@matthew613mr

19d

The Unofficial World Football Championship

The Unofficial Football World Championship... As a casual fan of soccer/football myself (I shall call it soccer from here on out. If that offends you I'm sorry and I agree our sport of choice should in fact be called Hand Potatoe), I can think of no better way to dive down a rabbit hole of soccer sports history. What is the UWFC? It's simple in theory, a knock-out style "tournament" that never ends. If you beat the champion, you are the champion until you lose. Like most stories soccer related, the concept started in the United Kingdom when in April of 1967 Scotland defeated reigning 1966 World Cup Champs England by a score of 3-2 in the British Home Championship final (The BHC is also another rabbit hole to go down but we can another day), since this was Englands first loss since winning the previous World Cup soon after sections of the Scottish crowd and some members of the Scottish media jokingly labelled Scotland as the Unoffical Football World Champions and it was born... in a way... 35 years later (probably) in an English pub by a group of statisticians who went through years and years of data and crunched the numbers for who should rightfully be crowned UFWC champs only to almost undoubtedly lose the title within the next match or two. Here is some of the data: The first "official" Unofficial Football World Champion was crowned in 1873 when England overcame Scotland (all roads lead to bad teeth and funny accents in soccer if you ask me) 4-2. This was the second international match to occur but the first in 1872 ended in a draw so alas, no champion was crowned that year. From 1873 to 1931 the title was exclusively held by the nations of the United Kingdom with England dominating for the majority of that time. For perspective on that, Wales entered play in 1876 and did not win the title until 1907. Ireland? Even worse, no title from 1882 to 1927. Which you could certainly say was... troubling. But admittedly there was a bit of a conflict going on for a few years in the 1910s about some Mortal Kombat sounding dude in Austria named Archduke Franz or something that made competing just a tad bit difficult. War of the worlds and things like that, y'know. But even after a world war, in a soccer sense the first team to "recover" and snag the title from a team in the United Kingdom was in 1931 when Austria (Now with 100% less Archduke!) walloped Scotland 5-0 and would hold the title for nearly a year and a half until in late December of 1932 when, you guessed it. England captured the crown back and for the next 7 or so years the title still swapped back and forth between mostly England, Scotland, and Wales until in May of 1939 England dropped the title to Yugoslovia and... Oh boy if you are a history buff I'm sure you know they really regretted that. Yugoslavia quickly dropped the title to Italy and until 1947 the title stayed with Axis or Axis allied/neutral teams until England captured the crown once again in 1947. If you are curious the Nazi's had a fairly poor track record in that time which made me chuckle considering I assumed there would be massive propaganda and influence on games (See 1936 World Cup and Italy) but Germany throughout that time won the title 3 times and only successfully defended once... KaiserBums if you ask me but I suppose more important things were going on in the world. So up until 1947 you may have noticed a trend, long domination by mostly England and Scotland with spurts of other Isle teams with extreme cases of regional domination when conflict would break out. So many stories with Soccer I feel tie into real world events. Hell, wars have literally been started over the World Cup so seeing a completely made up title be interweaved with so many real world events is so interesting to me. I did not expect this to get this long and I only made it to 1947 and haven't really gone "through the numbers" completely yet. If this gets some likes I'll go deeper with a part 2. If you are curious though the current UWFC holders are Turkey (as of 6/13/26) and no team has ever had the title before the World Cup and maintained throughout to win the cup as well. Will Turkey be the first?

FIFA

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Down Goes The Netherlands

The Netherlands have qualified for 12 World Cup in their country’s history. They have never won a World Cup, but they have never been eliminated before the round of 16. In all 11 tournaments they have never been eliminated in the group stage or in the round of 32. Until last night when they faced off against Morocco. That 11 year streak comes to an end. The Netherlands have been eliminated in the round of 32. Another World Cup goes by without the Dutch hoisting any trophy, any medal, or anything to truly be proud of. They definitely could have won this game but they appear to change how they played and seemed off all night. The Netherlands will be back in 2030, it’s just what version of them will we see?

@nick

8.7

The Legend of EL FLACO

In 2018, Orlando Gill was playing amateur football and wondering if his dream had already slipped away. As recently as last year, he was merely the backup goalkeeper at San Lorenzo de Almagro in the Argentine Football League. Today, he is the man who helped eliminate Germany from the World Cup. The 6’6 Paraguayan goalkeeper has authored one of the great stories of this tournament. After standing tall through 120 exhausting minutes, Gill became a national hero in the penalty shootout, making the decisive saves that sent Paraguay into the round of 16 and one step closer to immortality. The journey here has been anything but straightforward. There were times when football barely paid the bills. Gill’s wife once revealed that he sold some of his equipment so the family could afford food while their son fought for his life in the hospital. For years he struggled for recognition in Paraguay and eventually moved to Argentina in search of an opportunity. That opportunity arrived by pure chance. San Lorenzo had been pursuing Keylor Navas but financial difficulties prevented the move. With no new goalkeeper arriving, manager Miguel Russo handed Gill an unexpected opportunity. He took it with both of his big ol hands and never gave it back, establishing himself as the club’s No. 1. His teammates affectionately called him El Flaco which means “The Skinny” or “The Lean One” because of his tall lanky build and stretch-armstrong shot stopping abilities. Now the rest of the world knows his name. From amateur footballer to reserve goalkeeper to World Cup giant killer, El Flaco has become the face of Paraguay’s remarkable run. Every tournament produces a folk hero, a player whose story reminds us why the World Cup captures the imagination like nothing else. This summer, that hero wears gloves and a shiny purple shirt.

@FlameRaptorRaven

8.9

The Berlin Wall has Fallen

Prior to this game, Germany had been essentially perfect on penalty shootouts at the World Cup. They scored: 5/6 in 1982 4/4 in 1986 4/4 in 1990 and 4/4 in 2006 They had not missed a World Cup penalty since 1982. 14 straight penalties in a row had gone in the net before today. By missing 3 in this game, they have not only quadrupled their all-time total of missed penalties, they have also lost their first World Cup penalty shootout ever.