Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

The world together

The 2026 edition of the World Cup is over. Congratulations to the Spain national team on a truly dominant showing. Ignore the low final one-nil score: Argentina got utterly spanked in the Final.

Congratulations also to the stadium food vendors. Selling beers for $22 is just excellent business. Exploitive capitalism will continue so long as there are willing participants. Consumers have clearly shown a high price inelasticity, no matter how much they may grumble externally.

The magic of the World Cup happens when the games are on during the workday. The collective attention is drawn to the games. Productivity drops down as close to zero as allowed. (Sorry and thank you, bus drivers.) Even the casual sports observer is glued to the screen. The best games are those that go on to penalty kicks as the decider. During which the entire office comes to a screeching halt to watch the nail-biting tension.

Seismic sporting events like the World Cup and Super Bowl are truly awe-inspiring when you zoom out and think about just how huge a population is tuning into the matches. So it’s no wonder FIFA instituted a hydration break in the middle of each half: the advertising dollars for those three minutes of stoppage must be profitably enormous. Who run the world? Girls marketing.

But for us Americans, it’s back to ignoring the sport of soccer for another four years. I think that’s a good thing. America’s Major League Soccer should remain the relative niche that it is: for the die-hard football fans. This keeps the matches accessible and affordable for attendees. Can you imagine how much tickets would be if El Trafico had the same cachet as El Clasico? Capitalism will get its grubby hands on MLS and price out the peasants.

Until four years later, world.

World Cup fever

Attending a World Cup game has certainly lived up to the hype.

The rowdiness of the Australian contingent was something to behold. Lacking a rooting interesting in the game between the Socceroos and Paraguay, I was just content to revel in rowdy atmosphere. The concourses at Levi’s San Francisco Bay Area Stadium was jammed with cheers, songs, and copious beer drinking. To be amongst the festivities alone was worth the hefty price of admission.

The Paraguayan fans were equally as vocal. The World Cup is truly sports fanaticism at its very best.

Because the game itself was certainly not all that entertaining. That’s the trap of drawing the third match of the group stage. The stakes can either be high, or non existing. Australia and Paraguay could both advance to the next round with a draw, and the two teams played to that advantage. Neither side seems to press forwards with any verve, and the few actual shots on goal were right to the goalkeeper. If this were a normal football game, I’d ask for my $500 back.

But how often can you say you’ve attended an actual World Cup match? Probably just this once, in my lifetime. I’m very happy to have ticked this box on the kick-the-bucket list.

And good on the live audience to boo the hydration break in between the halves for exactly what it is: a blatant money grab. The American broadcast partner wanted to sell more ads. In no circumstances do the best in the world need a mandatory break from the action in dry, breezy, 72 degrees °F weather. (Shoutout to our European cousins weathering a tremendous heatwave currently.)

The United States really might be the best country to host the World Cup. I’m pretty sure America has the largest diaspora of many nations. It’s that diversity that makes hosting this international event so convenient. The traveling contingent is mixed in together with a sizable group locally. Take Iran, a team with very little to no traveling supporters from the home country due to the ongoing war, was able to find their tribe in Iranian Americans living in Southern California.

That’s pretty beautiful.

World Cup fever

It is World Cup season, and it’s fantastic to once again the event hosted on this side of the globe. There’s no need to wake up - or stay awake - at ungodly hours just to see some football magic. Instead we get to pretend we’re working at work, only to be otherwise glued to the television screen.

I fondly remember one childhood summer where all I did was watch World Cup matches for the entire day. Ah, to be young and have zero responsibilities. We can’t quite do that anymore.

Great shame to the Chinese people that even with the first ever expanded field from 32 to 48 countries, the Chinese national team has, once again, failed to qualify for the tournament. The second most populous country on this planet and yet we can’t find 11 blokes with enough talent to make some noise on the world stage. The only way this could be worst is if the most populous country - India - made it in. Good thing they didn’t.

Come on, China. Let’s get it together. Spend some money, put some academies together.

In the meantime, I will be rooting for my adopted Asian country, Korea. Let’s go Tigers!

I am greatly looking forward to attending a group stage game here locally. A once in a lifetime opportunity and experience for sure. Never mind that we have zero rooting interest between Australia and Paraguay. To quote Hamilton, we just want to be in the room where it happened. A solid match between the two countries is what we can ask for.

Picking a winner for the 2026 edition? I have to say the French team looks really good. They’ve go the reigning Ballon d'Or winner, and Kylian Mbappe. Three straight World Cup finals for Les Bleus looks to be a lock.

That's crazy

Masked federal agents of the State essentially executed a person in broad daylight. All caught in 4K. And the executive in power is suffering zero consequences from it. That is some crazy shit! The party of anti governmental boot-licking is surely doing a ton of that right now. Don’t tread on me, but other people, that’s cool.

Why has Minneapolis become such a flash point? I didn’t realize it was a bastion of illegal immigration that the feds have to mobilize with such ferocity. Or perhaps it’s one of the few where the local populace is fighting back. Border States with more favorable views towards the current administration might be more cooperative when fresh Homeland Security goons roll into town.

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I think the tech ruling class made a faustian bargain with the current President to leave our cities alone. Thank you, Zuck?

This seemingly overwhelming show of force against foreigners in this country can’t be a good thing for the upcoming World Cup this year and Summer Olympics in 2028. I would absolutely think twice about visiting America for the games. If ICE agents are checking papers in and around the upcoming Super Bowl - the biggest sporting party for our country, why wouldn’t the same happen for the two biggest events in the world?

Unless something drastically changes, Foreigners should treat this current American administration as hostile.

Is it even happening?

The World Cup is in apparent full swing over in Qatar, and honestly I sometimes forget it’s even going on. The unusual November start time for a usually summer event surely has something to do with it. Who in the heck thought it was a good idea to play football in the middle of the dessert - in open air stadiums? I’ve read those stadiums are air-conditioned, which is crazy because it’s not that efficient is it, if the cool air has a way to escape through a giant gaping hole?

I guess that doesn’t matter when energy - read: oil - is dirt cheap in the country.

Also hampering the World Cup spirit is the fact we all have jobs now. The problem with the tournament being played on the other side of the world is that there aren’t any “prime time” games for us to watch in the evening. The day’s games are essentially over by the time lunch hour is done. Even kids can’t watch the games because there’s school. Not so if the games were held during the traditional summer months. I fondly remember watching every single World Cup match back in my school days. That was my summer break life for a month. I’d never get out of bed.

As an American it’s good to see team USA making it back into the tournament for the first time since 2014. As of this writing they have advanced into the round-of-16 stage, with a match this Saturday against the Netherlands. Not sure I’ll be watching that one as that match starts bright and early at 7:00 AM my time. The weather’s been cold lately and it’s so easy to slumber on deep into the morning.

The World Cup is coming to North America the next time round, with Canada, Mexico, and the United States cohosting. San Francisco is one of the selected cities to have a match, so hopefully I will get to tick that box on the bucket list. It’ll be nice to bring my dad as well, a life-long football fan.

No World Cup for China. Again.

World Cup 2018 is in full swing and as us Chinese are doing that once-every-four-years pondering on why China have once again failed to qualify for the tournament. In the entire World Cup history the Chinese national team have only qualified once, quite a while back in 2002. The team then had a dreadful go of it, failing to score a single goal in group play.

How can a country of 1.6 billion souls, in a football region that isn’t exactly competitive (you’ve got the twin titans of Japan and South Korea and that’s it), can’t ever seem to form a competitive team? One would think that simply by law of large numbers China would at least be able to scrap a group together and consistently qualify for the games.

It isn’t for the lack of money: god knows China is full of wealthy corporations and millionaires. My father tells me China’s football federation and the clubs are awash with capital, able to attract foreign players away from Europe to the Chinese leagues. On the contrary I think it’s because of the immense prevalence of money that's preventing China from playing football on the world stage.

I see a succinct lack of national pride in Chinese athletes. For footballers in other countries it is an absolute dream to represent their national flag. Just this past weekend the Mexican players was in tears of joy because they won the match against the defending German champions. I seldom see this sort of elation and emotion from Chinese athletes. Look at the Olympics games: where are the signature shots of Chinese athletes standing on the top podium step bawling their eyes out while the national anthem is playing?

In every Olympics China wins a ton of medals, but how many of those are for team sports?

My father says sports in China is too focused on the individual, not nearly enough on team and country, and it’s largely due to the corruption of money. Athletes are selfish towards their own achievements in order to maximize the amount of money they’ll receive - there’s no play for fun or for the love of the game. A player gets upset his teammate scored the goal rather than himself. The lack of unity and playing for the collective have hugely contributed to China’s futility in getting into the World Cup tournament.

I don’t know if the team China will ever get its act together and fight with some national spirit, but I constantly hope. I would love nothing more than to root for my birth country in future World Cups.

I dig awesome restroom tile-work, especially public ones where I can look like a creep taking my phone out to take a photograph.

World Cup fever

It's World Cup season once again and it's always a special time because I get to enjoy watching the games with my father. Every four years we'd spend the month of June in front of the television taking in all the matches - or at least endeavor to. The 2018 edition is held in mother Russia and the time-difference makes things difficult: the games are held during the day our timezone so we can only properly watch on the weekends.

On campus the games are shown at the Student Union which is great because none of us need to work during the Summer, right? (Wrong).

Attending a World Cup game is on the bucket list so I am happy about the announcement the the 2026 games will be cohosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States. it's Great news for America because Team U.S.A won't have to worry about not qualifying because host countries receive automatic berths - a genius move by our soccer federation. Anyways, I look forward to going to a live match with my father in eight year's time.

Might even kill two birds with one stone and go to a game in Canada because I've yet to travel to our northern neighbor.

FiveThirtyEight has a quiz that will tell you which team you should root for in the World Cup. I got team Deutschland so I shall root for them since USA is not in the tournament. Sadly Germany's first match against Mexico didn't go so well (spectacular game, though) but it's still early days for the defending champions.

The next three weeks should be quite exciting.