[Monarch Butterfly]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2066345473514832293

 

[txlseries4]

Sure to be one of the prevailing stories, Cabo Verde ranked 67 (now 64) with a population of 490k played and drew 0-0 against Spain today who are reigning European champions and ranked 2 (now 3!), and despite Spain dominating the game with 23 shots vs 6, 8 on target vs 1, 62% possession, 11 corners vs 1, and 764 passes vs 275. Got to imagine this will forever be a historic game for Cabo Verde.

Cabo Verde's goalkeeper, 40 year old Vozinha, was MVP of the match making some critical saves, but even crazier is he's worth ~C$80,000 on Transfermarkt compared to ~C$35,000,000 for 29 y/o Unai Simón. Before the game Vozinha had 50k followers on Instagram and he's at 2.9m just 4 hours later. hit 3m in the time I wrote this lol

I was listening to the BBC audio broadcast and the commentators were awestruck at the tenacity of such a small nation in their first ever World Cup appearance. It was unbelievably exciting. The highlight from TSN doesn't convey the tension but here it is

 

[txlseries4]

There's been a noticeable amount of empty seats, including Toronto yesterday, for games they claim to be sold out or close to it.
I suppose one possibility is that they "sold" tickets to corporate sponsors they required to buy tickets to all matches. But the corporate sponsor types may only be interested in going to the final and some other high profile matches, and don't necessarily care about showing up for all the others.

The upshot is there were not enough empty seats that the ceremonies volunteers were given access to watch the games. In a few of the US stadiums (Atlanta, Dallas, LA) big sections of VIP/boxes had so many empty seats large groups of volunteers were given access to watch games, I'm sure as a way to get bodies into seats, and the volunteers see it as a perk.

 

[gabe]

Misbehaving fans force Toronto to cancel FIFA World Cup watch party.

https://www.blogto.com/sports_play/2026/06/misbehaving-fans-toronto-fifa-world-cup-party/

 

[Johnny Au]

Canada win over Qatar 6-0 with Jonathan David scoring a hat trick!

Oh, and Ismaël Koné is now out of the tournament from a broken leg.

All Canada needs to clinch the top of Group B and have the first two games in the knockout round in Vancouver is to win or draw against Switzerland.

David's bounce-back performance leads Canada to historic World Cup win

It was one for the history books. John Molinaro has the takeaways from the Canadian men's team finally earning its first-ever victory at a World Cup.

www.sportsnet.ca

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

 

[Monarch Butterfly]

Guess his lips moved.

 

[txlseries4]

Guess his lips moved.
View attachment 745600

This is a new rule to combat racist insults between players. Amazing to see it put to use.

 

[christiesplits]

With Portugal’s draw against Congo last week, Portugal’s chances of playing in Toronto for the knock-out stages increased.

It would make the German, Bosnian and Ghanaian crowds look like a tea party.

 

[Richard White]

I'm genuinely surprised how smoothly everything has gone thus far.

Prior to the World Cup everyone was predicting chaos but honestly nothing terrible has happened.

Maybe it's because I live in Scarborough and work in East York but if not for media coverage it's as though it's another day.

 

[T3G]

but if not for media coverage it's as though it's another day.

Mostly, yes, but the traffic has been abominable.

I took the GO bus in on Friday (not even a game day!!!) and we were stuck in absolutely crawling traffic for an hour. If I have to go into the city again before the WC is over I'll drive down to Oakville and take the train in. It is a mystery to me why even in times like this ML insists at all costs on running these buses into Union station rather than calling it somewhere in 'Sauga or Oakville.