined to complain to myself: "By this time I could have written two new clerkmanifesto posts! Or, realistically speaking, watched a man eat a twelve pound hamburger with fries on youtube."

But, fortunately, I persevered, and found a soccer post.

I haven't been able to talk about soccer since we made it through the glorious semi finals of The World Cup. At which point everything that happened at the world cup just kind of depressed me, and I didn't want to talk about it. 

But this?

This is a delightful throwback to The Women's World Cup from seven years ago.

Maybe healing is coming?

It is called: 

Sam Kerr. 

And having read this post from seven years ago I thought I'd like to catch up on her career a bit, but only want to report this one thing I learned: 

Kerr has stated that she eats a pasta sandwich before every game.

Sam Kerr

We are holding a very fancy betting pool at my library to celebrate The Women's World Cup. Because $20 here bought a person a randomly selected team and an also random Golden Boot Player (that's the person who scores the most goals in the tournament), loyalties were widely distributed and the library fanbase was scattered across 24 teams.

That was until Australia's Sam Kerr was briefly interviewed following a dramatic come from behind victory against Brazil in game two. She said something to the effect of:

"We don't listen to the h8ers. Me an' the girls showed them and they can go suck on that one."

Perhaps curiously, we all became Sam Kerr fans.

Then, five days later, Sam Kerr scored four goals against Jamaica to propel Australia into the round of 16. At this point Sam Kerr hysteria seized the library staff. Yellow and green started showing up everywhere. People were drinking Fosters in the break room at all hours. Walking by any conversation between co-workers here, one could catch the tang of fake Australian accents, and it was a matter of course to hear the phrase "The h8ers can suck it."

Why Sam Kerr? What captured our imaginations?

We library employees are pretty civil people, not overly given to coarse language. And also we are in the USA where our team looks far more likely to triumph in this World Cup than a scrappy, mixed blessings Australian team with one great player instead of, let's see, seven, no, eight!

But here's the thing: These American women are great. They are admirable. They all seem like people who are going to do well in life. The look like they'd make good Vice Presidents, heads of marketing divisions, Directors of College Athletics Departments, big time Head Coaches. They seem like young, successful people, jocks, crisp and apple pie and strong and lean and off into the upper middle classes and beyond.

And good for them.

But Sam Kerr is easy to picture working at our library, angrily shelving away the afternoon, irritated beyond reason about misfiled items, muttering "h8ers!" to herself. One can naturally see her kicking our automated check in bins to get them working. It is no stretch to envision her here in our back room, grousing to her co-workers about some unpleasant patron, or the indignities of management, inappropriately uttering "they can suck it" as everyone awkwardly wanders away.

Media reviews are mixed at best about Sam Kerr's intemperate remarks. There were plenty of commentators ready to call her classless or claim she was distracting her team. But you gotta expect that kind of noise from the h8ers. We at the library take no particular stand on Sam's rustic expression. That's not the point. 

We simply recognize her somehow, for good or ill, as one of us.

In the final moments

 

As I write it is Sunday. This morning the worst heat of the city broke back a little, and we went out down to the beach to find a steady breeze blowing in. A bit of cloud cover helped too to keep us cool. It was even cool enough for us to sit in the famous blue chairs of the promenade to look out at the ocean. But it's not the same in the Summer as all the wildness and beauty of it gets covered over by the thousands of people frolicing on the shore, bobbing around in the tiny Summer waves, and boating about the sea in every possible size craft there is. When I'm not driven hostile by the heat I can see their good time and wish them joy in it, but I am always ready to walk on.

We went to the Cours Saleya market for some arugula at one of the sellers we like. I got a garlic, two onions, and some basil as well. At another seller I got an avocado and a surprisingly cheap french olive oil (8.50!), and at a third I bought a very nice looking lemon that was unreasonably expensive, but that's a little bit how they are out of season here.

We had coffee and I a pain au chocolat at the large italian restaurant/cafe on the market that we go to a lot lately enjoying its corner scene, large spaces, and agreeable bathroom. Afterwards we walked through the old town looking for assorted things we needed but didn't find to our satisfactions. With the old city exhausted we headed back through the long Paillon Park that was full of children playing in various spouts and sprays of water.

I took some pictures of flowers along the way in there, and since we've been home I've been playing with those. Though my modification style I developed for these pictures has lead me to employ it with all sorts of other images, I'll stick to my various flower pictures for today's display.

But tonight for me is The World Cup, and the truth is, a World Cup Final is a pretty big deal for me, and so some of what I'm doing today is simply waiting. I am curiously agitated and full of nerves. With the right attitude I could surely see this as winning either way. Although, alas, with the wrong attitude I lose either way.

I'll try to have the right attitude, but for whatever reasons I still have butterflies.

Predictions?

No thank you. If you've been following along in my World Cup coverage I started out with no predictions, developed predicting into a magic trick to alter the future, and now return back to no predictions. It's Schrodinger's World Cup after all. From my side, both teams won, but you, sometime on July 20th or later?

 

That is the winner that was always meant to be.

So let's just look at some flowers, and breathe.

Only one team wins a World Cup

 

This may be my last post about this world cup. Maybe not, but what else is there to talk about after this?

The final?

Okay, let's talk about the final right now.

For all my machinations about manipulating the future with my pessimism (which actually worked for once!), we have come to the end of the line. There are no more results to manipulate. Yes, there is another game, but, even understanding myself now as controlling fate, I don't know what to do with it. My magic power has become moot.

Going into this particularly thrilling and enormous World Cup of 48 teams, there were two teams that I loved. Two teams that I desperately wanted to do well. I was happy for some other teams to succeed to a point, and also a few teams I disliked greatly for various reasons that I wished failure upon, but there were only two teams in my heart, all pain and glory and desperate hopes.

There probably should only be one team, but when a person follows a sport with a great and avid interest for many years, and the sport is as sprawling as soccer, things can spread out a little. I have managed to keep to just one team in what is known as club soccer. I like to see other teams do well, but I only live and die on Barcelona. I am crushed when they lose, elated when they win. I love their history, though there is a lot of pain in it, their style of play, nearly all of their players, and, of course, their greatest player of all time, Messi.

But Messi has been gone for years now, and though the spectacle of his time in Miami is great fun, he has been, for maybe five years now, primarily Argentina's Messi. Meanwhile, in Barcelona, their brilliant young team is the backbone of the Spanish national team, with Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsi, Pedri, and Dani Olmo shining particularly bright in this World Cup, but with many other important Barcelona players in the team contributing at various levels. Indeed, Spain feels almost like an extension of my own Barcelona club team.

Argentina, Spain.

Even if you are barely paying attention to this world cup, those teams may be faintly familiar sounding to you about now. They are playing in the final Sunday.

Against each other.

Whispering behind my pessimistic plans and my conviction that all must be hopeless before France, was one insane, almost impossible seeming dream:

Spain vs Argentina.

What if it was Spain vs Argentina? 

Trust me. I didn't think about it. It felt like the faintest light could kill it. But there wasn't a single moment where I could fully keep it quiet.

But I guess I kept it dark enough, because here it is.

And now that I have it, Spain vs Argentina, I, who usually have some kind of an answer to everything, don't have an answer. And so I ask you.

I ask you!

I ask you:

Like the dog who chases cars, I have caught one.

What on earth do I do with this?

Mighty Casey

 

I fully expected France to win The World Cup.

And I can admit now that it is not just the phenomenal talent on the team: Dembele, Olise, Mbappe, etc., but it is also that, and this is important, I didn't want them to win.

I DIDN'T WANT THEM TO WIN!

It is a well known and classic strategy to concede the loss ahead of time in these sorts of situations. If one has already accepted defeat, the theory goes, then if one loses it is a mere continuation of the status quo, and if one wins?

It is the most glorious miracle of all time!

So, it is the most glorious miracle of all time then. 

Spain beat France.

Of course, this strategy only works well if one can make a reasonable case for being the underdog, if the neutral press and the bookies are strongly favoring the other side, and probably if the dread team, in this case France, has sailed with terrifying efficiency and sparkling brilliance through the Cup, while my team here, Spain, has merely... er, steadily improved? 

It should be noted that this method only works if you actually believe it. An eeyorish disposition is also a useful asset.

Because Spain looked like the most brilliant team in world soccer, and so also like a seriously better one than France in this semi final, it is worth remembering that this same Spain team kind of only got it together against Portugal when Portugal's best player, Nuno Mendes, went out injured, and then only really managed a win against Belgium when their best player, Thibaut Courtois, also went out injured. 

But I guess we should also note with the wisdom of hindsight, it might be a more ideal situation to start peaking late in the tournament, to improve, rather than to imperiously crush teams you just weren't going to lose to anyway.

Do you want to see me try this trick again?

Argentina is going to lose to England. 

I think they will. 

I believe they will.

Argentina took the opposite strategy to France, they came within a desperate hair's breadth of losing to all those teams they were "never" going to lose to. Like the proverbial nine lived cat, they have died more times than I can count.

I think they might be out of lives. 

And like a clock ticking down, I have been watching the great Messi's moments shrink. When I started watching him well over a decade ago now, there were 15 minutes of Messi magic a game. Through the years it dropped down to a few minutes a game, still amazing. Now, though they are still magical and brilliant, they can be measured in mere seconds.

It is getting very close to dwindling down to one, super dense molecule of the purest brilliance, and then blinking out all together.

Is this expectation of defeat a trick that magically makes it not happen, like with Spain and France?

Oh, I wish.

Messi near the end

 

It's an old feeling, and one that always made the joy of Messi so special. I can remember many times over the years of watching Messi, thinking, well, maybe not today. Maybe this isn't his day. And then from out of nowhere he would kick a goal in from 175 yards away while being sat on by 14 players from the other team.

That may be an exaggeration, but I hope you'll take my point.

And back then, say ten years ago, I would sort of know in the back of my mind that he would do something magical or amazing even if it was hard to see it happening. It was too much the way it always went in those days. And those little glimmers of lightning infested rainbows flicking off him out of the corner of your eye were... suggestive.

But now he is 39 years old. And, watching it all not working, it really is easier to believe it is over. 

This time, really, surely, it is over. And so it is easier to believe this is the last time because on can look at him and say: he is slower, he is older, he is not the same. 

Because he is older, and slower, and not the same, mostly.

And one day the day will come. It has to. It may even be in the quarter finals, the next game, or the one after, or the one after that, that day where the kicks go wrong, the dribble fails, and the game just... ends. And the magic takes its last sleep.

But it hasn't happened yet.

We got just one more again, one more moment, after a thousand just one mores.

It was fun.

Soccer is not justice

 

Some of my friends are watching the world cup. And some of them, unlike me, do not have tragic decades of obsessively watching and reading about soccer. So it's interesting to see their reaction to the sport, and particularly to the refereeing.

A lot of soccer comes down to the refereeing. 

This is because there are a ton of calls that can go either way. Most of them don't matter much. Some of them can decide the entire game. And there's everything inbetween. So naturally I want to help these friends with my wisdom. Maybe if I can find some it will help me too.

I came up with this:

Reality doesn't always necessarily determine the call, but the call always determines reality.

And if that's not clear, I am saying referees get it wrong sometimes. They might be unfair, misguided, too strict, too permissive, corrupt, or petty. A referee can be unfair by sticking ridiculously to a rule at the expense of the spirit of the rule, and they can be unfair by not enforcing the rules strictly and to the letter. And this I strongly believe is not like life; but once the referee has ruled and it's done, it is what happened.

The call determines reality.

One can be, for instance, to one's dying day, bitter about a clearly wrong call allowing a goal that cost their favorite team ever the world cup.

But it was a goal.

And that person's team lost the world cup.

Reality doesn't always necessarily determine the call, but the call always determines reality.

This is great! 

This is true!

This is wise!

Alas that I won't really be sharing this with anyone. 

It's not going to make anyone happy. 

And it will leave us all with nothing to talk about.

Super interesting notes on the weather, the world cup, and whatever else I think of

 

Hmmm....

Let's start with the weather. And I am not here to complain that it is hot.

Although, it is hot.

I really just want to tell you what I realized about the weather here on the Cote d'Azur.

It is not dynamic.

In fact, it's a bit boring.

I'm not sure how I feel about this, but I'd better explain:

The weather here will one day, just for example in the Fall, go to about 60 degrees, (or to almost 16 for my vast swath of new european readers. Bonjour, salaam, hei! cheers!), and then every single day for two months, with only the slightest variations, that will be the temperature. Then maybe some other time, like now, said local temperature will go to 90ish (or low thirties! Bonjour, howdy, konnichiwa!), and then the temperature just sits there for two or three months.

I still check the weather forecasts here, but more like an obsessive compulsive going home seven times to make sure the oven is off. Because, yes, for the eleventh time, the oven is off, and yes, it is still 91 degrees.

Now we will turn to the world cup!

I watch the world cup largely in replays. My one month canal plus bien sports subscription for 15 euros shows all the games, and then when they are done allows one to watch them when one wants to, in replay. This is very helpful as many games take place somewhere around midnight, or at three in the morning my time (for my european readers, that's just "three" because if it were the afternoon it would be "fifteen"! Buenos dias, shalom, mbote, ciao).

But these world cup games are not nearly as interesting if one knows the outcome, so until I can watch the games I have to be very careful not to find out what happened.

It is surprisingly easy to find out what happened!

The obvious way might, to use a recent example, be me seeing a text from an old friend saying "Wow, that French team looks unbeatable!" which pretty well assures that France has dismantled another lowly opponent and any feeble hope I might have had when watching the game that something even vaguely unexpected might have happened is now completely gone. But that really just spoiled what was a foregone conclusion. The worst real match spoiling I've experienced was the extremely interesting Netherlands vs. Morocco game. We had to do some morning shopping in the markets before I could see the previous night's game, and walking along in a city with not a completely insignificant Morroccan population, I suddenly started noticing an awful lot of Morocco team jersies being worn by all sorts of people.

A lot of Moroccan jersies.

On a lot of satisfied looking people.

"Uh-oh." I said.

I was right, though I'll admit my slight uncertainty helped as I watched.

And finally, could someone from the future come tell me that by some miracle France didn't win this World Cup? It is looking frighteningly inevitable.

Anyone?

Elimination round

 

After what surely must have been most of the games of the tournament, we have eliminated barely more than a quarter of the teams. But we knew that going in, and most of us are not disappointed. After all, it not only means that most of the teams any of us were cheering for across the world are still here, still with their shot, but also now we are well and truly settled in, easily and calmly adjusted to the turmoil and passions and disappointments of the tournament.

What tournament?

Oh, The World Cup. 

I guess I haven't mentioned it for a couple of days... and you... forgot.

Yes, it is still going on.

It is just a scant few weeks more.

Okay, we'll see you then, though at that point we may be talking about the Tour De France.

Ah, still with me, great. So here's what happened.

Turkiye and South Korea are out.

Yeah, that's about it. There were a couple of pleasant surprises about who made it through despite negative expectations, what with their gritty play, and defensive cohesiveness, but...

I've already almost forgotten their names.

Sorry, it was great while it lasted. And who knows, maybe DR Congo can pull off some sort of bizarre miracle against England, but I am afraid these little cinderella teams are already playing on borrowed time...

And, and! I have another advanced and controversial soccer proposition for you:

The glorified midfields mean nothing and the stars mean everything. 

This may seem obvious, as people tend to obsess about the skills of the stars in all sports. But there is a very strong contingent in soccer fandom and futbol analysis, that is inclined to elevate the strong team play and brilliant midfield control to the level of a deciding factor in games. And I am not saying they are wrong. Going forward, that may be exactly the case, but in the group play we have seen, the much vaunted midfields and team play of countries like Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands looked a little uncompelling through the qualifying period, whereas the star scorers; Messi, Dembele, Mpappe, Kane, Haaland, and Vinicius Jr. were everything that screamed the terror, inevitability, and capability these giant teams bring to the tournament going forward.

This is no prediction. It may all flip on its head going forward. Keep an eye on the early elimination round of 32 game between Japan and Brazil. If Japan can pull that one out it may mark the turning of the tide in this trend.

Or it may not.

But this is all just the cold analysis. Here comes the hard part:

I just didn't feel too bad about the scant few teams going home after the group stage. I mean, they had their chance. But now we are on the immediate eliminations. One game and you lose forever. I think we might be at the phase of the tournament where I am the most sad for all the many many countries who will be falling like flies.

So far, for me this is based on but one single game of this new phase, but there it is: Goodbye, dear South Africa. 

Um.

You tried.

 

Yearbook picture

 

I have been working on my Summer pictures for Clerkmanifesto, a little group shot of the cast of clerkmanifesto for this Summer. Just a moment for us to touch base here and gather ourselves at France's clerkmanifesto headquarters.

I don't have a definitive image yet. It eludes me, and also, there is a lot of soccer to watch.

Like, did you see Messi's brace?

I know that yesterday I said that trying to predict soccer is a fool's game. It doesn't exist until it happens. But then, to slap me down for my hubris, I had one of those moments of absolute conviction. Sometimes they are positive, sometimes negative. This was around Messi's penalty kick he missed. I knew he would miss it so completely that I hoped he would give the kick to the forward who was fouled, Lautaro Martinez.

He didn't and he missed the goal.

Luckily it didn't matter and the two goals? Well, you saw them.  And if you didn't. Thank you for your attention to this matter. But they were an expression of a treat I have been enjoying for 12 years. It's almost over now, but weird that it still isn't. Talk about unpredictable.

Meanwhile, I have these images in various odd states of completion. I offer them forward as the Summer cast of clerkmanifesto.

What goes around....

 

I don't want to hate so much in the world cup. But I can't help it. I get as invested negatively (Netherlands, Germany, Morocco, Ronaldo) as I do get invested positively (Spain, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Cote D Ivoire until they broke my heart) and I barely even know why it happens most of the time. Seeing Germany's come from behind victory against Cote d Ivoire was miserable but also, due to my dark pessimism, it felt horrifically inevitable. And that's the thing I'm trying to shake off here in the second round; a miserable fatalism.

The things I liked happening, the ones that everyone treats as inevitable and permanent will turn on their heads. I've seen it all happen before. And the things I didn't like are indications of inevitability and the path forward, which I've also seen happen. So Messi, hailed as he is with three goals in the first game, just means, in my Eeyorish heart, that we will see nothing more from him and little more from Argentina now, whereas Mbappe's goals indicate an unstoppable nature and another unstoppable French World Cup.

But I can no more predict a dark future than a bright one. And something good or bad happening is only a Schrodinger's Cat. 

It wasn't there all along. I must reembrace this:

Each soccer match is invented at its inception.

And so now I turn to Spain's second match. Will it be the lucid ineffectiveness of round one, or pure Spanish magic? Both are entirely true and whole, until I open the box...

What have we learned

 

Here are the top ten things we have learned very recently at clerkmanifesto!

10. The general titles and introductions in clerkmanifesto lately are just a thin disguise for more World Cup content.

9. It is too much work to watch four World Cup games a day and read and watch all its attendant commentary and yet write about anything other than The World Cup (see item "10").

8. While the "Ten item list" is a classic motif, it generally requires too many distinct points, causing most of these said lists to have a couple of filler items.

7. See "Number 8".

6. Round one of The World Cup demonstrated so far that the vaunted "greatest midfields in the world" (Spain, Portugal) are like absolutely nothing compared to "The greatest stars in the world" (Messi, Mbappe, Harry Kane, Haaland).

5. Brilliant and dedicated teamwork is essential and profoundly respected, but really so far only for the less talented, over-achieving teams (New Zealand, Cabo Verde, Congo).

4. It's possible for us to become insanely excited about tie games.

3. This actually should have probably been a five item list. It turns out that it is hard to learn anything when you just watch a lot of soccer.

2. For all this incredible amount we've learned (see items 10 through 3, but probably disregard items "10", "9", "8", "7", and "3") it is only round one that we've seen, and there is still room to defy what we've just witnessed: Messi could now show his age with Argentina then bogging down around him. Lamine Yamal could light fire and lead Spain to their expected brilliance, Ronaldo could weirdly start scoring goals like a man half his age, which, alas, according to form so far would be 26, Belgium could put in adored talisman Axel Witsel, Neymar could rise from the dead, maybe equipped with bionics?, and Mbappe could, er, Mbappe could, no, I can't say it. I think that Mbappe, and I am no great fan, might, at The World Cup, be inevitable.

1. The winner of round one was the highest and the lowest. Oh, and people tuning into clerkmanifesto thinking "Gosh, I hope he talks about soccer instead of shelving, or library management, or his weird France vacation which seems awfully long already! Who's registering library cards for him?

 

Old man performs trick with hat!

 

I would be delighted if today's post was about a clever busker, an old man on the streets of my city doing clever variations on classic tophat magician tricks. Maybe one can even toss in a euro coin to his hat in appreciation, and as it goes in it disappears, giving the magician a tragic air, as even when the crowd appreciates him it all goes wrong.

But no.

One of the weirdest twists to this city is how as the Summer tourism has heated up towards a kind of wild festive pitch, and a loose party seems to be carrying on day and night, especially by the sea, there are actually fewer buskers! The street musicians have not ALL gone quiet, but there are fewer of them even as the available audience for them has doubled. Even the begging seems to have gone down a notch. I can't figure it out.

"So," You wonder, "If it's not about an old street magician today, what is it about? Please tell me you're not going to be working in talking about the World Cup again!"

Ooops.

You cracked it.

You were probably just kidding about hoping it wasn't about The World Cup though, right? Because where are you going to learn about The World Cup if not on Clerkmanifesto? I mean, outside of all available media everywhere? Which, who in their right mind tunes into media now that it has ceased to be as accurate as...

clerkmanifesto.

So who is this old man from the title then? 

Lionel Messi, on the verge of turning 39, scored a hattrick in The World Cup! 

As we say in France, ohh la la!

We really do say that.

And it was a wonderful hattrick as well, defying the years. Two of the goals were brilliant shots from distance, and the third was a bit more of an opportunistic tap in off of the goalie's inefficient save from a previous shot. A narrow offsides and one terrific save is all that kept it from being five Messi goals!

 Plus, for bonuses, Messi stamped on some guy's calf, for which he could have gotten a red card, preventing him from getting any goals! But so far it isn't that kind of a World Cup, so a hattrick it was.

But that's just reportage. What does it all mean?

What tiny little thing further did we learn from day five or whatever day it is of this gigantically long World Cup?

Sorry, nothing much. 

Things were mostly to form today, including the greatest and most famous players in the world ostentatiously grabbing goals left and right. But watching the seven goals between Messi, Mpappe, and Haaland, though indeed very much to form and expectation, was also, I mean, spectacular. There is no reason to get so caught up in suprises that we don't appreciate expected wonders at least as much as watching underdogs overachieve. 

It all works.

What next?

As we go to press the last of the first games for everyone will have played out (I have just started watching Portugal v. Congo!). We get a look at the truly ancient Ronaldo and another goal scoring giant in Harry Kane of England. From there we start the second games and get a little more perspective. Were great performances a result of facing weak teams? Were poor ones the result of playing good ones and now the rust is shaken off?

No one knows. But now the guesses will start getting better.

The temporality of the world cup

 

In the millions of predictions of the World Cup that I studied in order to be prepared to walk you through it all here, it is astonishing how wildly off the rails all those predictions have turned out to be already, and we have barely begun! 

It is not just that one of the top favorites of the tournament, Spain, merely tied Cabo Verde who is ranked 64th, but also, in a less heralded upset, New Zealand eeked out a tie with Iran, which to the lay person might not seem impressive, but New Zealand were ranked 85th in the world! They had the lowest ranking in the tournament while Iran was pretty well regarded at 20. Indeed, the big story of the World Cup so far has been the draws. As I write more than half the already numerous games have ended in a tie score. Considering the great dig against this new cup format was that it weakens the pool of competitve teams and creates too many mismatches, that's pretty hilarious.

So what does it all mean?

Nothing much.

Yet.

As I have said before, this low elimination group stage is not really for key events, it's for all of us to kind of get the feel for the whole thing and to size everyone up. It's for creating little miracles for the "we're just elated to be here" teams and for the solid teams to get it together and hopefully work out their kinks, not mess up their seeds, and to prepare themselves.

Sure, so far these games have told us the USA will go farther than anyone thought, that Germany is now a key favorite, and that Spain, while talented, is toothless. Turkiye and Ecuador were overrated! New Zealand is better than anyone thought. The Netherlands have the worst coach. Goalies are the difference between miracle ties and slaughters. Morocco's success wasn't accidental, Brazil despite the fancy coach aren't there yet, and Belgium's reluctance to play Axel Witsel cost them the opening win. Oh, and Sweden's front line is absolutely devastating.

But these are all just appetizers. Not even appetizers, they are amuse bouches! These look like truth right now but they are all written in sand. The tide will come in and wash them away. Or the tide will etch them deeper. Or maybe it wash them away, come back, and put them there again, though perhaps slightly altered.

My prediction?

Sorry, not my thing as I find them oddly wrong even when they are right. But I do have advice, even if it be mostly to myself:

Sure, go ahead and enjoy an upset, however it comes, even in a draw.

And delight in Cinderella stories.

But keep an eye out for good soccer, and enjoy that even more.