Low diatribe

I'm watching the World Cup for the art.

Not the results or the table. Not the narrative the pundits construct around national identity and historical grievance.

The art.

Jérémy Doku receiving the ball on the left flank and treating the defender in front of him like a suggestion. The way he changes direction before you've registered that he's changed direction — his body already somewhere else while your eyes are still catching up. It's not speed exactly. It's improvisation. Like he's playing a different game than everyone else on the pitch, one with looser rules and more interesting possibilities.

And Kevin De Bruyne — the architect. The way he reads a sequence three moves before it exists, finds Romelu Lukaku in a channel that wasn't open yet, and delivers a cross with the kind of timing that makes you wonder if he's seeing something the rest of us can't. The ball arrives exactly where Lukaku needs it to be, not where he is. Where he's going to be. That's not passing. That's composition.

Lukaku I came to differently. I showed up for De Bruyne and Doku. Lukaku is what happened because I stayed — the discovery you didn't know you needed until you watched him arrive at the end of one of those crosses and do the only thing that made sense with it.

That's why Belgium is my national team. Not the country or the badge. The players. The specific, irreplaceable way those three make football worth watching.

Belgium lost to Spain.

Spain played well. Clinical, organized, effective. They did what Spain does — controlled the tempo, limited the space, made the game smaller until Belgium couldn't find room to breathe. De Bruyne had flashes. Doku had moments. But Spain closed the gaps and won the match and that was that.

I won't follow Spain into the next round.

Spain faces France next. I'll be rooting for France. Not because I have particular affection for France — I don't — but because something about the way Belgium lost made me want the thing that beat them to lose too. The grudge transferred. Spain eliminated the art I was following, so I want Spain eliminated.

The opps of my opps.

Norway lost to England.

Erling Haaland had been on a different kind of quest — not improvisation, not architecture, but relentless, almost mechanical perfection. The goal-scoring machine tuning itself in real time. Every match another data point in an ongoing experiment: how many ways can one person find the back of the net? Watching Haaland is watching someone become the definitive version of a specific thing. There's art in that too. The art of absolute commitment to a single pursuit.

England ended that quest.

Jude Bellingham scored twice — a brace against a team led by his close friend Haaland. There's something almost unfair about that, and also something completely right. That's what the game asks of you sometimes. Harry Kane was relentless in the way that Harry Kane always is — not flashy, just tenacious, the kind of player who makes you believe the next chance will be converted because he simply will not stop until it is. Together they played the game the way it's supposed to be played.

When Norway was eliminated, I didn't follow the grudge.

I'm following England.

Same trigger — a team I love loses. Opposite directions. With Spain, I want them taken down. With England, I want them to go all the way.

It took me a minute to understand why.

Spain beat Belgium without offering me anything to follow. They were effective. They weren't beautiful. When they won, the thing I loved about watching Belgium went with it — there was nowhere to go.

England beat Norway and showed me something. They played the same way De Bruyne and Doku play it — like it's worth playing well, like the how matters as much as the result. So when Norway went out, the loyalty didn't die. It transferred. England was carrying the thing I was actually following.

It turns out I'm not loyal to Belgium.

I'm loyal to what De Bruyne and Doku do.

And when I find it somewhere else — when another team picks up that frequency and plays it clearly — I will follow it there.

England face Argentina next.

Messi.

Who is, at this stage of his career, leaving a final statement. Playing like someone who has already won everything and is now just showing you what the game looks like when it's done right. Argentina with Messi is the other team in this tournament that could make the same claim England just made against Norway — that football is worth watching for its own sake, not just for the scoreline.

I want England to take it all the way.

Not because of England. Because of what England did against Norway — and because I want to watch that go up against the greatest living argument for football as art and see what happens.

I don't know who wins.

I know what I'm following.

I've been thinking about what this reveals — not just about football, but about loyalty in general.

We think we're loyal to the team. The company. The institution. The flag.

But most of the time, if we're honest, we're loyal to something the team embodies. A way of working. A set of values. A quality we recognize and want to be near.

When that quality moves, the loyalty moves with it.

The people who stay loyal to the badge after the quality has left — they're not more loyal. They're just not paying attention to what they were actually following.

And the people who follow the quality when it transfers — they're not disloyal. They know what they came for.

De Bruyne and Doku are still my players. Belgium is still my team.

But England played beautiful football against Norway.

And I'm here for it.