{"id":1172,"date":"2026-06-26T08:31:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T08:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/?p=1172"},"modified":"2026-06-26T08:31:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T08:31:33","slug":"gom-world-cup-diary-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/gom-world-cup-diary-16\/","title":{"rendered":"GOM World Cup Diary #16 \u2013 Whatever Happened To Winning?"},"content":{"rendered":"

GOM World Cup Diary #16 \u2013 Whatever Happened To Winning?<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

Yesterday’s World Cup left me feeling slightly confused.<\/p>\n

The USA lost their final group game.<\/p>\n

They still finished top of the group.<\/p>\n

Australia are through.<\/p>\n

Germany suffered a shock defeat to Ecuador.<\/p>\n

They’re through as well.<\/p>\n

Japan and the Ivory Coast are celebrating.<\/p>\n

And Scotland, despite sitting outside the qualification places this morning, still haven’t quite been ruled out.<\/p>\n

It’s enough to make an old man’s head hurt.<\/p>\n

Which got me thinking.<\/p>\n

Whatever happened to winning?<\/p>\n

I always thought football was beautifully simple.<\/p>\n

You won.<\/p>\n

You celebrated.<\/p>\n

You lost.<\/p>\n

You went home grumbling about the referee until next Saturday.<\/p>\n

Now we’ve somehow created a tournament where losing doesn’t necessarily mean losing.<\/p>\n

Drawing can feel like a victory.<\/p>\n

Winning sometimes isn’t enough.<\/p>\n

And supporters spend the final whistle asking somebody with a calculator whether they’re allowed to be happy.<\/p>\n

The commentators love it, of course.<\/p>\n

“They’re currently through…”<\/p>\n

“Unless…”<\/p>\n

“If this result stays the same…”<\/p>\n

“Provided there aren’t two more goals in the other match…”<\/p>\n

By the time they’ve finished explaining it, I’ve forgotten who was actually playing.<\/p>\n

Poor Scotland are discovering this the hard way.<\/p>\n

Three points.<\/p>\n

A negative goal difference.<\/p>\n

Currently eighth in the table of third-placed teams.<\/p>\n

Still hoping.<\/p>\n

Still waiting.<\/p>\n

Still needing a few favours.<\/p>\n

It’s like standing outside an exam hall after you’ve finished, listening to everybody else compare answers and slowly convincing yourself you’ve accidentally written your name on the wrong paper.<\/p>\n

Mind you, life seems to work like this now as well.<\/p>\n

You don’t always know where you’ve finished.<\/p>\n

You apply for something and wait.<\/p>\n

You interview and wait.<\/p>\n

You submit a form and wait.<\/p>\n

Everything is “pending.”<\/p>\n

Nothing feels settled.<\/p>\n

Even football has joined in.<\/p>\n

Of course, despite spending the evening complaining that tournaments have become too complicated, I found myself refreshing the qualification table every ten minutes to see whether Scotland had moved up another place.<\/p>\n

Apparently I don’t mind complicated…<\/p>\n

…as long as it might benefit somebody.<\/p>\n

Perhaps that’s the beauty of tournament football.<\/p>\n

It keeps hope alive.<\/p>\n

Even when common sense says otherwise.<\/p>\n

Mind you, I still think it’s a funny old game when a team can lose and finish first, another team can lose and celebrate, and an entire nation spends the evening cheering for countries they’ve never previously taken the slightest interest in.<\/p>\n

Maybe that’s what the World Cup does best.<\/p>\n

It reminds us that football isn’t always fair.<\/p>\n

It isn’t always logical.<\/p>\n

And sometimes, winning isn’t the only thing that matters.<\/p>\n

Although I’d still rather have the three points.<\/p>\n

Anyway, what do I know?<\/p>\n

I’m just a grumpy old man.<\/p>\n

Let me know in the comments if you\u2019re as frustrated by losers over celebrating their lack of real success.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The World Cup group stage has reached the point where teams can lose and still celebrate qualification. The Grumpy Old Man wonders when football stopped being about simply winning\u2014and why modern life seems just as complicated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,13,53,82,111],"tags":[149,91,148,113,79,98,145,97,103,102,106],"class_list":["post-1172","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-australia","tag-british-humour","tag-ecuador","tag-germany","tag-grumpy-old-man","tag-modern-football","tag-scotland","tag-tournament-football","tag-usa","tag-world-cup-2026","tag-world-cup-diary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172","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=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1175,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions\/1175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}