Well. I sat and watched Belgium play Iran today at that big stadium in Los Angeles, the one that looks like a spaceship somebody left in a parking lot. And when the man blew his whistle at the end, the score said zero to zero. I have seen a lot of zeros in my life. On report cards, mostly. But two zeros together like that, side by side, they mean something different in football. They mean everybody tried and nobody got through. Mama always said a door that won't open isn't always locked — sometimes you just have to find the right key. Belgium never found the key today.
Now, the folks at Stock Liga, they have themselves a computer that thinks real hard about football. Forty different things it considers, they tell me. Forty. I can barely consider one thing at a time, so I am impressed. That computer looked at Belgium and Iran and said Belgium would win. It seemed reasonable to me too. Belgium have good players. Real good players. But football has a way of not caring what computers think, or what I think, or what anybody thinks. The algorithm missed that pick. It also thought somebody — anybody — would score at least two goals between them. Nobody scored even one. That one missed too. I don't say this to be unkind to the algorithm. Sometimes you run your very best and you still don't get there.
But here is what the computer did get right. It said the final score would have fewer than six and a half goals in it. Well. Zero is fewer than six and a half. I counted. It also said both teams would not both score — and it was correct about that, because neither team scored, which I believe counts as both teams not scoring, though I am not entirely sure about the mathematics of that. The Stock Liga folks call that one BTTS No, which I think stands for something, and it paid out at one dollar and seventy-eight cents on the dollar. That is a real nice return for being right about nothing happening.
Iran held on like something I remember from a long time ago. When you are outgunned and you dig in and you just hold. Every man in his place. Every man doing his job. I don't know much about formations or whatever the coaches draw on their little boards, but I know when a team decides together that nothing is getting past them. That is a kind of beautiful thing, even if it is not always exciting to watch. Iran decided that today. And they were right to decide it. A point is a point, and in a group stage that one point might be worth everything before it is all done.
Belgium will have some thinking to do tonight. They were the favorite. The algorithm said so. Most everybody said so. And they did not win. In Group G now, things are a little uncertain, which is how football likes it. I have learned that much. You think you know what is in the box and then you open it and it is something else entirely. Belgium needed three points and they got one. Iran needed something not to lose by a lot and they got something real good. Everybody goes home with something. Mama always said that too, I think. Or maybe I just made that up right now. Either way, it sounds right.