I settled down with my morning coffee expecting Argentina to do what Argentina usually do.<\/p>\n
Win.<\/p>\n
Cape Verde, after all, had already had a remarkable tournament. They’d upset the experts, ignored the predictions and generally behaved as though world rankings were little more than polite suggestions. Surely this was where reality would finally catch up with them.<\/p>\n
Nobody appears to have told Cape Verde.<\/p>\n
Instead they spent the evening making one of football’s giants look distinctly uncomfortable. Every time Argentina looked as though they might pull away, Cape Verde calmly wandered back into the contest as if refusing to read the script. By the time extra time arrived, I suspect half the neutral supporters had quietly switched allegiances.<\/p>\n
It’s funny how football does that.<\/p>\n
You begin admiring greatness, but somewhere along the way you find yourself willing on the little bloke who’s punching well above his weight.<\/p>\n
Years ago, people used to say, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”<\/p>\n
Nowadays we’d probably commission a consultant to explain why that’s statistically inaccurate.<\/p>\n
Everything seems to be measured by outcomes now. If you don’t finish first, apparently you’ve failed. We have league tables for schools, ratings for restaurants, reviews for plumbers and apps that tell us whether somebody delivered our takeaway with enough enthusiasm.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I wonder if we’ve forgotten that there’s honour in giving it your best shot.<\/p>\n
Cape Verde won’t be bringing the World Cup home. But they’ll be bringing home something almost as valuable. Respect.<\/p>\n
Long after people have forgotten the score, they’ll remember the little nation that refused to be intimidated, kept believing and made one of football’s superpowers work far harder than anyone imagined.<\/p>\n
Even Argentina’s supporters probably walked away thinking, “Well… that was closer than we’d have liked.”<\/p>\n
As for me, I finished my coffee smiling.<\/p>\n
Not because the favourites won.<\/p>\n
But because football reminded us that occasionally the biggest victory is making the whole world cheer for you, even in defeat.<\/p>\n
Anyway, what do I know?<\/p>\n
I’m just a grumpy old man.<\/p>\n
Your thoughts below \u2014 unless they\u2019re positive, in which case keep them to yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GOM World Cup Diary #24 \u2013 Whatever Happened To Winning Hearts? I settled down with my morning coffee expecting Argentina to do what Argentina usually do. Win. Cape Verde, after all, had already had a remarkable tournament. They’d upset the experts, ignored the predictions and generally behaved as though world rankings were little more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,13,53,82,111],"tags":[173,118,79,80,95,97,116,175,102,106,174],"class_list":["post-1209","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-argentina","tag-cape-verde","tag-grumpy-old-man","tag-humour","tag-sports-humour","tag-tournament-football","tag-underdogs","tag-winning-hearts","tag-world-cup-2026","tag-world-cup-diary","tag-world-cup-knockout-stage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209","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=1209"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1213,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209\/revisions\/1213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}