[Thor Joachim Haga]

My new favorite team to root for this World Cup 2026 will be the Netherlands.

A shortlived root! 🙂

I only watched the first half of the Germany match, and then I “tried” to go to bed afterwards. Meaning I had trouble sleeping, as usual. As it happens, I fell asleep at 4 and woke up at 6 (two whole hours!), so I could just as well have stayed up and watched both the second half of the Germany match and the The Netherlands-Morocco match. Oh well.

Weird that Germany and The Netherlands are out, two big nations in football terms. But Germany was really below-par (except for one match), and I understand from reports that The Netherlands had enough defending itself against Morocco. I don’t mind surprises and underdogs doing well at the cost of big nations, but not too many. I need some consistency too, some of the favourites to go through. And I don’t like it when you’re “rewarded” for defensive gameplay against better, more entertaining and attacking teams (the Greece win in the Euros 2004 is such an example).