Dear Kid,

Crazy News from the FIFA World Cup.

Four years ago, Spain stunned the soccer world with a new style of play. In dominating fashion (according to your father) they used a new ticky-tack approach (which means working passing triangles up and down the field). As far as I can tell, this means possession time is important, which anyone who watches American football already knows. They (and I quote your father) “frustrated opponents with precision passing.” Also they were good. Also they flabbergasted their opponents all the way to total World Cup Victory.

People were so impressed that they wined and dined and posed for photo ops with the Spanish team. And pretty much everyone Expected a repeat. No pressure here.

Over the last four years, people studied this type of play and (ta-dah!) figured out how to defend against it and how to counter attack effectively.

A few days ago, Spain took the field against the Netherlands who promptly took it right back, trouncing Spain 5-0. This is what is technically called A Pretty Big Upset. Unheard of. Messed up a lot of betting pools.

Yesterday, Spain faced off against Chile. No one (except the Moms of the Chilean players) expected Chile to do much of anything in the World Cup.

Proving that Moms are almost always right, Chile was faster than the boys in red and beat Spain 2-0. (Also the Spanish goalkeep had a big oops. He popped a ball right in to the center of the crowd and a Chilean player popped it right back for a goal.)

So the Netherlands and Chile made it out of the group and Spain is done in the World Cup.

In other Soccer World Cup news, Cameroon lost to Croatia 0-4 (not a big surprise especially because they had to play a man down starting before the end of the first half). That means Cameroon is out (you have to read that in Heidi Klum’s voice).

Next Brazil plays Cameroon (guess who is likely to win) and Mexico plays Croatia. Pay attention, this is where it gets interesting. The Big Question is who will win in the Mexico – Croatia game. Croatia has to win to move on. Brazil and Mexico each have four points. Dad says it could be an interesting game. I am (very politely) not yawning.

Belgium looks like a good team in their group, probably because they have good chocolate and French fries (2 of the major food groups).

All of which is good and interesting, but not nearly as good and interesting as the US beating Ghana! Woot!

Celebrate on USA!

Love, Mom

PS Can you tell what Dad and I were talking about last night?