We are Boston, and we did stop worrying and just enjoyed the World Cup ... and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while waiting for Argentina vs. Spain on Sunday at 3 p.m. …

“Soccer is the sport of the future and always will be.”

Artificial intelligence attributes the well-worn quote to the late Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano, or perhaps Keith Olbermann. Roger Bennett, founder and CEO of the Men in Blazers Media Network prefers, “Soccer is America’s sport of the future — as it has been since 1972.”

Dripping with sarcasm, it’s been my futbol fallback for decades.

Dismissive, yet maddeningly true, the tenet revives a question ever-hovering over the American sports landscape:

Is it possible that the earth is moving under recliners of American man caves? Will this 2026 World Cup be looked back on as the event that finally pushed soccer into the closed ring of American’s major professional spectator sports? Has our Big Four (football, basketball, baseball, hockey) become a Big Five? Or will the world’s beautiful game again be relegated to the fringe of American spectator sports once the afterglow of the World Cup fades?

That’s what happened in 1994 when the Cup was last held in North America.

I was at the ’94 final in Pasadena, Calif., for Brazil’s victory over Italy — a dubious duel settled on penalty kicks after 120 nil-nil minutes (plus corrupt stoppage time). There wasn’t much lasting bounce from that mega-event.

Related: Christian Pulisic might have the talent to be USA’s No. 1 soccer star, but he certainly lacks elsewhere

For sure Brandi Chastain and friends got our attention five years later when they won the Women’s World Cup in spectacular fashion. Additionally, England’s Premier League continues to build a strong following in the States and we have some cities (Atlanta and Seattle, for instance) where MLS has far more impact than it does in Foxborough, where the Revolution draw 20,000 fans a game but are not a hot topic of conversation.

Still, a good number of American sports fans will put soccer back on the shelf after Sunday’s final. A lot of them did after our men’s team was KO’d by Belgium, 4-1, in the round of 16. It’s certainly not helpful that the US men continue to tread water in a global sport dominated by powers from Europe and South America.

One thing is indisputable: Skeptics like myself were wrong about how Greater Boston would perform as one of 11 American cities hosting the 2026 Cup.

Back in early June, I wrote a column headlined, “It’s Doubtful Boston Will Enjoy Hosting” for print editions and “We are Boston, so can we stop worrying and just enjoy the World Cup?” online.

“Here in the Route 1 corridor between Boston and Foxborough, the vaunted Cup has largely been a cause of irritation and inconvenience … Let’s face it, the Hub of the Universe is not great at pulling off global events … New Englanders have never embraced the beautiful game that enchants the rest of the planet … our reaction to the World Cup runs the gamut from annoyance to apathy … a month from now, when “Boston Stadium” signage is taken down and Gillette’s goal posts are reinstalled, we’ll know if the whole thing was worth it.”

That was written before “No Scotland, No Party!” when the joyous Tartan Army brought its movable bacchanal to our region, drank our bars dry, and took over games at both Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park.

Related: In Foxborough, the fans were the best part of the World Cup. The soccer was a little underwhelming.

My misguided words were typed before Scotland beat Haiti, 1-0, in the first Foxborough match; before the Scots one night later staged a boisterous bagpipes-and-drums totin’, kilt-wearin’, flag-wavin’, beer-guzzlin’ victory march to Fenway while belting out “Flower of Scotland.”

A national television audience of MLB fans got some inadvertent exposure to what all the fuss was about that night.

Then we had the Norwegians doing the “Viking Row” on a TD Garden escalator (Does Norway’s hulking Erling Haaland remind anyone of Gronk?). The Norwegians were almost as much fun as the gang from the Mull of Kintyre.

World Cup: Norway do the ‘Viking Row’

Norway fans line up, extend their arms, and draw their elbows back in sync to cheer on their team. It’s almost like the Norwegian version of “The Wave.” (Videos courtesy of James Kitch and Camilo Fonseca/Globe Staff. Photo by Stan Grossfeld/Globe Staff.)

We also saw feisty Ghana battling England to a nil-nil draw, Paraguay eliminating Germany on penalty kicks (perhaps the biggest upset of the tournament), Iraq’s Aymen Hussein thrilling the Foxborough masses with a tying goal against Norway, and one beauty of a goal by France’s Kylian Mbappé. Tiny Cape Verde did not play here, but its large local community made us feel the love for the upstart Blue Sharks as they advanced to the knockout stage in their Cup debut. All the while, a melting pot of futbol fanatics celebrated at City Hall Plaza watch festivals. Hundreds (thousands?) of ticketless international fans flew to our city just to join the party.

Most incredibly, hardly anyone complained. Not even ever-cynical locals. Almost none of the train/traffic/security nightmares surfaced. For a full month and a half, New England stopped to smell the roses and enjoy the moment. How unlike us. Futbol fans from around the world came to Boston and saw that the United States is not what they see when they watch TV news in their countries. Boston showed up for international travelers and made itself the best of 11 American host cities.

And we got just as much out of it as our guests. Seeing fans from foreign lands enjoying themselves in our town reminded us how great this place is. We are newly appreciative of American ranch dressing, air conditioning, yellow school buses, ice machines, and grocery stores embarrassingly stocked with everything one can imagine.

The World Cup has been described as the front porch of tourism and our local futbol festival brought out the best in Boston. Soccer no doubt is the sport of the future.

Evermore.

▪ Quiz: 1. Name five players who hit at least 100 home runs with three different teams; 2. Name four pitchers among the top 20 active leaders in wins who were teammates on the 2021 Red Sox (answers below).

▪ Prior to the semifinals, World Cup players found the back of the net on only 39 of 60 penalty kicks (including four shootouts). The 65 percent conversion rate is historically low. Legends Lionel Messi (Argentina), Mbappé (France), and Harry Kane (England) all missed in-game penalty kicks during the tournament.

Related: Photos: World Cup fever takes over Boston and the region in June and July

▪ The late, great Mark Fidrych will be enshrined in the WooSox Hall of Fame next Thursday, along with Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy, Dr. Charles Steinberg, and the late Gene Zabinski. This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the summer of “The Bird,” when Fidrych, a Worcester-born Northborough native took America by storm, winning 19 games for the Tigers, starting the All-Star Game for the American League, and winding up on the cover of Sports Illustrated with Big Bird in 1977.

Like so many great pro athletes, Fidrych played multiple sports as a kid, and he was a valuable bench player for Algonquin Regional’s varsity basketball team in the February 1973 Clark University basketball tournament. The Bird scored 11 points in a 53-50 semifinal win over Quabbin, then had 10 more in a 55-42 loss to Bartlett in the big-school championship final (Groton High, coached by the late John P. Fahey, won the small-school division that same year). Three years later, Fidrych was on the mound at Veterans Stadium in Philly, facing Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Steve Garvey, and Johnny Bench in the first two innings of the MLB All-Star Game.

▪ All props to the Red Sox for winning nine in a row — all road games! — before the All-Star break. Kudos to Craig Breslow and Andrew Bailey for developing a pitching staff that goes into this weekend ranked fourth in the majors in ERA. The nine-game streak under the leadership of Tracy conjures memories of Morgan Magic, when Walpole’s Joe Morgan took over for John McNamara in 1988 and won his first 12 games, 19 of his first 20, while shedding “interim” along the way. Ancient Sox watchers like myself also remember the 1967 Cardiac Kid Sox winning 10 in a row (four at home, then six road) in midsummer.

▪ Careful What You Wish For Dept.: Four days before the break, the Red Sox deployed a lineup of Seigler, Rafaela, Abreu, Gonzalez, Durbin, Monasterio, Eaton, Harris, and Wong. That’s a Triple-A lineup with only three big league regulars. They managed four hits and won the game. Swell. It’s great to see hungry players overachieving. But is it sustainable? I worry that success with a product like this emboldens a Sox organization — ever intent on proving it is smarter than all others — to steer clear of paying top money for top talent. I’d rather be a fan of the $420 million payroll Dodgers, who entered the break 61-36 and are going for baseball’s first three-peat since the 1998-2000 Yankees.

▪ Five-foot-6-inch Durbin hit cleanup at Citi Field last Saturday. Can anyone think of another cleanup hitter of that stature? Astros star Jose Altuve, 5-6, has batted cleanup in 24 games (94 plate appearances) in his career, and Cincinnati’s Hall of Famer Morgan perhaps batted fourth at some point, and he was listed as 5-7.

Related: Not hyperbole to say Red Sox’ next 17 games affect not only this season but the franchise’s future

▪ How soon before the Celtics issue jersey No. 7 to another player?

▪ Color me dazzled by the number of otherwise smart local fans who seem to think dumping Jaylen Brown was a good thing for the Celtics. Where was all this hate when he was playing here? Brown finished sixth in league MVP voting last season and was swapped to Philly for a fossilized Paul George and a bunch of picks. And now many Green Teamers are in love with the giveaway of a star player in his prime.

▪ Will Randy Johnson go down in history as MLB’s last 300-game winner? The Big Unit got to 300 in 2009 and finished with 303. Justin Verlander, 43, has 266 wins, but he announced he’s retiring at the end of this season. There’s nobody else on the horizon. According to The Athletic’s Tyler Kepner, no active pitcher under the age of 35 has cracked the 115-victory mark. Given the way the game is trending, it’s impossible to imagine another 300-game winner.

▪ The Braves’ Mike Yastrzemski on July 9 hit a grand slam against the Pirates, the third of his big league career. His grandfather hit seven for the Red Sox.

▪ Twenty former Cape Cod League baseball players were selected on the first day of the MLB Draft last Saturday. The Yankees drafted Luke Pettitte, 21-year-old son of Andy Pettitte, in the eighth round Sunday. Young Pettitte is a pitcher-hitter who socked 16 home runs in 42 games for Dallas Baptist this spring. He’s had Tommy John surgery.

▪ Once again, the NCAA has been whupped in court. An Ohio judge (vaunted Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas) on July 9 granted a preliminary injunction for 24 men’s and women’s college basketball players who have completed their eligibility but want to come back for a fifth season. It’s dollar-driven by college players who are not good enough to make it in the NBA or WNBA but want one last bag of NIL dough before getting on with their lives. The judge stated that his decision included “no illusions that the parties’ interest relate at all to academics.” Bingo. Big-time college sports = farce.

▪ Thought you’d want to know that WNBA referee Angelica Suffren, a basketball official of more than 25 years, is also a competitive ballroom dancer.

▪ Connecting Detroit with Windsor, Ontario, the Gordie Howe International Bridge is slated to open July 27.

▪ Quiz answers: 1. Adrian Beltre (Rangers 199, Dodgers 147, Mariners 103); Darrell Evans (Giants 142, Tigers 141, Braves 131); Reggie Jackson (Athletics 269, Yankees 144, Angels 123); Alex Rodriguez (Yankees 351, Mariners 189, Rangers 156); and Jim Thome (Indians 337, White Sox 134, Phillies 101); 2: Chris Sale (154), Nate Eovaldi (111), Eduardo Rodriguez (102), and Martin Perez (97).