|
| Monday, July 13, 2026 |
Issue #8
·
by meme.app
|
|
|
It's Monday. The four best teams on the planet all made the World Cup semifinals for the first time ever, and it only cost Switzerland a red card for flopping. Conor McGregor's comeback lasted 69 seconds and the only man who hurt him was himself. And the Red Sox are somehow the hottest team in baseball. Let's get into it.
— Stew
|
|
|
|
The Four Best Teams on Earth, All at Once
For the first time since FIFA started ranking teams in 1992, the four best teams on the planet are the last four standing at a World Cup. France plays Spain Tuesday in Dallas. Argentina plays England Wednesday in Atlanta. All four have won this thing before. No Cinderella, no team of destiny, no semifinalist nobody ordered. Every World Cup in memory has smuggled at least one crasher into the final four: Croatia twice, Morocco last time. This one just promoted the four best teams alive, which sounds obvious and had literally never happened.
Argentina punched its ticket the hard way, tied 1-1 with Switzerland Saturday night until Julián Álvarez ripped one in from 25 yards in extra time, 3-1 final. Messi didn't score, so his streak of nine straight World Cup games with a goal is dead. Didn't matter. The opener came off his cross, and the machine still runs through the 38-year-old. The real turning point: Switzerland's Breel Embolo went down screaming, VAR checked and found him falling before anyone touched him, and the referee took back the yellow he'd shown Argentina and handed it to Embolo for the flop. It was his second of the night. Off he went.
Cool stat: Embolo is just the fourth player in 60 years ejected from a World Cup for a second yellow earned by flopping, joining Francesco Totti (2002) in the club nobody frames the jersey for. The NBA and NFL need this rule by the weekend, retroactive if possible. There are men in both leagues who would already be serving life.
So what: Chalk sounds boring until you price it out: the two best possible semifinals, then a final Sunday at MetLife between the two best teams left alive. FIFA seeded the bracket so the giants couldn't meet early, and for once a league office rigged something in the fans' favor. Enjoy the week. The World Cup has never done this before and may never do it again.
|
| ⚽ |
Messi and Ronaldo finally settled the debate, sort of. Ronaldo's sixth and final World Cup ended a week ago in the round of 16: 19 touches against Spain, then a farewell post about leaving with a “clear conscience.” Messi, three years younger, just dragged Argentina into a semifinal and spent Saturday night setting up everyone else. Here's the thing about these two. Ronaldo is what happens when the dork gets rich and never forgives the world for making him wait. Messi got the same money and stayed a dork. One of them is home writing captions about his legacy. The other one plays Wednesday. [ESPN] |
|
| 🏀 |
LeBron is a free agent, and he's making everyone wait, which is the point. He told the Lakers on June 30 to move on without him, so season 24 happens somewhere else. The suitors are Cleveland, Miami, and Golden State, the money is mid-level scraps, and teams are pitching his agent by voice memo, which means the biggest diva in basketball is running a sweepstakes where the grand prize is a gift card. Now the fun part. The Decision aired July 8, 2010, mid World Cup. “I'm Coming Home” dropped July 11, 2014, two days before a World Cup final. The Lakers move came during the 2018 knockout rounds. Four free agencies, four World Cups. The man cannot announce anything unless the entire planet is already watching something bigger. [CBS] |
|
| 🥊 |
Conor McGregor's comeback lasted 69 seconds, and Max Holloway barely had to touch him. Five years away, a record gate in Vegas, 91 cents of every dollar bet at DraftKings riding on Conor. He opened with a jumping scissor kick, a move from a video game, and his knee gave out when he landed it. One Holloway calf kick later, the ref waved it off. Suspected torn ACL, on the opposite leg from the one he broke in 2021, so at least the set is complete. His own post-fight diagnosis: “My head gasket is gone.” The crowd booed Holloway for complimenting him afterward, which was the most Vegas thing that happened all weekend. Actually, second most. [Yahoo] |
|
| 👊 |
The weekend's cleanest hit landed in a casino gym at 10 a.m. Bam Adebayo reportedly punched former teammate Tyler Herro at Resorts World on Friday, in front of Herro's AAU team. The backstory: after the Giannis trade shipped Herro to Milwaukee, screenshots leaked of him DMing a fan that Bam's defense isn't worth the money. Bam disagreed, manually. No police, no video, and one perfect anonymous quote from a player leaving the union meetings: “That doesn't seem like a fair fight.” So to recap the Vegas weekend: the UFC's record-breaking gate produced zero landed punches, and the best strike in town was thrown by a center in a practice gym. Herro sat courtside that same night and said “it's all love in Miami.” Sure looks like it. [ESPN] |
|
| 🏈 |
Michigan spent 11 million dollars investigating Michigan. The regents meet this week to decide the fate of athletic director Warde Manuel after an independent review of a department whose recent highlights include a sign-stealing operation its architect named the KGB, a head coach fired over a relationship with a staffer he was later arrested for stalking, and an ex-coordinator awaiting trial for hacking thousands of athletes' private accounts. Manuel is reportedly weighing retirement, which is one word for it. The wildest part: Michigan won a football title and a basketball title while all of this was happening. Crime pays. Apparently only in Ann Arbor. [CBS] |
|
| 🎾 |
A man you've never heard of beat another man you've never heard of in the Wimbledon final. Jannik Sinner took down Alexander Zverev in four sets Sunday for his fifth major and second straight Wimbledon. Zverev fell to 1-4 in major finals and told Sinner at the trophy ceremony, “Jannik, I don't really like you anymore.” Midway through, Zverev slipped and fell, Sinner walked around the net to help him up, then immediately broke his serve. Assassin behavior. I'm sure tennis fans everywhere are thrilled. Both of them. [Yahoo] |
|
| ⛳ |
Scottie Scheffler finally missed a cut, and the baby did it. Friday at the Scottish Open, his first missed cut since August 2022, ending a streak of 78 straight tournaments, fifth longest in tour history. Since his second son arrived in March, the ledger reads zero wins and four runner-up finishes. One kid made him famously question whether golf even fulfills him. The second one is apparently negotiating on behalf of the field. The Open starts Thursday at Royal Birkdale, where Scheffler is the defending champion and still the favorite, because a sleep-deprived Scheffler is still better than everyone else with a full night's rest. [PGA Tour] |
|
| ⚾ |
The Red Sox just finished a 9-0 road trip, their first since 1977. Nine straight wins into the break, 14-2 since June 25, and a team that was dead last in the AL East on July 2 is now a half game out of a playoff spot. Sunday's finale needed the Mets to boot a game-ending double play in the ninth first, which is the most Mets sentence available. Boston fans spent April demanding the front office be fired and will now spend the break explaining they believed the whole time. [MLB] |
|
| ⭐ |
Everything else this week is baseball's talent show. The Home Run Derby is tonight in Philadelphia, where hometown favorite Kyle Schwarber brings a league-leading 32 homers and Bryce Harper gets to swing for the fences at his own park. The All-Star Game is Tuesday. That is the entire American sports calendar until NFL camps open Friday. It's the one week a year the group chat goes quiet and everyone accidentally talks to their families. Luckily there are two World Cup semifinals to prevent that. [MLB] |
|
| 🎺 |
And finally: a fan got a full trombone into Arrowhead for the Argentina game. You cannot bring a bottle of water into a stadium. A trombone? Walk right in, sir. [X] |
|
|
Embolo saw this and took notes
|
|
|
|
|
Haaland will be missed
|
|
|
|
|
The official Vegas scorecard
|
|
|
|
|
A new meme format is born
|
|
|
|
Programming note: France and Spain play Tuesday, Argentina and England play Wednesday, and the final is Sunday at MetLife. Next Monday's issue is about either the best World Cup final ever played or penalty kicks. There is no third option. See you then.
Happy birthday, Mom!
— Stew
|
|
|
