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Perhaps it's a sign from Mother Nature that the two flagship events of the Philadelphia's Wawa Welcome America Festival for the semiquincentennial were derailed by weather. Maybe she was telling us to stop this embarrassing exhibition of unbridled nationalism and look inward. But if she thought that she could succeed in getting Americans to self-reflect, even by replicating the conditions of the depths of hell where our leaders will surely burn, she was sorely mistaken. How naive! Clearly she has never truly contended with the levels of blinding patriotism of the average American, or the masochistic tenacity of a Defector intern who will sacrifice anything to get the story. Despite the temperature reaching nearly 100 degrees in the middle of the day, I embarked on my expedition. The closer I got to Philadelphia's Old City, the deeper I ventured into a different version of the United States than the one I was used to. This version looked like the mind of Uncle Sam suffering from post-concussion syndrome. The air was filled with the smell of fried dough, port-a-potties, and the dissolution of the EPA. Scattered "U-S-A" chants carried across the neighborhood, just in case anyone forgot what country we lived in. Street vendors and Christian proselytizers stood side by side on the pavement, in a heartwarming testament to the American spirit and the Protestant ethic. Sunburnt and khaki-clad families walked around while wearing garish AI-generated shirts that featured uncomfortably ripped George Washingtons, or said things like "I can't hear you over the sound of my freedom." Even a food delivery robot trucked along with a little American flag.

It is difficult to pin down an international team's true quality and character based on the results of one brief tournament. The games are too few, and the environment too variable, to come to any definitive conclusions. But the games are revealing nonetheless, and any team that plays enough of them will have their specific strengths and shortcomings put on display, some more immutable than others. The teams that tend to thrive in the World Cup are the ones most capable of shrinking the distance between the best and worst versions of themselves, such that the arrival of either is not overly surprising or destabilizing. On Monday, Belgium reached through the swagger and confidence that the USMNT had spent four games building, and drew out a fragility that lurked deep within. Unprepared to face the worst version of themselves, the Americans crumbled. It is not often that the complete story of a soccer game can be told by its goals alone, but it is true of this game. Each of the four goals Belgium scored in its 4-1 victory can be held up as a tidy encapsulation of the USMNT's dispiriting performance. The first: a tap-in that was created by Nicholas Raskin being allowed to control a loose ball and dribble through the American box while four USMNT defenders stood by and watched. The second: a header at the back post in which two defenders on the ball failed to stop the cross and two defenders on the post were out-muscled by the goalscorer. The third: a completely fucking humiliating sequence in which Matt Freese got marooned outside his box, kicked the ground instead of the ball, and watched helplessly as the Belgians poked it into an empty net. The fourth: Chris Richards gifting the ball to Romelu Lukaku in his own box and watching the big Belgian stomp his way to a goal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL3kCTgeVKA

You weren't watching MLB.TV on Sunday, because NBC bought out all of the day's games and locked most of them behind their billions-losing streaming service. But if you were tuned in for out-of-market baseball in the days prior, like I was, you may have been delivered an advertisement from MLB itself that served as a stark reminder of just how badly the league's owners want to cap their players' salaries. The commercials on MLB.TV are part of the league's "Level The Playing Field" campaign, which seeks to turn public opinion against teams with high payrolls ahead of what looks to be an especially nasty lockout after this season ends. MLB owners want to seize this next labor stoppage as an opportunity to finally get their much-desired salary cap, and the increase in team valuations that follows, at the expense of a workforce that has long resisted this restriction on their earning potential. "Give every fan a fair chance," the campaign begs, pitching supporters of low-payroll teams like the Guardians on the idea that they're only going to win a World Series if high-spending teams like the Dodgers are brought to heel. The ad I got was a zippier version of the second video on this page, which is a cutesy series of graphics that don't hold up to much scrutiny. For example, it uses a CBS Sports headline, "Does MLB need a salary cap?" from a post in which all four analysts go on to answer "No." It classifies the Florida Panthers as a "small-market" team that was recently able to win two Stanley Cups in the salary-capped NHL, which feels like willful ignorance of both the Miami metropolitan area's size and the Panthers' ability to attract big-name players. By the way, if only "large-market" teams have won the World Series in the last decade, then how are the Washington Nationals ranked 27th in payroll right now? If the Cubs are "large-market," then why are the Chicago White Sox down at 28th?

BARCELONA — "Pogito! Hermano! Ya eres Mexicano!" sang the gathered dozens. Over an hour after Isaac del Toro won Stage 2 of the Tour de France, an enthusiastic knot of 40-ish tricolor-clad fans was still patiently at the barriers. Some came from Mexico, some lived in Barcelona. Most had been there sweating in the unrelenting sun since early afternoon, though what's that compared to the 36-year wait for a Mexican rider to win again at the sport's biggest race, as Raul Alcala did in 1990? While their hero was doing TV interviews, taking the obligatory doping tests, and regaling the for-some-reason seven-person French TV desk, the fans threw a party. They sang "Cielito Lindo" and "El Rey" and chanted for Alcala as he soaked in del Toro's moment; when del Toro finally emerged, the crowd roared as the 22-year-old came over for some brief high-fives on his way back to his team bus, as if he were floating. He was as exhausted as they were uplifted. Del Toro's win isn't altogether surprising, though as Tadej Pogacar's honorary Mexicanhood hints, del Toro's biggest career triumph was not the most straightforward win. The Tour's official press communique announced "Pogacar gifts Montjuïc win to del Toro," which is both a bizarre bit of anti-marketing—don't you want people to revel in a young superstar winning the first Tour stage of his career?—and a harsh way to characterize the day's racing. As the peloton hit the bottom of the final climb, del Toro poured everything he had into the 50-second effort. Jonas Vingegaard couldn't hold his wheel. Remco Evenepoel couldn't either. Probably Pogacar could have, though del Toro blasted off so hard on his initial attack that he earned a huge gap, which Pogacar was happy to patrol. Nobody could touch del Toro, who crossed the line in joint celebration with Pogacar.

Matt Miller, an on-air NFL Draft analyst for ESPN, is presently recovering from, among other injuries, the emergency amputation of his left arm. Probably there are not too many kinds of trouble in Miller's life that measure up against that one. But trouble is waiting, and not very patiently: The Missouri Attorney General's office confirmed late last week that it is actively investigating Miller on consumer-protection grounds. In the time since he and his family mobilized public support around his injuries, Miller has been accused by dozens of aggrieved football fans of running scams in fantasy sports, career coaching, and charity fundraising. Miller posted to Twitter on June 23 that, a week earlier, he'd been involved in a serious road accident in Missouri. Friends of Miller's told local KOAM News that Miller was the driver of the more severely wrecked side of a two-vehicle collision on a state highway in Jasper County. On the afternoon of June 17, Miller's Ford Bronco reportedly crossed over the center line into westbound traffic and plowed into an oncoming semi-trailer, dealing shocking devastation to Miller's vehicle and body. Miller's family quickly established a GoFundMe campaign to raise $10,000 toward his medical expenses, and the campaign was promoted by several of Miller's high-profile ESPN colleagues. "As a result of the accident, I sustained significant injuries, including multiple fractures and broken ribs. I also underwent a life-saving amputation of my left arm," Miller wrote on Twitter. "While I have a long road ahead, I’m focused on my recovery and taking things one day at a time. Thank you for the overwhelming support, prayers and kind messages—they have meant so much to me and my family during this time."

Just a day after FIFA rescinded Folarin Balogun's red-card suspension so that the USMNT striker could play against Belgium in Monday night's round-of-16 match in Seattle, a decision that elicited reactions ranging from joyful to horrified depending on your rooting interests, the story keeps on rolling thanks to FIFA's innate FIFA-ness. On Monday, the Royal Belgian Football Association released a statement about the whole mess, which has raised the twin specters of corruption and incompetence. The RBFA's statement is a doozy. The association claims it learned of Balogun's un-suspension not from FIFA itself, but through the media reports coming from the tournament press on Sunday. Likely confused and certainly more than a little angry, the RBFA sent a letter to FIFA "requesting a copy of the decision, an explanation of the process that had been followed, and setting out its position regarding the applicable regulations." This is a reasonable request to make, and though FIFA failed to communicate to Belgium the results of their decision about Balogun prior to it leaking to the press, FIFA could have turned that into a minor oversight by simply sharing its reasoning with the RBFA. Not so fast, my friends! Because this is FIFA, things got very weird after Belgium sent that their request for clarity. The next part of the RBFA statement reads: As its only response, FIFA sent a letter to the RBFA stating that it considered this correspondence to constitute an appeal, that a judge had been appointed, and that the RBFA had only a few hours to complete that appeal. No information whatsoever was provided by FIFA.

If there could have been a story to rival England's Jordan Henderson getting yellow-carded and then breaking his arm without actually playing, it would have been Brian Serven homering in the ninth inning of Marlins-Athletics to complete the comeback di tutti comebacks, and that's even allowing for the fact that England-Mexico at the Azteca was arguably a more momentous event than Marlins-Athletics no matter where it was played. That it was played in West Sacramento just added to the mutant beauty of a day in which the Marlins ... ... got seven innings of perfect pitching from Eury Pérez and provided him with a seemingly insurmountable 8-0 lead.

Stay in line, and do our Monday crossword. This puzzle was constructed by Peggy Sue Marlin, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Peggy Sue works in systems and data automation and enjoys golfing and DIY projects. She won her school spelling bee on the word "cheeseburger," then was eliminated at regionals on "asphyxiation." Her parents shared her disappointment, though they were secretly relieved she didn't know that word yet. Fortunately, dealing with that level of heartbreak at a young age prepared her perfectly for a lifetime of rooting for the Cubs. Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX, run every Monday. If you’re interested in submitting a puzzle to us, you can read our guidelines HERE. The AVCX, an independent puzzles and games outlet, invites you to subscribe, or sample the goods with a two-month free trial: "With an AVCX subscription, you get access to weekly themed and themeless crosswords, minis, cryptics, and trivia, by email or in your favorite app. We have no corporate overlord, and we publish top-flight stuff only. We also pay our people fairly, always. Check us out."

I think it's important we set some axioms for discussion of Anaheim's Leo Carlsson signing an offer sheet with Philadelphia, because it helps a superficially mindblowing contract feel something closer to logical—both in that the Flyers were wise to offer it, and in that the Ducks would be fools not to match it. The first thing to be agreed upon is that Carlsson is very, very good: 21 years old, putting up better numbers every year, 67 points in his third season. Whether you think he's neared his ceiling already or whether you believe he's got much more room to grow, he's a great and valuable player right now, full stop. He'd be a 1C on something like 20–25 teams in the NHL, certainly on the Ducks or Flyers, and 1Cs don't come cheap. The second thing to agree on is that while the Flyers' offer of $18 million a year over five years sounds like a lot, it's going to be the new normal very soon. Kirill Kaprizov's $17M-per-year deal kicks in this year, and while Carlsson will briefly be the NHL's highest-paid player, it won't be for long. Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes should be up there within a year; I can't even conceive of what Nikita Kucherov is going to get. Salaries are up because the salary cap is up: The projected cap in 2027–28 will be exactly (and coincidentally?) $18 million higher than it was last season. By the end of his deal, Carlsson's salary will be roughly the same percentage of his team's cap that Auston Matthews's is today, and Toronto would do that again in a heartbeat. The third truism here is that draft picks are overrated. The Flyers would have to give the Ducks their next four first-round picks. With Philadelphia a young team on the rise, those probably won't be lottery picks. Go ahead and pick four guys drafted 17–32 in recent years—no really, try it—and you'll be highly unlikely to land anyone nearly as good as Leo Carlsson. You could argue that Philly's picks are more valuable as potential trade bait, and I'd agree with you, but again: Who is Philadelphia going to trade for that's better than Carlsson?

Soccer is not usually the sort of sport that causes its players to lose their voices. And yet there was Harry Kane, minutes after his 10-man England squad escaped the Azteca with a 3-2 win over Mexico, nearly unable to complete his post-match interview due to the hoarseness of his voice. It was an unusual thing to see, but befitting of the game Kane had just played, which was so strange, so dramatic, that it was easy to imagine most everyone who watched or played in it being left speechless. Too much is often made of the effects of home-field advantage in sports, but soccer is one where, in certain circumstances, the environment and crowd can have a material influence over what happens on the field. There's not really any other way to explain Mexico, a middling and often uninspiring international team in most circumstances, basically never losing when they play at the Azteca. It made sense, then, that so much of the pregame analysis was focused on how England would handle playing at altitude, in front of a ferocious crowd of 87,000, against a team that feels invincible whenever it steps into that particular stadium. I figured if England could make it to the first hydration break without wobbling too badly, they'd be in good position to slowly gain control of the match through their superior talent. Everything went according to plan for England. An early header from Raúl Jiménez that seemed destined for the bottom corner was palmed away by Jordan Pickford, and suddenly a half-hour had passed without Mexico gaining too much of a foothold. And then, in the span of two minutes, it seemed that Jude Bellingham had singlehandedly removed the Azteca's mystique. His head met a cross at the back post to make it 1-0 England in the 36th minute, and then in the 38th he was there to finish off a move that started with Mexico giving the ball away in its own end.