The addition of the Round of 32, for all of its faults, resulted in countries making the knockouts that, in any World Cup before this one, would not have dreamed of such a thing. Of course, this makes reaching the knockouts far less impressive; but the achievement still feels significant for these nations—being Congo, Cape Verde, Canada, and Bosnia. While Canada made it past an unimpressive South Africa team and Bosnia was humbled in a … let’s say controversial game against the U.S., Cape Verde and Congo both came close to making World Cup history in these first-ever Round of 32 matches. I’m going to cover the Cape Verde game in the next part of this write-up series, since it’s part of Argentina’s run and the one match I actually attended, so this section will mainly cover the Congo and Japan games.

Unfortunately, however, I didn’t watch that much of the Congo game. In another display of hubris and ignorance, I thought “well, that’s going to be depressing,” and chose not to tune in. I was also at the airport, but that’s no excuse. After hearing about Mpasi’s performance and the 1-0 scoreline from some friends, I tuned in for large portions of the second half, alternating between the huge, uncomfortable TV screens they had at the airport and my small, also uncomfortable phone screen, for what was in the end a butt-clenching (and, indeed, uncomfortable) viewing experience. While Congo defended extremely well, Harry Kane’s first goal in the 75th minute felt like the beginning of the end, considering that they hadn’t shown much offensive capacity since Yoane Wissa’s heartbreaking miss. It just made me sad to watch, really: England is possibly the most easily-detested footballing nation for someone of my demographic and beliefs, and watching them crumble to a team they had surely completely underestimated would have been extremely satisfying. That said, I’m glad England went out the way they did in the end instead.

One game I did choose to watch was the one between Japan and Brazil. Japan had been one of the most exciting countries I had seen in the group stage, and I wanted to watch Brazil fumble (or, at least, see if Ancelotti would finally play Endrick). And, goddamn. They almost did. Zion Suzuki, much like Lionel Mpasi would a few days later, put on a masterclass against a supposed football giant and made Brazil’s world-class attack look thoroughly average. While it came completely against the run of play, Kaishū Sano’s goal around the half-hour mark was easily one of the most beautiful in the whole tournament. Unfortunately, it was also one of the few goals scored by a rapist at this World Cup, and, while I was rooting extremely heavily for Japan and could put that aside to appreciate the finesse in his goal, I think it is worth it to acknowledge the kinds of behavior that football players get away with; Sano was arrested, but never convicted, though he later admitted to raping a woman in a press conference. And just a year later, he returned to the Japan squad for World Cup qualifiers—luckily, the coach said he was “remorseful,” so, no harm done.

That whole out-of-the-game debacle really complicates my feelings on its second half. Zion Suzuki, who, as far as I know, is an innocent man, kept on making great saves, stifling Brazil’s attack and even forcing Carlo Ancelotti to play his secret trap card, but he was eventually beaten by Casemiro. The 1-1 result held for most of the second half, and it looked like Japan would be able to hold on all the way until penalties, but that’s a rare occurrence for a reason; it is nearly impossible for a team to take on attack after attack for that long. Eventually, they will crumple, and, unfortunately for the viewers at home, this happened at the 90th minute rather than afterwards, robbing us of 30 more minutes of nail-biting football. Oh well. At the very least, the match resulted in the elimination of Kaishū Sano and showed the cracks in Brazil’s game that would eventually lead to their loss at the hands of Haaland & Friends.

While there many standout features of this first-ever Round of 32—the many upsets and almost-upsets, the inexplicable collapse of Africa’s so-far-impressive World Cup performance, the great goals, the sheer impossibility of keeping up with and watching every game—the thing that stuck with many fans the most was, rightly or wrongly, VAR’s outsized presence in these games. Two refereeing decisions stand out in particular, though it’s not like the refereeing outside of them was without controversy: of course, referees are always going to piss 50% of people off, but the World Cup’s constant switch-ups between extremely lax and extremely harsh decisions ruffled the feathers of many first-time American football fans, and probably affected the players and coaches quite a bit, too. And, with VAR, every refereeing decision is scrutinized and played on repeat until it starts to look off. It’s a great system, and one definitely worth losing the ability to confidently celebrate goals for!

I think it’s needlessly conspiratorial to claim that Croatia’s disallowed goal was part of a FIFA conspiracy to create a Messi-Ronaldo final. But … if I was Croatian, maybe I’d be singing a different tune (tune in in a few days for my Unbiased and Correct opinions about the refereeing in the final 🙂). A 94th minute Gonçalo Ramos header was already heartbreaking enough. The goal did add more minutes to the increasingly unreliable extra time, though, and a great Ivan Perišić setpiece miraculously bounced its way to Joško Gvardiol in the 103rd minute—and in the middle of what I’m sure were earth-shaking celebrations in the streets of Zagreb, disaster struck in the form of a certain Video Assistant Referee.

This time, FIFA came prepared with a brand-new weapon; a contact sensor inside the ball, a piece of technology that had managed to not matter at all until the latest hour in one of the most stressful knockout games in the country’s history. And what was this technological marvel’s great contribution? A shitty little chart on the bottom left corner of the broadcast, with an unlabeled Y axis showing a spike, which presumably corresponded to an Igor Matanović touch that, to human eyes, clearly did not happen. If there was a touch (that is, if the magical sensor that had not appeared in any broadcast until this one and was mysteriously missing during England-Norway is to be trusted), it did not affect the ball’s trajectory in any way. And yet, the touch caused Mario Pašalić to be considered offside (even though he was onside when the ball was passed to him), thus disallowing Croatia’s goal in what can only be described as the most uncontroversially incorrect VAR decision ever made. I don’t speak Portuguese, so I can’t be sure, but I honestly doubt that even Portuguese fans were defending that call. Seeing the heartbreak all over a 40-year-old Modrić’s face certainly didn’t make it suck any less. For a country that made it to the final eight years ago and the semi-final four years ago, a round of 32 exit feels incredibly harsh, especially one like this.

And while Croatia suffered from the aforementioned fault in our VARs, neighboring Bosnia was benefitting from them. Not greatly—they were already 1-0 down and looked no better against 10 men than they did against 11—but still. Folarin Balogun, who had already scored a goal in that very match and looked like the most important player for the US throughout the entire tournament, stepped on a Bosnian player’s ankle on a routine challenge, where neither player was injured or seemed particularly hurt. It was similar to Messi’s challenge against Algeria, only less intentional and lighter. Still, it (apparently) merited a look-over from VAR. And it turns out that when you look at a foul in slow-motion, it sure looks incredibly painful. Who knew? Anyway, this revision resulted in Balogun being sent off in what was the most unfair red card of the World Cup until … well, you know.

I really, really hated the US this tournament. I was rooting against them every step of the way. When they played Paraguay, I ate a Panini sticker of Timothy Weah to try to cast a hex on the team, which didn’t seem to work and only resulted in me freaking out for a few hours afterwards. But even I can acknowledge that that red card was total bullshit. Does that justify the insane social media blow-up and, more importantly, the involvement of a sitting U.S. president in sporting decisions? Not at all. But, wow, that wasn’t even close to a red card.

I don’t necessarily believe that VAR is bad for the beautiful game. It has its flaws, but there is a world in which it can be applied justly, evenly, and without all the bullshit that accompanies every referee-drawn square. The Round of 32, though, showed the absolute worst of what technology can do for football. Rather than quieting controversy around refereeing decisions, it seems that the use of “objective” technology only casts more doubt on them. And when this “objective” technology makes obvious mistakes to the detriment of millions or even billions of fans, it’s no wonder that so many of us groan whenever we’re forced to remember that it exists.

It really has been a World Cup for goalkeepers. For defense in general, really; Paraguay’s performance against Germany was nothing short of magnificent. Did they play dirty? Yes. Paraguay is a country with less than a 10th of Germany’s population, a far shallower talent pool, and a severe lack of resources in comparison. Of course they played dirty. They did what they had to do to win, and, though Europeans might bitch about it, their upset win over Germany represented a great victory for CONMEBOL in the worst stage. That a relative minnow could defeat a nation that won the World Cup just twelve years ago just by hunkering down, defending, and forcing them to play the game, is not only a victory for the strategy that some might term haramball, but also one for all such minnows. Maybe I’m just attached to Paraguay because the way they played reminded me of what Uruguay used to be in my childhood; maybe I just really, really like to see European fans complain on the Internet.

This result came as a great shock to those of us that had only watched Paraguay get slaughtered by the US in their opening game. While their pre-World Cup performance had been great, their team lacked star power (aside from maybe Julio Enciso)—for some perspective, the majority of Paraguay’s players play in the Paraguayan, Argentine, and Brazilian leagues, while only three German players play outside of the European top 5 leagues. It wasn’t even close to a fair fight; but when it comes to bouts between Europe and South America, it rarely is. The gulf in quality between European leagues and Latin American leagues has only widened as every half-decent prospect gets poached sooner and sooner, while even mediocre English teams make hundreds of millions more dollars a year than Brazil and Argentina’s best. Anyhow—about Paraguay’s performance. After the US game, they put on a heroic show against Turkey, holding on to a 1-0 lead while being down a man from the end of the first half, having become the very first victim of the Prestianni Law. And I guess they drew against Australia, too. Either way, Paraguay had not conceded a goal for two matches in a row, and their defensive record carried into their game against Germany, an affair that probably bored many neutrals but one that I absolutely adored.

It was great to watch Germany’s attackers become more and more exasperated as Orlando Gill, who had not been paid a salary for months and had previously been forced to sell all his goalkeeping equipment to pay for his daughter’s medical complications, appeared again and again to stifle the efforts of a damn-near-billion-dollar attack. Of course, Paraguay’s defenders did a great job, too, and while they hunkered down from the first minute to the last, Julio Enciso as basically a sole attacker managed to create enough pressure to force a corner and then a goal. While Germany would soon get their own goal to return to a draw, the game would remain as such for another 66 minutes. Well, almost: there was a goal from Jonathan Tah, but it was disallowed because German players were swarming Orlando Gill and preventing him from fairly challenging for the ball, a technique very common in the Premier League and in other large leagues but one completely banned at this World Cup. I can’t lie: it’s hilarious to see Germany’s goal disallowed for playing dirty after their opponents played dirty for 120 minutes straight. Good shit.

Then came the penalty shootout, where Orlando Gill saved penalties from Kai Havertz and Nick Woltemade, surely cementing his status as a legend in Paraguay (and, dare I say, in all of Latin America), while his teammates converted their first three penalties. However, two consecutive misses resulted in the shootout going to sudden death, for which Germany apparently had no plan—the broadcast showed two of their players refusing to go up to take the decisive penalty, and it was ultimately Jonathan Tah that stepped up for his country.

He promptly shot the worst penalty I’ve ever seen in my life. Thus, Germany fell earlier than expected for the third consecutive World Cup in a row, while Paraguay scored their first ever knockout goal and advanced to the round of 16, where they would have to face … France. Shit.

It was too good to be true. My love for Paraguay, the many bad memories I have attached to France at the World Cup, the great conflict between Europe and Latin America all added up to make this a must-watch game for me; one that I needed Paraguay to win. Or rather, take to penalties again. They almost did it, too: with less than 25% of the ball, Paraguay managed to keep France entirely out of the box (and thus almost entirely non-threatening) for the majority of the game, a strategy that only collapsed when Desiré Doué came on and decided to, you know, actually dribble. He drew a penalty, which Mbappé scored (not without some shithousing by Paraguay’s defenders), and it just made me wonder: why the fuck didn’t any of their world-class, Ballon D’Or-level dribblers do that sooner?

All in all, it was a pathetic performance from France. Mbappé, who’d go on to become the World Cup’s highest goalscorer of all time (albeit through what’s basically a friendly) could barely sniff the ball against a defense composed of players from San Lorenzo and Olimpia. Of course, it was a very physical performance, but, these are players that have faced teams like Getafe, Atlético Madrid or Arsenal many times: being able to outskill dirty play is part of what makes you a true great of the game. Though I suppose they did win in the end. Unfortunately, the match itself was soon overshadowed by the poisonous discourse surrounding it.

For one, every European and American media outlet rushed to criticize the referee’s performance and Paraguay’s dirty play, which, if you’ve seen Latin American teams before, is an entirely unsurprising angle to take, though a stupid and tired one. Mbappé’s refusal to shake Orlando Gill’s hand at the end of the match came off as … let’s see … selfish, childish, egotistical, we can maybe even sprinkle xenophobic in there? It was a very shitty thing to do, is my point. Of course, that does not justify the racist rant Paraguayan congresswoman Celeste Amarilla (great name, by the way) went on—but can I be honest for a second? Mbappé’s response to it, as shitty as the statements were, really hit a nerve for me. Him calling the Paraguayan players “passionate and honorable” mere days after refusing to shake their hands and calling them out as dirty just pissed me off frankly. It’s honestly kind of impressive that Mbappé came out of an online spat with a racist politician not looking like a morally-perfect hero.

(Wow, my biases really, really showed in this section. I feel the need to emphasize that Celeste Amarilla’s statement was abhorrent. I just happen to also detest Kylian Mbappé’s public persona and behavior. Fuck ’em both.)

God, for all the hype around it, Spain-Portugal was a terrible game. Basically nothing happened for 90 minutes; Portugal’s solid build-up only resulted in chances missed by their 41-year-old rapist-in-chief, admittedly aided by some very solid Spanish defending, the still-unbeaten Unai Simón only had a few impressive saves, and, on the other end of the field, Spain only really managed to create a few incisive passes, most of which ended up at Álex Baena’s feet, or, more accurately, multiple feet in front of him. It turns out that football becomes less interesting when both teams have slow strikers that simply can’t get to the ball, no matter how world-class their creators (Vitinha, Pedri, Bruno Fernandes, Lamine Yamal, etc.) may be. While it was perhaps the most 0-0-coded game of all time, a late winner gave Spain the honor of ending Cristiano Ronaldo’s World Cup career. Glad it’s over; thank you for nothing.

All the Ronaldo hate/slander/whatever-it-is has been one of my favorite parts of this World Cup, to be honest. Some of the funniest stats include: he never took more than two shots in a World Cup knockout game, he never scored a single non-penalty knockout goal, he had seventeen shots with zero created chances, he has not attempted a dribble in 9 matches or completed one in 15, and, on multiple matches, he had less final-third touches than rape cases. While he will no doubt be remembered as a great of the game, Ronaldo’s later years have been marked by failure more often than by success, and his refusal to make way for younger players or act like a real leader for Portugal has significantly hampered the trophy-winning potential of one of the best teams in the world. More importantly than that, he is a veritable piece of shit, which is why I’m so gleeful about his World Cup career’s abrupt, unexciting, and wholly predictable end.

Where was I? Boring games. Sorry. I only watched forty-five minutes of so of Colombia-Switzerland, but it felt like an eternity. The quality of the shots (and of the play in general) was dreadful, and it was almost impossible to remain attentive for a game that had so little in it. It felt like how people that don’t like football describe football. Extra time went on in the background as I opened Panini stickers, and it got so bad that I would leave for the bathroom for what felt like ten minutes, come back, and find that only one minute had passed. The silver lining is that the penalty shootout was awesome. Manuel Akanji and Davinson Sánchez had some of the worst attempts at goal I’ve ever seen, the latter having perhaps the unluckiest bounce of a non-Jabulani ball in the history of the World Cup. Also, what is it with defenders taking penalties? Jonathan Tah also had an atrocious penalty that cost Germany their World Cup dreams. Gabriel took a terrible penalty this year (sorry to keep bringing this up) … defenders aren’t good at shooting, people! That’s why they’re defenders!

I also just realized that (by my count) there were 6 missed penalties in the round of 16. Also considering Mbappé’s just a few days later, it certainly hasn’t been the best World Cup ever for those seemingly guaranteed goals.

Considering the ease with which the U.S. slid past Bosnia just days before, while Belgium only beat Senegal due to a late collapse and a controversial last-second penalty, I would not blame Americans for being optimistic about this game. In fact, I heard quite a few American friends of mine say that this game was not only winnable, but one that should be won; Belgium had struggled through their run, drawing against Egypt and Iran while the U.S. trampled such footballing giants as Bosnia, Paraguay, and Australia. But what the demographic that discovered football two months ago failed to realize, and what would eventually come to bite them in the ass, is that a golden generation like Belgium’s wouldn’t go out without putting up a fight.

All this is prelude to the one thing people were actually discussing before this game: what the hell’s going on with the Balogun situation? OK, there was a bogus red card, and an ensuing social media campaign to rescind it, but that happens every tournament … surely FIFA isn’t actually considering overturning it? And now Trump is getting involved? It’s become a Politics Thing? Is he trying to curry favor from the USMNT’s broadly left-wing fanbase, or is this some sort of geopolitical power move? And Infantino listened?

Like I said earlier, Balogun’s red card was completely undeserved. I’m also somewhat partial to under-the-table dealings when it comes to helping your country win at the World Cup. But could they have made the corruption a little less obvious? The only other time such a red card has been annulled was with Ronaldo, whose initial offense didn’t even take place at the World Cup itself, so it flew under everybody’s radar. Meanwhile, the Balogun situation was monitored by every media outlet and World Cup watcher, and Trump’s involvement in it was far from secret: the Belgian FA was right to feel very hard-done by this all. At least other World Cup countries with similar levels of corruption and influence to Trump’s government aren’t good enough to make the knockouts in the first place, so if they were to do something like this, it wouldn’t really matter.

So, yay Trump. He won. America’s talisman was back in the action, in an almost-unprecedented overturned red card that raised a fair share of eyebrows. Surely, with the Belgian team surely rattled by the news and the Americans overjoyed to have their starlet back, it would be an easy romp to the quarter-finals.

It only took nine minutes for Belgium to score. It was not their first shot on goal, nor was it particularly flukey; their attack simply outclassed the US’ defense at every turn. While a frankly beautiful Malik Tillman free kick gave the hosts some hope, anybody with a basic understanding of the sport and/or functioning eyes was not surprised by Belgium’s fast and ruthless response. The nail in the coffin came less than 15 minutes into the second half, when Matt Freese ran out of his box to stop a Belgian counterattack, tried his best to dribble, and immediately passed it directly to Hans Vanaken, in a goalkeeping error that would make even Muslera blush. To make things even worse, captain Tim Ream managed to intercept the ball, but the redirected shot still landed in the back of the net.

I’m not quite sure if Belgium’s third goal was the funniest goal of this World Cup. Was I not Uruguayan, I’d say that either of Muslera’s blunders against Cape Verde were comparatively funny. There were probably some hilarious goals in the matches that I didn’t see—but surely Vanaken’s goal is at least in the top three. The fact that Belgium scored another goal to finish with a 4-1 scoreline barely even registered. And in a show of respect for FIFA or for his opponents, Folarin Balogun played the entire game as though he was still suspended. What a great guy.

When Brazil and Norway played, I was on the plane back home after going to Miami for Argentina’s round of 32 game. Thanks to free in-flight wifi and the little screen thingies (are they called entertainment centers?) on the back of the seats, I got to watch the first half of the game and discuss it with my friends—the in-flight broadcast was extremely delayed, which meant I knew Bruno’s penalty was missed before it even happened on my screen, a very, very odd experience. Between Bruno and Gabriel, it has been a terrible year for Brazilians taking penalties.

After that gut-punch, Brazil played with very little spirit, seemingly already resigned to a humiliatingly early exit. Because I was busy deplaning, I sadly missed the last twenty minutes of the game, which is to say, when literally everything of interest happened. Without having much more to say about the game itself, I’d like to use my soapbox to sing the praises of Brazilian Twitter, the true MVP of this World Cup. I guess Endrick just really, really wanted to beat Norway?

It was never going to be an easy game for Morocco, facing an injury to one of their best attacking players and coming off unconvincing displays against Canada and the Netherlands. That, and they were facing a team that could afford to put Desiré Doué on the bench. With this in mind, a 2-0 scoreline really isn’t too bad, and the highest-placing African country for the second World Cup in a row should be pretty happy with a quarter-final exit.

Morocco was, so far, the second-closest team to vanquishing France, keeping Mbappé quiet for a full hour thanks to further Bono heroics, including a penalty save on what was pretty clearly a dive. (I don’t really want to get into the stupid FIFA corruption debate here, but it is undeniably funny that people complained when completely fair calls went in Argentina’s favor against Egypt but I haven’t heard a peep after an Argentinian referee gave France a penalty off a dive. Also, fuck Mbappé for diving, but that’s a given.) They achieved this feat in a similar way to Paraguay, which is to say, by staying back and praying. Considering these last two games, it does seem that extremely defensive play is the only way for teams to truly compete with France; I just worry that Luis De La Fuente won’t be pragmatic enough to commit to such a style. Maybe Scaloni would be, but the prospect of facing France in another final is … well, it would be fun for neutrals.

The only positive takeaway from this game, as far as I’m concerned, is that Morocco’s exit means that the last alleged rapist (at least of the ones I’m currently aware of) is officially out of the World Cup. Between that and the AFCON fiasco, the darlings of Qatar really fell off in likeability.

After Norway’s surprise win over Brazil, I was quite excited to watch Erling Haaland go all the way. Had I been rooting against Norway, and therefore Haaland, in damn near every game before this one? Yes. Does that matter? No. I wanted Norway to beat England—because fuck England, for one, but also because they would’ve been an easier opponent for Argentina in the semis. That, and the more Haaland carries a terrible Norway team that relies almost entirely on him and Ødegaard, the funnier Ronaldo’s failure to do anything in the World Cup knockouts becomes. You could say I had an agenda; unfortunately, FIFA had other ideas.

The game got off to a great start, with both teams creating a few big chances in the first half-hour. The first goalkeeper to buckle under the pressure, though, was Jordan Pickford, who was caught completely off-guard by what looked like a clear cross from Andreas Schjelderup. It was a goal in a similar mold to Cape Verde’s extra-time equalizer against Argentina, and, just like that goal, Schjelderup’s surely has to be a contender for the best goal of the tournament. I mean, it was sudden, it was magical, it was a great strike, it was against England … what more could you want? Alas, just before half-time, Ørjan Nyland fumbled a goal kick, leading to an England possession that led to a Jude Bellingham goal. Or … did he?

I’m not going to pretend that I suspected anything during the goal itself. It made me sad, of course, but I did not suspect foul play. But upon watching the replays … yeah, Nyland’s ball totally hit a spiderman cable. This directly led to the trajectory of the ball that ended up in England’s hands, and, well, you know the rest. Such a small thing could never be caught by a referee, but that’s why we have VAR!

VAR?

… VAR?

Where … are you?

When the world needed it most, VAR vanished. But there was still hope in the ball sensors that had spelled Croatia’s doom mere days before; if FIFA’s new technology could detect a hair grazing the ball, it would surely detect the interference of a wire. Right?

Unfortunately, we’ll never know. Play was not stopped, nor were any broadcasts, and no unlabeled graphs appeared. As far as anybody outside the VAR room is concerned, the ball’s sensors didn’t detect anything at all. Which is obviously bullshit, though in which direction I’m not sure: were the sensors manipulated to make Portugal win, or were they ignored to make England win? It could be either—but something fishy definitely happened, adding even more fuel to the FIFA corruption dumpster-fire that the World Cup knockout stages have become. Luckily, Norway scored early into the second half … but, what’s this? I’m getting word that VAR has made its glorious return, to fuck Norway over one final time! Folks, it’s beautiful. It appears that Erling Haaland fouled one of England’s defenders during the corner routine, leading to the goal being disallowed. The issue with this being: every corner has dozens of small fouls between attackers and defenders as they jostle for space. If you invoke VAR, it’s almost impossible not to find a foul in the build-up to a corner. It didn’t affect Jordan Pickford, so, in my view, the goal should have stood. Unless it was scored against my team, in which case, FIFA made the right call for once.

While the game went to extra time, Norway’s rotten luck throughout seemed to have doomed them from the moment their winning goal was disallowed. The team played without passion, without spirit, and, for a significant portion of extra time, without Haaland. Not to mention that the inexplicable decision to sub off Norway’s best player came after Bellingham completed his brace, meaning that Norway was a goal down in the 105th minute. Was Haaland good this game? Not really. But, come the fuck on, it’s Erling Haaland we’re talking about. The only chance Norway had to bring the game back to a draw was through him, and, the moment he was subbed off, England’s win was all but guaranteed.

That said, Norway’s run was still fantastic. They came out of a tough group with 6 points and Haaland finished his first World Cup with seven goals in five games. He’s only 26, so I would not be surprised to see him carry Norway to a similarly impressive placement in one or two more World Cups. Hopefully, the next time he faces a tough opponent, he remembers to check in with FIFA about whether or not the ball sensors are on that day.

Spain really has not been great so far. Sure, they hadn’t conceded a goal until this game. They scored 5 goals against Saudi Arabia and 3 against Austria. But watching them has just been … sort of drab. Throughout their entire run, including this game, it’s seemed like their attackers are dead-set on not finishing the plays their world-class midfielders set up for them. The goals this game were pretty aesthetically pleasing, but it didn’t feel as though Spain had the kind of quality they’d need to make it past Belgium until their world-class goalkeeper was injured and replaced by a definitely non-world-class Lemmans. As for Belgium, being the first team to score on Spain is no small feat, and they had quite a few great chances even after Spain scored the winner. Two games ago, it seemed like their golden generation would go out on a humiliating round of 32 loss; after a miraculous recovery and a thumping of the hosts, a close 2-1 against Spain in the quarter-finals feels like a great way to end it. Players like De Bruyne, Lukaku, Witsel, Courtois, or maybe even Trossard and Tielemans said goodbye to their World Cup careers with this game, though it definitely didn’t carry the sort of emotions that the end of a golden generation usually does (at least from my perspective). Maybe it’s because Vertonghen, Fellaini, Alderweireld, and Kompany already retired?

I made patatas bravas for this game. They were great! Worth missing almost half of it working in the kitchen.

To be clear; this was a really good match. Spain played beautiful tiki-taka (which, for some reason, the Telemundo commentators insisted on referring to as “tik-tak-boom” football), especially on the second goal, and, even more notably, played a tight, impenetrable defense against the supposed strongest attack in world football. Like I said after the Paraguay and Morocco games—defensive football is the only thing capable of stopping France, and that it did. There was some controversy in the game with the early penalty call in Spain’s favor seeming a little suspect, but I don’t think it was a ridiculous penalty to give, even if it wasn’t really Digne’s fault that it happened. Accidental handballs get called just as often as intentional ones, after all, and he did kind of kick Lamine Yamal in the face. Oops. While a closer game might have been more interesting, I did really enjoy watching Spain systematically destroy France’s attack (and can only hope they don’t do the same to Argentina in the final).

But yeah, getting back to the title of this section: has Lamine Yamal done anything this World Cup? I mean, I know he started off injured, so a poor group stage performance was nothing out of the ordinary (and, besides, it was fitting next to the rest of Spain’s team), but, besides a goal against Saudi Arabia and 6 shots against Austria and Belgium (none of which went in), he’s been surprisingly quiet, considering how much he has been hyped up as Spain’s talisman, and how good he’s been for Barcelona. Of course, playing in your first World Cup is never easy, and the pressure on Lamine Yamal is probably part of why he has been so absent—but it seems to me that the kind of player that doesn’t thrive in pressure is not the kind of player that’s ready to win a World Cup. Against France, while he had an offside goal and drew the first penalty, most of his offensive plays were stifled well before they began, and it was players like Dani Olmo, Pedro Porro, and Mikel Oyarzabal that carried Spain’s offense in his stead. Also, he committed three fouls, including a very hard tackle on Mbappé that smelled suspiciously like beef. Maybe I’ll look stupid in a week’s time, but, yeah, it’s not been Lamine Yamal’s World Cup, at least not the way people expected it to be. Unfortunately, because he is an attacker for a finalist team, he is going to receive part of its accolades, and will probably win the Golden Boy award; but, let’s all be honest here, it would be beyond undeserved for him to do so.