World Cup Report

Plus, How To Cheat at Baseball and What I'm Working On Now

Jun 28, 2026

∙ Paid

I’ve been asked for my thoughts on the World Cup so I going to provide my analysis now that the Group Stage has completed. I’ve tried watching every game despite being unable to stay awake in any game ten minutes in. I have gone through pots of coffee.

I’m going to focus on only the most pertinent points, starting with Belgium, where I have many friends;

Belgium looks good. Sure, New Zealand is weak and doesn’t know their elbow from their ass, but no squad is passing better. Belgium doesn’t have a selfish superstar so we will find out if they can overcome that, not having a natural scorer with Messi-like magic. They have great players that are too generous with average shot-to-goal ratios. I like (Leandro) Trossard. I’d sit Timothy Castagne. I don’t like his performance. The goalkeeper, whose name I forgot, has been untested but he is world class. But what I like most about Belgium is they do less crying and rolling on the ground for fake penalties and goals than any other team.
USA vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina. This scares me. I have no idea who or where Herzegovina is. A total mystery. The game is Wednesday.
Turkey vs. Türkiye. Very excited to see US TV coverage embrace the name change. More exotic and should put an end to all the Dad jokes.
I had a lot to say, as usual, about the uniforms but I’m keeping this as brief as possible (I love all the fan-mail The Bob gets and the #1 compliment is that the newsletter is short & sweet.). Norway’s uniform may be the second best (behind’s Spain’s1) but the Nike swish really ruins everything. I cut out the other 6,000+ words on uniform commentary.

This was how excited the team was when they first put on the new uniform. Erling Haaland has the best goal-per-match ratio by any player and the most A’s in a surname in football history.

I know there are many who don’t care for football and would be interested in any other sport. For them I’m including below a piece I did on baseball and a sneak peek of things I’m working on in the paid subscriber section.