Silly posts

 You may recall me telling you about silly games the other day. It falls to me today to inform you that that was a silly post.

A silly post, you won't be surprised to learn, is a post that contains an incongruous juxtaposition. In this case, the incongruously juxtaposed elements were the silky elegance of my prose and the clunking failure of my forecasting.

For in this post, I implied that the result of the Spain Cabo Verde game was a foregone conclusion. In the event, mighty Spain (population 49.6 million, first in the world football rankings) and mightless Cabo Verde (population 533,000, ranked 62nd) played out a remarkable goalless draw.

'Silky elegance? Fuck off', is probably your first response to this thinly veiled humblebrag. The point, though, is that I was wrong wrong wrong. I followed that up by also being wrong about Ecuador v Curacao, another goalless draw where the team from the island paradise stood in their own area kicking the ball away for ninety minutes while the continental juggernauts mysteriously failed to turn Champions League sized wage packets into goals. Fortunately this time I had the gumption not to tell you all about it in advance.

Both games were bloody marvellous, actually. So much in football happens at the point where capitalism and arithmetic meet that it's honestly thrilling when just for once it's the merry band of outlaws that shine.  It wasn't quite like Robin Hood because Robin Hood didn't scrape a draw then have to play Uruguay, but by the standards of the real world it was delightful. Of course in the real world the dust settles and Alan Rickman is still in charge, but that's a battle for another day.

Probability theory still applies, and 22 of the 24 victories so far have gone to the higher team in the rankings. There have been some impressive draws (I was very taken with Morocco's performance in their draw against Brazil), but no surprise eliminations as yet.

Spain will probably be fine, they have to play Saudi Arabia this afternoon then Uruguay on Friday evening (early Saturday morning for us), and will still be favourites for both games. Ecuador have to beat Germany in their last game or they'll be flying home early. The only positive I can find for them is that their manager has a lovely head of hair on him. That won't save his job, but at least when he's feeling sad and rejected he'll have something to comb, which gives him the edge on the guy he replaced.

In other news, I'm having a lot of fun watching this tournament. I hope you are too.

Comments

  1. Anonymous22 June 2026 at 17:42

    I’m having a lot of fun reading your blog, Jon!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jon Eccles26 June 2026 at 06:03

    Thanks, Anonymous. You're the reader I always have in mind.

    ReplyDelete

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