{"id":1277,"date":"2026-07-21T12:20:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T12:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/?p=1277"},"modified":"2026-07-21T12:20:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T12:20:26","slug":"gom-world-cup-diary-41","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/gom-world-cup-diary-41\/","title":{"rendered":"GOM World Cup Diary #41 That’s All Folks…"},"content":{"rendered":"

GOM World Cup Diary #41 That’s All Folks…<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

Whatever Happened To Enjoying The Ride?<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Well…<\/p>\n

That’s it.<\/p>\n

The flags have been folded away.<\/p>\n

The shirts have gone back into wardrobes.<\/p>\n

The television crews have packed up.<\/p>\n

The stadiums have fallen quiet.<\/p>\n

World Cup 2026 is over.<\/p>\n

Five weeks ago, we couldn’t wait for it to begin.<\/p>\n

Now I’m wondering where the time went.<\/p>\n

It’s been a tournament of surprises.<\/p>\n

Cape Verde refusing to know their place.<\/p>\n

Morocco upsetting the favourites.<\/p>\n

Norway reminding everyone there’s more to football than one superstar.<\/p>\n

England giving us hope…<\/p>\n

…before reminding us what supporting England usually feels like.<\/p>\n

Spain quietly ignoring the headlines and ending up with the biggest prize of them all.<\/p>\n

We’ve had brilliant goals.<\/p>\n

Questionable refereeing.<\/p>\n

VAR decisions that took longer than some house purchases.<\/p>\n

Managers who looked as though they’d aged ten years in a fortnight.<\/p>\n

Supporters travelling thousands of miles just to sing for ninety minutes.<\/p>\n

And enough drama to keep football phone-ins going until Christmas.<\/p>\n

Not all of it has been good.<\/p>\n

There were moments when the football took second place to everything surrounding it.<\/p>\n

There were times when discipline disappeared.<\/p>\n

There were moments during the trophy presentation when I couldn’t help thinking the spotlight should always belong to the players who earned it.<\/p>\n

That’s football.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps that’s modern life.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we all need reminding that the greatest sign of respect is knowing when somebody else’s moment has arrived.<\/p>\n

But if there’s one thing this tournament has reminded me, it’s that football has an extraordinary ability to bring people together.<\/p>\n

For a few weeks, complete strangers became friends.<\/p>\n

Families gathered around televisions.<\/p>\n

Pubs became living rooms.<\/p>\n

Living rooms became miniature stadiums.<\/p>\n

Every nation believed.<\/p>\n

Most of them went home disappointed.<\/p>\n

Yet four years from now, they’ll all believe again.<\/p>\n

That’s the magic of football.<\/p>\n

Hope has an incredible memory.<\/p>\n

Disappointment doesn’t.<\/p>\n

And perhaps that’s the biggest lesson I’ve taken from these past few weeks.<\/p>\n

Life isn’t really about the destination.<\/p>\n

It’s about the journey.<\/p>\n

The conversations.<\/p>\n

The laughter.<\/p>\n

The arguments with the referee who couldn’t hear me.<\/p>\n

The Football Gods quietly tearing up the script whenever we thought we’d worked everything out.<\/p>\n

I’ve spent the last month or so grumbling about almost everything.<\/p>\n

VAR.<\/p>\n

Referees.<\/p>\n

FIFA.<\/p>\n

Kick-off times.<\/p>\n

Pundits.<\/p>\n

Modern football.<\/p>\n

The truth is…<\/p>\n

I’ve loved every minute of it.<\/p>\n

Now it’s time to put the notebook away for a while.<\/p>\n

The Premier League will be back soon enough.<\/p>\n

Spurs will undoubtedly find a brand-new way to test my blood pressure.<\/p>\n

Social media will continue to invent new reasons for me to shake my head.<\/p>\n

Modern life will carry on providing enough material to keep a Grumpy Old Man busy for years.<\/p>\n

So this isn’t really goodbye.<\/p>\n

It’s simply the end of one chapter.<\/p>\n

Thank you for coming along on the journey.<\/p>\n

It’s been ridiculous.<\/p>\n

Infuriating.<\/p>\n

Occasionally magical.<\/p>\n

Entirely unforgettable.<\/p>\n

And despite everything…<\/p>\n

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.<\/p>\n

Anyway…<\/p>\n

What do I know?<\/p>\n

I’m just a grumpy old man.<\/p>\n

Your thoughts below \u2014 unless you\u2019re in a good mood, in which case keep them to yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GOM World Cup Diary #41 That’s All Folks… Whatever Happened To Enjoying The Ride? Well… That’s it. The flags have been folded away. The shirts have gone back into wardrobes.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,13,53,82,111],"tags":[224,209,208,215,79,218,98,191,102,106],"class_list":["post-1277","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-end-of-tournament","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-football-commentary","tag-football-reflections","tag-grumpy-old-man","tag-life-lessons","tag-modern-football","tag-spain","tag-world-cup-2026","tag-world-cup-diary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277","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=1277"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1279,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1277\/revisions\/1279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davethomasonline.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}