Last night was unusual.<\/p>\n
For the first time since the World Cup began, there wasn’t a match to watch.<\/p>\n
No team sheets to study. No VAR controversies to debate. No commentators telling me that every game was “the biggest match of the tournament so far.” Just a quiet summer evening spent with our neighbours, thanking them for looking after our garden while we were away.<\/p>\n
It was rather nice.<\/p>\n
Somewhere between dessert and another cup of coffee, it occurred to me that I’d almost forgotten what an evening without football felt like.<\/p>\n
Not that I’m complaining.<\/p>\n
This World Cup has had just about everything. Giant-killings, dramatic comebacks, controversial decisions, unexpected heroes and enough twists to keep the Football Gods thoroughly entertained.<\/p>\n
The so-called minnows have refused to behave like minnows.<\/p>\n
The favourites have discovered that reputations don’t score goals.<\/p>\n
VAR has somehow managed to become as famous as some of the players.<\/p>\n
And every time we’ve all agreed we finally understand what’s happening, the tournament has promptly gone and proved us wrong.<\/p>\n
It made me realise how rarely we stop to take stock anymore.<\/p>\n
The holiday ends and we’re already planning the next one.<\/p>\n
You finish decorating one room and immediately notice the room next door needs doing.<\/p>\n
You finally tick something off your list, only to write three more things underneath it.<\/p>\n
Even in football we’re guilty of it.<\/p>\n
We’ve barely reached the quarter-finals and people are already discussing who’ll lift the trophy, who’ll win the Golden Boot and where this tournament ranks among the greatest ever.<\/p>\n
Would it really hurt us to stop for a moment and simply enjoy where we’ve got to?<\/p>\n
We’ve watched nations dream.<\/p>\n
We’ve seen underdogs become everyone’s second favourite team.<\/p>\n
We’ve celebrated glorious victories and sympathised with heartbreaking defeats.<\/p>\n
Most of all, we’ve been reminded why football captures the imagination like no other sport.<\/p>\n
Not because we always know what’s going to happen.<\/p>\n
But because we never do.<\/p>\n
Tonight the quarter-finals begin, and no doubt there’ll be more drama, more debate and probably another decision that has half the footballing world reaching for their blood pressure tablets.<\/p>\n
The Football Gods will, I’m sure, be chuckling quietly to themselves.<\/p>\n
As for me, I’m rather grateful for the pause.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the best way to appreciate a journey is to stop walking for a few minutes and look back at the ground you’ve already covered.<\/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 #29 \u2013 Whatever Happened To Taking Stock? Last night was unusual. For the first time since the World Cup began, there wasn’t a match to watch. No team sheets to study. No VAR controversies to debate. No commentators telling me that every game was “the biggest match of the tournament so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,13,53,82,111],"tags":[177,79,98,109,178,186,185,102,106,187],"class_list":["post-1227","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-football-humour","tag-grumpy-old-man","tag-modern-football","tag-modern-life","tag-quarter-finals","tag-reflection","tag-taking-stock","tag-world-cup-2026","tag-world-cup-diary","tag-world-cup-memories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227","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=1227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1228,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions\/1228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}