For the love of club (and country)

Welcome to week 2 of the World Cup at The Tap-Inn. Where, as always, you can tap in to the world of soccer with me, your Irish Tap-Inn bartender, Joe.

On tap today:

• ⚽ Why representing your club and county are two very different things.

• 🇨🇦 Canada, eh.

• 🧦 Why the Red Sox saw a spike in attendance this week.

Ready? I thought so. Let’s pour.

⚽ GOAL OF THE WEEK

Lionel Messi— Argentina vs Algeria (17')

Lionel Messi rolled back the years for his first ever World Cup hat-trick. His Inter Miami teammate Rodrigo De Paul threaded a pass clean through the heart of Algeria, and the genius took it from there. Press play on this insane crowd footage of the goal.

A trademark run, then a drive off that famous left foot from the edge of the box. The strike pulled Messi level with Miroslav Klose's all-time record of 16 World Cup goals. The goal landed 20 years to the day since he scored his very first back in 2006. The man who turns 39 next week simply refuses to stop.

GOAT.

🥃 TOP SHELF

For the love of club (and country)

You know that friend who’s at your local bar every Friday, knows the bartender’s dog’s name, and has “their” stool? That’s club football. Then there’s the friend who shows up once every few months, buys the whole group a round, cries during ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ and then disappears again. That’s international football.

Same sport, same ball, totally different kind of party. We’re one week into the tournament so it feels like a good time to compare the two.

Start with the squad. First things first. You cannot buy players for your country. Real Madrid can sign the best talent on earth and build a dream team with a fat checkbook. A national team manager can’t do that. He works with whoever happened to be born in (or have grandparents from) his country, and that's it. Look at Lionel Messi. He plays his club soccer in Miami, but you won't catch him in a USA shirt this summer. Kinda like how I work in New York but when it comes to the World Cup of pulling pints, I’d be lining out for Ireland.

“But surely these teams can practice together and improve?"

Well, eh, kinda, and this is the big one. A club trains together nearly every day across a ten-month season, running the same patterns until the players can find each other with their eyes closed. A national team gets a sliver of that. They get a handful of days together during international breaks throughout the year but when you’ve players spread all across the world playing in different leagues, the very task of getting them in the one place can prove difficult.

“So is international soccer just a worse version of the club game?”

No sir. Not a chance. It's a different game, and that's the charm. What it gives up in quality sometimes, it wins back in something money can't buy. The passion is raw, the stakes are higher. Lose a league game in October with your club and you shrug: “Long season, we go again.” That’s like spilling a bit of your pint. Annoying, but you will get another. Lose a World Cup knockout game and you might not get that chance again for four years. That is dropping an entire tray of shots at 11:58pm on New Year’s Eve.

“So which is better?”

That’s like asking me to pick between my whiskey and stout. Both are amazing. But for me, international football is better. It squeezes maximum emotion, pressure, and national pride into a tiny number of games, so every moment feels massive. Club football is the superior week-to-week product, with richer tactics and storylines, but nothing matches a major tournament: entire countries locked in, legacies on the line, and memories you talk about for years.

🌎 SOUND LIKE A PRO

Smash and Grab

Origin: This one's stolen from the world of crime, not soccer. The term dates back to the 1920s, describing a thief who smashes a shop window, grabs whatever is in reach, and bolts before the alarm stops ringing. It boomed during the depression of the 1930s and the name stuck around.

Definition: Soccer borrowed it to describe a team that runs the same play. Soak up the punishment, nick one goal, and bolt for the door. One team does all the attacking and makes all the chances. The other defends for their lives, scores once against the run of play, and escapes with all three points. Daylight robbery.

Usage:"We got battered for ninety minutes and still won 1-0. Total smash and grab."

🗞️ THE WORLD CUP TAP-IN

The main course

Canada had been to three World Cups across four decades and never won a single game. Not one. Until Thursday night in Vancouver.

The co-hosts demolished Qatar 6-0, and a sold-out BC Place, 52,497 strong and dressed head to toe in red, lost its mind. They did it without their captain, Alphonso Davies, who began on the bench as he eases back from injury. Cyle Larin nodded them ahead inside sixteen minutes, and once that first ever World Cup win was in sight, the floodgates opened against a Qatar side who ended the game with nine men.

The man of the hour was Jonathan David, Canada's all-time top scorer, who helped himself to a hat-trick. Here's your stat for the barstool, David hadn't scored from open play for his country since last September, and then he poured in three in one afternoon. Epic.

Canada now sit top of Group B, with a winner-takes-the-group showdown against Switzerland next Wednesday, back in Vancouver.

World Cup specials

• 🇳🇴Norway 4-1 Iraq. Haaland announces himself. After a 28-year wait to reach a World Cup, Norway made up for lost time. On his tournament debut, Erling Haaland helped himself to a brace, the first ever by a Norwegian at a World Cup. He slide home at the far post before pouncing on a goalkeeping howler. At 25, the big man has waited his whole career for this. He looks hungry.
  

• 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿England 4-2 Croatia. Eight years on, sweet revenge. Beaten by Croatia in the 2018 semifinal, England flipped the script in a frantic six-goal opener. Harry Kane struck twice, including a retaken penalty, before Jude Bellingham and substitute Marcus Rashford finished the job. A statement start for a side still chasing a first title since 1966.
  

• 🇫🇷France 3-1 Senegal. Mbappé climbs the mountain. The 2018 winners had to graft against a quality Senegal, but Kylian Mbappé settled it with two goals, becoming France's all-time leading scorer in the process. Senegal, with the great Sadio Mané on his international farewell, pulled one back but couldn't find a way through. France looking like very strong contenders.

Next on the menu

The best fixtures for the coming few days are:

• 🇩🇪Germany v Ivory Coast (Saturday, 4pm ET, Toronto). Germany announced themselves with a 7-1 demolition of Curaçao and suddenly look like contenders again. Ivory Coast are one of the strongest African sides, so this should be a cracker.
  

• 🇳🇱Netherlands v Sweden (Saturday, 1pm ET, Houston). Two big European names who had very different opening nights. The Dutch were held to a draw by Japan, while Sweden put five past Tunisia. If the Swedes carry that form, this has the makings of the goal feast of the weekend.
  

• 🇪🇸Spain v Saudi Arabia (Sunday, 12pm ET, Atlanta). The reigning European champions arrive with plenty to prove after being held to a shock 0-0 by debutants Cape Verde in their opener. Saudi Arabia already nicked a point off Uruguay, so Spain can't afford to sleepwalk through this one.

🌎 BAR CRAWL AROUND THE WORLD

Team review: Uzbekistan

Best World Cup finish: This is their first-ever World Cup. In their opening match against Colombia, 22-year-old midfielder Abbosbek Fayzullaev scored Uzbekistan's first-ever World Cup goal. Uzbekistan became the first Central Asian nation to ever compete in the tournament. Thousands gathered across the country celebrating the goal even if it came during a 3-1 loss.

Star player:Eldor Shomurodov is the captain and most dangerous attacking threat, the goal scorer who led the team's rise to the World Cup. He's played in Italy for Genoa and Roma, bringing European club experience to the squad.

Top-selling beer:Sarbast. It's a European-style Pilsner and Uzbekistan's first beer free of rice, corn and sugar.

Joe's favorite city: Tashkent. The capital, with around three million residents. It's the fourth largest former Soviet city. It hosts the State Museum of the Timurids, an amazing metro system, and the Chorsu Bazaar.

📝 ASK JOE

Q: How come, during the World Cup, the referees don’t use chalk on the pitch to see boundaries for free kicks like they do in Premier League games. Or, do they, and I’ve just missed it.

Thank you to Daniel LaFeir in Chicago for the question.

Daniel, great question. In short, the refs are just using it less. The white line is “vanishing spray” an optional tool to mark the ball and 10-yard wall on free kicks. It debuted at the 2014 World Cup and was widely used there, then got adopted by top leagues like the Premier League.

Like everything with FIFA, it’s not without controversy. The spray’s inventors have taken them to court over unpaid fees. Rather than lean into that, FIFA has quietly scaled back the spray across tournaments, which is why you’re not really seeing it quite as much at this World Cup as you might see during the Premier League.

If you’d like to submit your own question about soccer or the World Cup. Email: hello@thetap-inn.com

🔥 QUICKFIRE

Underdog of the week

Vozinha, Cape Verde's 40-Year-Old Goalkeeper

It took Vozinha 40 years to make his World Cup debut but when he finally got there, he became Cape Verde's hero and a darling of this years World Cup.

The veteran goalkeeper made seven saves and held Spain scoreless in a stunning 0-0 draw, keeping the European champions at bay in Cape Verde's first-ever World Cup match. Spain took 27 shots. Vozinha saved all seven on target.

His performance triggered a massive viral surge: he gained over 10 million Instagram followers after the match, jumping from approximately 50,000 to more than 10 million.

Fanzone

The RedTartan Socks.

We covered just how much fun Scottish fans were having in Boston last week but what I thought to be a one off fling seems to be developing into a true love story.

The fans and police got on like a house on fire. Officers joined fans for photos outside pubs, waved at the kilts, and even sang along to Flower of Scotland. When the crowds swelled past capacity, cops and bar staff worked together to safely disperse people rather than kick them out. No mass ejections, no arrests, just a shared understanding that this was the kind of party Boston doesn’t get twice in a lifetime.

The city embraced them so completely that Boston and Glasgow announced a sister-city partnership on Thursday. A true World Cup love story.

Last call

Here's one to leave you smiling. When DR Congo fell behind to Portugal, you'd have forgiven their fans for fearing the worst. Then Yoane Wissa popped up with an equalizer, and a small pocket of Congolese supporters watching the game in Lisbon, marooned in a sea of Portugal shirts, completely lost it.

Look at that. Pure, unfiltered joy. This is exactly why we love the thing.

That's the bell, folks. Drink up.

As they say in Uzbekistan, Sog‘liq uchun!

Have a friend who is all of a sudden a big soccer guy - why not share The Tap-Inn with them so they actually understand what’s going on. Slainté.