FIFA World Cup 2026

Today (July 19, 2026) the 23rd iteration of the World Cup ended. This was a unique tournament this time increasing the amount of teams to 48 from the previous 32 limit. This meant this tournament would introduce a best of 32 round prior to the existing round of 16. All this meant was more games and more chances for other nations to compete outside of pool play.

As the dust settled after 104 games Spain came out the victors, taking down Argentina and Messi's dream of back to back wins. We can turn back the clock though to the start and recap the finish at the end.

As the first game arrived I had to figure out the proper platform to watch the games on since my existing solution had Spanish only. So long story short I had to purchase YouTube TV for 2 months.

The first game was crazy with a goal prior to the 10 minute mark followed up by double red cards against South Africa. This meant they'd be playing with only 9 players against the full strength of 11 of Mexico. As the game came to an end another red card was dealt out against Mexico. The game was scrappy and I'd personally never seen so many red cards in international play.

As the first USA game arrived we'd get to see our new coach (Pochettino) and roster attempt another go at the World Cup. The game was electric with USA taking an early lead and putting 3 goals in prior to the half. As the 2nd half came and went another goal for each side was scored. America winning their first game 4-1 was insane as we scored more goals in that game than the entirety of the previous world cup.

This was the game that really shined how much data existed for games now. There were over 50 categories of stats and a custom power ranking value derived for each position. Each match had a "Match Centre" full of random stats like which channel of the field attacking occurred from.

As Game 17, 18 and 19 arrived we'd have the fan favorites of Mbappe (France), Haaland (Norway) and Messi (Argentina) all playing that day. This day was amazing with each star player all scoring multiple goals each. Already it felt like this World Cup was more exciting than previous even with the boring "game breaks" halfway through each half.

The 2nd USA game arrived and much like the first we had a quick goal (own goal) in the first 10 minutes of the game. That was 2 games in a row for USA with an own goal in the first 10 minutes which was very lucky. As the game came to an end it was a surprise to find the United States up with 2 wins in bracket play which we hadn't done in a long long time. This meant after a few more games had played we found ourselves winning our bracket regardless of the success of our final pool play game.

Watching Cabo Verde was immensely fun. Their first 3 games were all ties including against the powerful Spain. This was a nation with roughly 500,000 people so having them compete and stand against other nations was great fun. As they entered the round of 32 and faced off against Argentina I think the world predicted a quick victory for Argentina, but instead an amazing game.

An image can't give justice to how great this game was with regular time ending in a tie. Extra time went back in forth with a goal on each side having Cabo Verde tied with Argentina with only 10 minutes left until penalty kicks. With roughly 9 minutes to score Argentina squeezed a goal in that was technically an own goal. Cabo Verde's story was over, but the world was both nervous that Argentina almost lost and how proud they were of Cabo Verde's showing.

The United States went onward to the round of 32 and had a very mixed game. On one hand we won, but our prime striker (Balogun) was ruled out of the game with a direct red card on a rough tackle. For the remainder of 30 minutes USA had to play down a player and amazingly scored off a free kick while down. This ignited the fans as we were onward to the round of 16 to face off against Belgium.

The round of 32 had a few other crazy games that deserve a shout out:

• Germany lost to Paraguay in penalty kicks (3 vs 4)
• Brazil almost tied to Japan with Brazil scoring at 90+5 to win it.
• Belgium was down 0-2 with 4 minutes left. They score 2 in 3 minutes to tie it, then win in overtime on a PK.

The round of 16 had plenty of cool matchups:

• Canada (0) vs Morocco (3)
• Paraguay (0) vs France (1)
• Brazil (1) vs Norway (2)
• Mexico (2) vs England (3)
• Portugal (0) vs Spain (1)
• USA (1) vs Belgium (4)
• Argentina (3) vs Egypt (2)
• Switzerland (0/4) vs Colombia (0/3)

For America our journey came to an end with a pretty embarrassing showing. A quick goal against us in the first 10 minutes that wasn't equalized until the 31st. At that point at 1-1 it seemed we were back in the game, but Belgium turned that goal around to an immediate response score again. The 2nd half opened up with one of the most embarrassing plays of USA history. The goalie forgets (misses?) to kick the ball right next to a Belgium defender who just passes it into the goal. At that point down 3-1 it seemed our dreams were over.

Sure enough after Belgium scored again in stoppage time - America went home sad and defeated after a great start to the tournament. This round of 16 also had us say goodbye to Portugal (Ronaldo) and Brazil (Neymar). The round of 8 remained:

• France (2) vs Morocco (0)
• Spain (2) vs Belgium (1)
• Norway (1) vs England (2)
• Argentina (3) vs Switzerland (1)

These games were good, but we finally had to say goodbye to Haaland and Norway with their patented "rowing" after each victory. Though I'm fairly sure the ball hit the camera equipment in the air leading to the England goal so I still don't really agree with the result. I was happy to see Belgium eliminated after they eliminated us, so the final four were known.

• France (0) vs Spain (2)
• England (1) vs Argentina (2)

The England game was such a classic England game where you want to believe coaching led to the loss. England was up 1-0 at the 55th minute and a few subs went in for what looked like a more defensive setup. Argentina scored a equalizer at the 85 minute and it looked like this game was going to overtime. However, Argentina had another plan scoring at 90+2 thus winning the game.

The 3rd place game was some of the most exciting soccer in a long time. Starting off completely crazy with England going up 4-0 in the first half. The 2nd half arrives though with substitutions from France who then quickly scored 2 goals making it 2-4. ~20 minutes later it was 3-4 and it seemed France was coming back. A dumb foul by France led to a penalty kick which gave Saka a hat trick and put it 3-5.

In extra time France scored again making it 4-5, but England's Bellingham put the dagger in with a 6th goal making it a 10 goal game. It's clear that a game that doesn't really matter led to a beautiful game of soccer.

This all led to the final game between Spain and Argentina. The new up and coming Lamine Yamal (Spain) vs the greatest of all time Lionel Messi (Argentina). Boy o boy what a weirdly odd game this was.

The stats help tell the story - Argentina only had 2 shots on goal and both of those attempts happened in the final 15 minutes of extra time. For over 90 minutes of gametime we witnessed an Argentina set of players not have a single attempt at the goal.

It just made sense as the game was progressing that Spain deserved to win this game. They possessed the ball more, had more passes and way less fouls. It became further obvious that Spain was going to win when an Argentina player (Fernandez) committed their 2nd yellow and was sent off the field. With Argentina a man down it just became a matter of time before Spain was going to have a shot go in.

When Spain scored at the 106th minute there was only 14 minutes left for Argentina to equalize the game. They did not and Spain took home the trophy. However, not without an Argentina player doing some dirty behavior in the post game.

The video shows Paredes, who subbed in at half then proceeded to get an immediate yellow, basically commit a bunch of red card offenses in the post game. He was immediately red-carded and sent off the field. I'm not sure what events transpired for him to act that way, but he was playing dirty since he subbed in and put a disgrace to his name & country with that behavior.

Outside of that - it was an amazing World Cup and I was sad that it was finally over.