LamarCheeks

CTM's father passed. RIP, Mr. Moren. He sure loved watching Teri coach her team. Prayers to the Moren family.

Man, Argentina just won't be denied. I'm kinda rooting for England -- no particular reason why -- but those Argentines are putting a truckload of pressure on. And sure enough, they score. 1-1 with 5 minutes left, plus stoppage time. I don't doubt Argentina has another one in them. Relentless.

I bet when Harry Kane did his pregame walk through for today's match against Norway, he went to the west end of the field and said, "Wow. This is where Fernando had that 12-yard, spinning touchdown run against Miami ..."

This is just a rip-off of those old ESPN SportsCenter commercials. The bison still just feels ... very weird to me. But I guess the higher-ups feel it's better than no mascot. Because with no mascot, we can't be included in this goofiness ...

Kyle Schwarber might attend -- big plus (if he's there). So will Michael Irvin -- big minus. And it'll be on Nexflix -- big minus.

Down to eight ...

Egypt scores. 2-0. Can't take this one away (they might try, however)

Wow. Messi turned away on a PK.

The world's top-ranked team down a goal early. I suspect Lionel and the boys will come back, but still -- kinda interesting.

Hey Jude ... Bellingham scores twice in less than two minutes for England. Crazy.

WOW! HUGE NEWS! Not sure how this came about, but I'm not complaining (Belgium might be, however).

Totally forgot the Mexico-England match will be in Mexico City.

Current odds say England vs. Brazil in the quarters. Other than any U.S. match -- that might be the one I'm most looking forward to. If it happens, of course. Right now, FIFA has England ranked No. 4 and Brazil fifth. Before the tournament, they were 4 (England) and 6 (Brazil).

Only 16 remain

FIFA's pretty corrupt, so it might not make much of a difference, but I didn't realize that during the World Cup, there is no appeal process. (Probably should've known that -- but I didn't). So the U.S. cannot appeal the horrible red card call on Flo. That means it all comes down to one guy's decision. One guy -- and he made a bad call. Officials make poor calls all the time, and though the U.S. won, it really hamstrung us having to go with 10 against Bosnia. But now that the match is over and the dust has settled, why not create the ability to go back, have more than ONE person look at it and say, "Hey, this wasn't the right call. Balogun can play the next match." Or, conversely: "Hey, this was the right call. Red card stands. Balogun is out against Belgium." To go into a Round of 16 match without one of our best players on a very questionable call -- with no review of that call ... well, it sucks.

GREAT WIN!

Down a man, Tillman scores!

A couple guys get tangled up, so Flo gets a red card?

Damn -- that Harry Kane is an absolute beast.

I snicker as I post this ...

Netherlands going home -- earlier than in any other World Cup.

Dutch and Moroccans going to PKs.

These fellas are just pulling the wool over our eyes. They're old friends.

Or going eight OTs -- like Duke and IU did back in 1982!

Auf Wiedersehen, Germany. PKs are such an unsatisfying way to end a match -- but that was pretty entertaining.