Parity Does Not Exist in Soccer

American Exceptionalism expects U.S. men's soccer to be better than what they are, and we can write endless think pieces with valid critiques about what the problem is, but the truth of the matter is, the World Cup is really hard to win.

In 23 World Cups, there have only been eight winners. 

Brazil has the most wins with five, but they haven't won in 24 years. They also went 24 years or 6 World Cups between their 1970 and 1994 win.

The gaps between Germany's four wins are 20, 16, and 24 years, and this year's Round of 32 result is their best since their last win in 2014, meaning they didn't even get out of the Group Stage in 2018 and 2022. 

Despite also having four wins, Italy hasn't even qualified for the last three tournaments, and they have gaps of 44 and 24 years between wins.

Before Argentina's latest win in 2022, their last victory was in 1986, a gap of 36 years. Messi himself had to play in five tournaments before winning. 

France didn't win their first of two World Cups until 1998 after not qualifying the previous two, and their resurgence is in large part thanks to one player, Mbappé, who helped them win in 2018, 20 years after the first win.  

Uruguay's two wins were in 1930 and 1950, and England, despite being home to the Premier League, has only won it once in 1966, which negates the MLS argument. Their second-best finish? Third. This year. 

Spain is the newest winner, and they took 16 years to win it again. 

Statistically, that's 8/84, or 9% of teams that have qualified for the World Cup.  

In comparison, 20/30 teams have won the NBA Finals, 20/32 NFL teams have won a Super Bowl,  25/30 MLB teams have won a World Series, and 22/32 NHL teams have won a Stanley Cup: at least half of all teams.

Sixteen out of 32 MLS teams have won a title, which is the lowest percentage among major American sports leagues, but when you dig deeper and look at the world's top soccer leagues, you will see how staggering the disparity is and much it parallels with the World Cup statistic:  7/51 (13%) teams that have competed in the Premier League, 13/58 (22%) Bundesliga teams, and 9/63 (14%) La Liga teams have won championships.

In contrast, the EuroLeague, Europe's top basketball league, has produced 22 different winners with 20 active teams. Soccer is the difference: it is the hardest sport to play and win, and the World Cup is the biggest and best display of that excellence because in order to win, you truly have to be the best, and the U.S. haven't played quality soccer for a long time, as evident in Leander Schaerlaeckens' history of the team, The Long Game: U.S. Men's Soccer and Its Savage, Four-Decade Journey to the Top, or Thereabouts.  

After the 1950 World Cup, the U.S. did not play in another one until 1990, 40 years later, missing nine World Cups during the duration. 

In the 1970s, teams were assembled at the last second, even composing of someone in the stands (p. 37).  

They played a total of one international game between 1980 and 1981 (p. 69).

Despite qualifying for the 1990 World Cup, the U.S. did not earn a point until their home 1994 World Cup (p. 134).  It would be another two years before MLS would kick off, ending a twelve-year drought of professional soccer in America after the North American Soccer League folded in 1984. It would be even longer until the league actually made money, having plans in 2002 to fold in case things didn't go well (p. 167).  

While critics were disappointed in the U.S.'s final result at the 2026 World Cup, it set record-breaking results: biggest win, 4-1 v. Paraguay, most wins total (3), and most wins (2) in the group stage since 1930. Until Folarin Balogun did it against Paraguay, no player had even scored multiple goals in the same World Cup game for the U.S. since 1930. By resting players for the Turkey game, they were unable to be the first USMNT to win all of their group stage games.  

If the USMNT are ever going to win a World Cup, it's going to take some time. After a friendly with Romania in the spring of 1993, their head coach, Cornel Dinu, remarked "They'll need a hundred years to play soccer" (p. 137). The timeline restarts now, or maybe they'll shock the whole world, four years from now in 2030, on the 100th anniversary of their 1930 World Cup third place finish. 

The Realities of Post Grad Life

1. You have bills to pay-rent, utilities, property taxes, mortgages/loans, everything costs money, and you get kicked off your parents’ health insurance at 26. 
2. Because you have bills to pay, unless you’re unemployed or have sold your soul to a corporation for PTO, you have no more free time. 
3. The next big step in people’s lives is to get married and have children. That is why they go to college for a good-paying job. We make fun of teenage pregnancies and women looking for their MRS degrees, but people are having babies with their college partners. That was their goal all along. If this is not your life path, you will be very alone. 

10 Year Reunion (1 Year Late)

No one prepares you for the reality of post grad life.

There are no dining halls to feed you, no undergrads to swipe you in, no restaurants within walking distance.

Go to college they say. UVA is a good school they say. But I can’t find a job. I have my Bachelor’s degree, and I’m scrubbing the toilet at Gymboree. 

There’s no one to talk to about this because the friends you saw every day are now four hours away. You never learned to talk on the phone because you didn’t need to. They were just a walk away. 

Eventually you find a job on Craigslist of all places and have a place to live thanks to an old childhood friend, but you eventually grow apart. All your old friends disappear because you’re not the same person anymore. You’re vegan and don’t want kids.

Eventually you go to grad school because your 9-5 isn’t fulfilling and you need to run away from a boy. The word situationship was not alive and well yet. 

At grad school, you don’t open up because you’re surrounded by white girls again and of course make friends with the only other Asian. They see this and exclude you even more. They eventually accept you through the power of morning meeting, but by then it’s too late: they’ve already developed a lifetime bond. 

You graduate and skip the lawn ceremony because you’ve “been there done that” but again it’s so hard to find a job. There is serious racism no one talks about: it feels like only white people get hired by good schools, but the public school system is so bad, they eventually quit too. 

You glaze over your teaching career because it was so traumatic and your 5-month relationship, and eventual dissolution of all your friendships. 

Every month, March still feels sad because the body remembers the score, but eventually it goes away. However, your depression creeps up during holidays when you have more time alone with your thoughts.  

COVID saves you from having to teach in-person for the last 3 months of school. 

You move back home because you’re done with NOVA and pay a year’s worth of mental well-being and no personal space to live with your parents again. 

Eventually, your sister gets into a MFA program, so you follow her, and life finally looks up again, but men continue to haunt you-not in a scary way, although it could be, but in a crush is such a waste of time kind of way-but finally you are free because they move away and leave you alone. 

And buying a house is stressful but you get through it somehow and you meet your first ever bestie you share with your sister. Life is finally stable after five years in one place, but you’re constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop like how in two months your best friend will move away for grad school. 

You look back at your high school yearbooks because your high school employee wants to know what you were like and realize two boys gave you their phone number-all this time, you thought you were undesirable, but you didn’t think anything of it back then because starting a new life at UVA was your only goal. And you did. College was the best four years of your adult life. But it ends, and you have to figure out the rest on your own because no one prepares you for the reality of post grad life.

Ear Piercing

Because I was feeling depressed, I got my second lobe piercings today, something I’ve wanted to do for the last year, and the 6-8 weeks recovery time is giving me anxiety. I can’t sleep right now because I’m a side sleeper and I’m afraid of messing everything up.

I don’t remember it being this long as a kid when I got my ears pierced not once but twice after the first one closed up.

I am dreading having to clean it twice a day yet the task was so easy for me as a child. Shouldn’t I be more competent as an adult? 

But as an adult I know too much now. I am too aware of what could go wrong, but is that a simple result of growing old or having too much access to information via the internet? Is getting your ears pierced with a gun at Claire’s or a mall stall bad if you don’t know it?  Without hearing stories about people’s piercings not healing, I wouldn’t even know it was a possibility. 

Or is it the fact that I am my sole protector now? If anything goes wrong, I have to solve the problem. The mental load to keep me alive is no longer my parents’. 

Or is because I paid for the expensive piercing myself, knowing what I know about Claire’s, so if it doesn’t heal, I have to spend more of my own money to fix it? 

Or am I just simply mentally ill now as my sister put it. Mentally ill from what? Living.

Ranking Every Place I Went to in Los Angeles

3 = mid

 

 

Midway Car Rental - 5/5

First time renting a car and it went pretty smoothly with Midway, a local company; they provide shuttles to and from LAX; the only issue we had was having to pay double for the insurance after booking with Expedia; however after contacting Expedia, I was able to get a refund 

Monica's Airbnb in Glendale - 5/5

Modern loft with private parking away from the hustle and bustle of LA but close enough with a car

Beyond Vegan - 5/5

No notes for my first meal in LA 

Ralph's - 4/5

The Southern California Kroger-1 star off for being expensive

The Broad - 4/5 

Cool but very short experience; convenient paid parking garage  

The Museum of Contemporary Art - 5/5

Right across the street from The Broad and more interesting

Beewali's Vegan AF - 3/5

Maybe it's because I ordered the wrong dish, but I did not find my food to be extraordinary; however an LA mid is a 4 in most cities

Donut Friend - 5/5

My favorites were the mochi donut, youth brulee, and king puff. Although I love passionfruit, I don't think it belongs on a donut.

Pine & Crane - 4.5/5

I would not order the eggplant dish again, but the passionfruit green tea with grass jelly was so good that it warrants a 4.5.

Ramen Hood - 5/5

So good, especially when I'm starving in the middle of the Huntington Library parking lot; one of the best vegan ramens I've had

Norton Simon Museum - 0/5

The art was just organized by time periods with no stories to tie them together. 

Huntington Libary - 5/5

I almost skipped out because I was hungry, the parking lot appeared to be full, and I have gardens back home to see, but I'm so glad I didn't: the library and art museum collection were spectacular.    

Bofomofo Cafe (San Gabriel Valley) - 5/5

The OG location, the Strawberry Basil Ginger Lemonade was so pretty and yummy! The vegan popcorn chicken and mapo tots were also good snacks. I would not recommend them as a meal replacement though because I only ate the tots for lunch once, and I would later die of starvation. 

Bakers Bench - 5/5

Chocolate croissants are my favorite so any place I can find one is a winner in my book.

Los Feliz Flea Market - 5/5

An unexpected find on my trip to Bakers Bench 

Glowing - 4/5

The sandwich itself wasn't memorable, but the fact that I was able to pick up a vegan sandwich with vegan deli meat and cheese from a market for dinner was memorable.

Echo Park - 5/5

The most memorable neighborhood in LA for me

Sunday's Best Thrift Apparel - 5/5

I came back home with two new winter jackets.  

Santa Monica Pier - 0/5

Maybe it's because it was cloudy but the beach view here was not that pretty and there's not much to do at the pier if you're vegan

Satdha Plant Based Thai Kitchen - 3/5

The beet noodles were good, but nothing else was memorable. Because it is in Santa Monica, I think the food and flavors are catered to white people v. Bulan Thai in Silver Lake. 

Gracias Madre - 4.5/5 

The food was okay but the horchata, non-alcoholic drink, and vibes were good enough that I'd return.

Bofomofo (Cafe San Diego) - 2/5

I got the same drink as the San Gabriel location and it was not as good or pretty.

Din Tai Fung (Glendale Galleria) - 3/5

Overrated unfortunately; we did not do our research mamas and the fillings for all the dumplings we ordered were the same so we should have just gotten one dumpling and spent the money on other dishes; the orange green tea was the best thing my sister and I ordered

Glendale Galleria - 2/5

We walked the whole mall and did not buy a single thing, and it was empty for a well-known mall. The biggest draw was the Apple Store, where I did get a USB-C charger for my rental on an earlier trip.

Escape Room 66 - 2/5

I have a whole blog review on my experience but $50 for a mid experience is a lot.   

Ranking Every Place I Went to in San Francisco

Ranking every place I went to in San Francisco
(3 = mid)

Senor Sisig - 3/5
Maybe it’s just the vegan burritos that aren’t good
Fisherman’s Wharf - 3/5
Cool if you eat seafood I guess 
Presidio Tunnel Tops - 5/5
Beautiful
Southern Pacific Brewery - 3.5/5 
Good Hazy beer but loud and crowded
Shizen - 3.5/5 
Unique sushi rolls but I wasn’t a fan of the flavors 
Sara’s apartment - 5/5
Comfortable couch, nicely decorated, good dog, and fun times with the gracious host
Waymo - 5/5
Positive use of technology
Enjoy Vegetarian - 2/5
One of the lesser vegetarian Chinese restaurants I’ve been to
MoMa - 4.5/5
Big fan of modern art museums
Asha Tea House - 5/5
Thankful Sara diverted me away from Boba Guys because the blood orange tea from here was fire.
BART - 4/5
I couldn’t independently figure out this transit system. 
OM Sabor - 3/5
I ordered $50 of food but nothing stood out.
Dolores Park - 5/5
Nice views
Alamo Square Park/Painted Ladies - 1/5
The Painted Ladies were so faded and covered with overgrown trees. I saw way cooler and prettier houses on my walks around the city. 
Boba Guys - 0/5
Just not good-I have full reviews elsewhere on this blog.
Lombard Street - 5/5 
Unique street within walking distance of the oceanfront
Aquatic Park Cove - 5/5
Breezy ocean front with a view of Alcatraz 
Wildseed - 4/5
Okay food but the non-alcoholic Passionfruit Sour? *chef’s kiss*  
Diamond Coffee & Pastry - 4.5/5
Vegan pastries and unique tea options in walking distance to Golden Gate Park
Irving St. - 5/5
Street I stumbled upon on my way to Golden Gate Park filled with many Asian businesses 
Golden Gate Park - 5/5
Best attraction in San Francisco 
de Young Museum - 5/5 
Better than MoMa because more art; good curated and informative collections
Conservatory of Flowers - 2/5
Cool if you like plants because there are more plants than flowers
Queen Wilhelmina Garden - 0/5
Pointless if it’s not tulip season
Lands End Lookout - 3/5
I wanted a view of the ocean and got it as I walked from Queen Wilhelmina Garden, but I would have needed to walk further to get closer to the beach and bridge. I treated it as a destination and not the start to a destination. 
The Camera Obscura - 0/5
I was lured inside by the exterior, but this was not as cool as I thought it would be. 
Tiny Sushi - Oh Baby - 3/5
My fresh guava juice was good and the menu was vegan friendly, but again, nothing stood out for me, which sums up San Francisco food to me. 
Lara’s Airbnb in Daly City - 5/5
Close walk to a shopping center with a Trader Joe’s and a ~15 minute drive into the city

The Best Art Museums in D.C., New York, LA, and SF

Washington D.C.

D.C. is the museum mecca of the East Coast. If you are from the east cost and have the opportunity to live in the DC Metro area for a couple of years, I highly suggest it just for the museums and monuments. The best part is most of them are FREE. Art museum-wise, my favorite is The Hirshhorn, which I've been to several times. I did not enjoy Artechouse-immersive art experiences are not for me-or Planet Word and The International Spy Museum, both of which are more catered towards children. Every other museum is a must-go. If you can time travel 10 years into the past, go to the Newseum. 

New York City, New York

Because I have seen historical art from the many specialized museums in DC and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art did not offer anything new to me. I have not been to MoMA or the Guggenheim, but if you are into fashion and design, I highly recommend the Museum at FIT and the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum. NYC is the fashion capital of America after all. The Met Gala is the whole reason I wanted to go to the Met, but I got lost in the vastness of the museum and never found the Met Gala exhibit.

Los Angeles, California

After my fourth trip to LA, I have now visited all of the city's major art museums. My favorite would have to be the Getty Center, which has a good mix of modern and historical art inside and a beautiful garden and view of the city outside. The Huntington is my other favorite. While their gardens are more famous, I didn't go for the gardens, which I have at home in Maymont. I went for the library and art museum, which I did not expect to be so good. The iconic lamps at LACMA are cool, but I can't remember anything else I saw there. The Broad is a misnomer because they actually have a very small collection. I loved the Jeff Koons exhibit, but I've seen Yayoi Kusama in DC and a big chair in my hometown, so the rest of the museum didn't impress me much. The Museum of Contemporary Art across the street was more interesting. Lastly, while the Norton Simon Museum had some iconic pieces, it was one of the worst art museums I have ever visited: the art was only organized by time period and not curated so I did not learn anything new or deepen my understanding of the world, which is how I derive enjoyment from museums. 

San Francisco, California

While I do shit on San Francisco, I did enjoy my time in the city in large part to SF MOMA and the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. SF MOMA is good, but the de Young museum was even better because it had more and more diverse collections. It was gold I did not expect in a haystack: it wasn't even on my radar when researching the city or park. I stumbled upon free admission on the first Tuesday of the month, and it might be the best art museum I've ever visited.