{"id":1251,"date":"2026-07-16T21:58:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T21:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/?p=1251"},"modified":"2026-07-16T21:58:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T21:58:21","slug":"gom-world-cup-diary-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/gom-world-cup-diary-35\/","title":{"rendered":"GOM World Cup Diary #35 Au Revoir Les Bleus!"},"content":{"rendered":"

GOM World Cup Diary<\/strong><\/span> #35 Au Revoir Les Bleus!<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

Whatever Happened To Reading The Script?<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

One of the things I’ve learnt over the years is never to assume you know what’s going to happen.<\/p>\n

Mind you, I still do.<\/p>\n

Every. Single. Time.<\/p>\n

Last night’s World Cup semi-final was a perfect example.<\/p>\n

Before a ball had even been kicked, the football experts had already moved on to discussing France against Argentina in the Final.<\/p>\n

France had the star names.<\/p>\n

Mbapp\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Demb\u00e9l\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Olise.<\/p>\n

Enough attacking talent to frighten any defence.<\/p>\n

Spain, meanwhile, quietly went about preparing for a football match.<\/p>\n

Funny old game.<\/p>\n

Funny old life.<\/p>\n

The trouble with scripts is that nobody ever gives one to the opposition.<\/p>\n

Spain clearly hadn’t read theirs.<\/p>\n

Instead, they did exactly what they’ve done throughout this tournament.<\/p>\n

They stayed organised.<\/p>\n

They defended brilliantly.<\/p>\n

They took their chances.<\/p>\n

And they sent France packing with a deserved 2-0 victory.<\/p>\n

What’s remarkable is that Spain had conceded just one goal before the semi-final.<\/p>\n

Then they faced one of the most feared attacks in world football…<\/p>\n

…and conceded precisely none.<\/p>\n

Reputations might sell newspapers, but they don’t score goals.<\/p>\n

It made me wonder how often we write the ending before the story has even begun.<\/p>\n

We do it all the time.<\/p>\n

At work.<\/p>\n

In business.<\/p>\n

In life.<\/p>\n

We assume the biggest company will win the contract.<\/p>\n

The experienced candidate will get the job.<\/p>\n

The favourite will lift the trophy.<\/p>\n

Then along comes somebody who quietly gets on with doing the work while everyone else is busy reading their own headlines.<\/p>\n

The Football Gods have a mischievous sense of humour.<\/p>\n

The moment everybody agrees on what’s going to happen, they quietly wander off and arrange something completely different.<\/p>\n

I suspect they spend half their time laughing at football pundits.<\/p>\n

By kick-off, some people were already discussing how France might cope with Argentina in the Final.<\/p>\n

The only slight flaw in that conversation…<\/p>\n

…was Spain.<\/p>\n

Now it’s Spain who head for the Final.<\/p>\n

Not because France forgot how to play football.<\/p>\n

But because Spain never believed they were there to make up the numbers.<\/p>\n

Perhaps there’s a lesson in that for all of us.<\/p>\n

Don’t worry too much about someone else’s reputation.<\/p>\n

Concentrate on your own performance.<\/p>\n

The script only matters if you stop writing your own.<\/p>\n

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

I’m just a grumpy old man.<\/p>\n

Stick your thoughts below \u2014 especially if the match ruined your evening too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GOM World Cup Diary #35 Au Revoir Les Bleus! Whatever Happened To Reading The Script? One of the things I’ve learnt over the years is never to assume you know what’s going to happen. Mind you, I still do. Every. Single. Time. Last night’s World Cup semi-final was a perfect example. Before a ball had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1255,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,13,53,82,111],"tags":[209,208,177,176,202,79,98,195,191,102,106],"class_list":["post-1251","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-fifa-world-cup","tag-football-commentary","tag-football-humour","tag-france","tag-france-v-spain","tag-grumpy-old-man","tag-modern-football","tag-semi-finals","tag-spain","tag-world-cup-2026","tag-world-cup-diary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251","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=1251"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1254,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions\/1254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}