An Aside
World Cup 2026 First Thoughts
So occasionally I’m going to just treat this like a personal blog and talk about something that’s on my mind in a more informal way. And today that is Soccer!
The World Cup Draw was yesterday, and the USA really pulled out a winnable group. Paraguay and Australia will both be difficult games but both one would expect the US to win, especially at home. Then the US is given UEFA C, of which probably Türkiye is the best team? Maybe Slovakia? None of those teams are really scary though.
I then made the mistake of looking excitedly at knock out round scenarios and, oops. This is where it gets really sticky. Now there are scenarios where the US avoids the third place team in Group I, but that is the most likely outcome. And one of France, Senegal, or Norway are going to be the third place team from I. Ouch.
So, probably round of 32 for the US, going out valiantly to an Illiman N’Diaye or Erlang Haaland goal. The quest to repeat 1930 and make the semi-finals continues.