the wide cuts to the gimps in the VAR room always crack me up. why are so on serious and on edge. at ease, soldiers

Cape Verde centre back Roberto 'Pico' Lopes has spent his entire career in Ireland, ignored a LinkedIn message from Cape Verde FA asking him to play for them because it was in Portuguese. A year later, they sent it in English. He accepted. An all-time great World Cup story.

americans astound me. not cus of their ignorance, that’s a given. but how brazen and almost proud they are of it. what a breed of people

producers best be getting cameras straight to the crowd to get the spanish children in tears

Auto translate from Spanish FT is gonna make my whole night

if cape verde could somehow slime a winner here

very much enjoying the cartoon ridiculousness of new york atm

Qatar-Switzerland is very ‘finish your vegetables or you can’t have any Brazil-Morocco pudding’.

USA. A Mexican restaurant. We had not yet ordered anything, and the food was already arriving. Chips. Salsa. Unrequested. Free. I stopped the waiter. "We have not earned these." "They just come with the table, man." They come with the TABLE. In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner. This is not an appetizer. This is a declaration: we trust you. Eat. I ate with the gravity the moment deserved. And then — I must report this calmly — the basket emptied, and a new one appeared. "Did we…?" "Refill," the waiter said. "It's bottomless." Bottomless. They have wells of salsa. The supply lines of this nation are beyond anything my ancestors imagined. My friend warned me. "Don't fill up on chips, dude." Too late. I had accepted three baskets. Honor demanded each one be finished — an unfinished gift is an insult. By the time my actual food arrived, I was a ruined man. I was not hungry. I was not comfortable. I had been defeated by a courtesy. Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived. I know the rule now. I have made my peace with the basket. One basket. Two at the most. Who am I deceiving. There is no number of baskets I would refuse. The trust of a nation is in that salsa, and I intend to honor all of it.

and the canadian crowd erupts in a unanimous “hooray!”

a stadium countdown for kick off? they make me sick

the theatrics of this world cup are mind numbingly yankidoodle

lord’s work

it’s actually sickening of FIFA to have the last three world cups, in my prime years to enjoy or possibly even attend, to be in: russia: tyrannical qatar: during uk winter, every modern morale violation USA: hideous match times, tyrannical, every modern morale violation

it’s so great that i get to be a hater for madueke for both club and country

better signing and player than declan rice, they said.

truly on course for the worst world cup of all time

this might actually the best bet running bit i’ve seen in football

a serious case of world cup fever