The Three Dads World Cup Wonderland

Aaaaaaand breath. The most dramatic day of World Cup quarter final action since 1986 (the last time both games went to pens), has nudged me out of my blogging lull that had made it appear I had been strangled by a well drilled Moroccan defence. In reality, endless action, life and responsibilities & unwelcome time differences have made me prioritize actually catching the action versus the keyboard. So I’ve a lot to catch up & we’re going to have to do it in double quick time:  Group stage musings A wonderful collection of sparkling performances by the top teams with goals galore, underdog shocks aplenty and excessive drama on game 3 days where any and every eventuality seemed possible, epitomized by the 60 seconds of disbelief at the prospect of Costa Rica joining Japan in the round of 16, before being firmly shut down by an ultimately futile German resistance with the damage already done. I haven’t researched too much yet on the format for 2026, but with 48 teams I can’t help

 The round of 32 is marking a new phase in the tournament, and after the helter-skelter of the group stages, it is going very much to plan so far. With Netherlands, Argentina, France and England all winning in line with broad expectation, the round is looking like it is going to be one of whittling down. I am expecting all of the results to go the way of expectation, and leaving us with a very strong set of quarter finals.  That would see Croatia, Brazil, Spain and Portugal making up the rest of the quarter-finalists - which even without Belgium and Germany is a pretty mighty, mouth-watering prospect. I'd say Japan and Switzerland probably have the best chance of causing an upset, but I think their races are run now. I've already made my plans to go out into the world on Wednesday, when there's finally a day without a game, but certainly by the time football returns on Friday, I will be ready. In fact, thinking about it - maybe I'll use those two days to catch up on the