Yesterday Mexico became the first team to qualify for the knockout stages of the World Cup.<\/p>\n
A fine achievement.<\/p>\n
They’ve played well, collected the points and earned their place in the next round.<\/p>\n
Naturally, this meant that within approximately thirty seconds of the final whistle, everyone stopped talking about the match they’d just watched and started discussing matches that haven’t happened yet.<\/p>\n
It’s extraordinary.<\/p>\n
Mexico qualify and immediately the experts begin explaining who they might face in the Round of 32, which side of the draw they could end up on and whether finishing first in the group is actually an advantage.<\/p>\n
Whatever happened to simply enjoying the victory?<\/p>\n
When I was younger, football supporters had a wonderfully straightforward approach to tournaments.<\/p>\n
You watched today’s match.<\/p>\n
Then tomorrow you worried about tomorrow’s match.<\/p>\n
There was a certain logic to it.<\/p>\n
Now football coverage resembles an advanced mathematics exam.<\/p>\n
One result comes in and suddenly there are tables, charts, probabilities and enough permutations to keep a team of accountants occupied until Christmas.<\/p>\n
“If Canada beat Switzerland by two goals, and Bosnia avoid defeat against Qatar, while Mexico finish top but only on goal difference…”<\/p>\n
At this point I’ve usually stopped listening and gone to make another coffee.<\/p>\n
The modern football fan seems incapable of enjoying a moment before planning for the next one.<\/p>\n
A team wins.<\/p>\n
People discuss the next match.<\/p>\n
They win that.<\/p>\n
People discuss the knockout stages.<\/p>\n
They reach the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
People start talking about the semi-finals.<\/p>\n
Before long, supporters are worrying about penalties in a final that doesn’t take place for another fortnight.<\/p>\n
No wonder everybody looks exhausted.<\/p>\n
Even poor Mexico barely had time to celebrate before finding themselves trapped in somebody else’s spreadsheet.<\/p>\n
The funny thing is that football is supposed to be entertainment.<\/p>\n
The clue is rather hidden in the fact that it’s a game.<\/p>\n
A game.<\/p>\n
Not a military campaign.<\/p>\n
Not a corporate strategy meeting.<\/p>\n
Not a five-year business plan.<\/p>\n
Yet every tournament seems to produce thousands of amateur statisticians armed with calculators and colour-coded charts.<\/p>\n
Mind you, perhaps I shouldn’t be too critical.<\/p>\n
Football supporters have always enjoyed worrying.<\/p>\n
Give us good news and we’ll immediately search for the catch.<\/p>\n
England win 4-2 and we worry about the defence.<\/p>\n
Mexico qualify and we worry about the draw.<\/p>\n
Canada score six and somebody is already discussing their potential quarter-final opponents.<\/p>\n
Maybe this is simply what football fans do.<\/p>\n
Perhaps hope and anxiety travel together.<\/p>\n
Still, I can’t help thinking we’re missing something.<\/p>\n
Yesterday Mexico qualified for the knockout stages of the World Cup.<\/p>\n
That sounds like something worth celebrating.<\/p>\n
At least for an afternoon.<\/p>\n
After all, if I ever won the lottery, I’d quite like a few hours to enjoy it before somebody handed me a spreadsheet explaining the tax implications.<\/p>\n
Anyway, what do I know?<\/p>\n
I’m just a grumpy old man.<\/p>\n
Drop a comment and tell me what\u2019s annoying YOU about the World Cup so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whatever Happened To One Match At A Time? Yesterday Mexico became the first team to qualify for the knockout stages of the World Cup. A fine achievement. They’ve played well, collected the points and earned their place in the next round. Naturally, this meant that within approximately thirty seconds of the final whistle, everyone stopped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,13,53,82,111],"tags":[91,86,96,123,79,129,95,97,102,106,130],"class_list":["post-1139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","category-grumpy-old-man","category-humour","category-soccer","category-world-cup-2026","tag-british-humour","tag-football","tag-football-fans","tag-football-opinions","tag-grumpy-old-man","tag-mexico","tag-sports-humour","tag-tournament-football","tag-world-cup-2026","tag-world-cup-diary","tag-world-cup-permutations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1139"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1146,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1139\/revisions\/1146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}