I’m not sure I quite hit the point I wanted to make in this week’s Soccer Insider column. I was trying to connect the dots on something that someone involved with Minnesota United told me once, who I will now paraphrase: “You know, if you can afford to fly to London every week to watch Chelsea, or to Mexico City to watch Club América, you should definitely do that. But for everyone else, there’s a team here in town to support too.”

You can see Tottenham or AC Milan or Chelsea or whoever come to U.S. Bank Stadium, and my guess is that you’ll be left wanting something more. Something real. Something that matters.

I was at the Minnesota - Seattle game on Saturday night, possibly one of the best wins ever for the Sounders, definitely one of the worst losses ever for the Loons. You can’t tell me that didn’t matter. You can’t tell me that that kind of thing isn’t exactly the kind of atmosphere that people are really searching for.

Or, heck, maybe it’s just me.

You can watch Liga MX on national TV in the United States now. In English. Club Tijuana and C.F. Monterrey have both sold their TV rights to FOX Sports, and so FOX is showing the games in Spanish on FOX Deportes, but in English on FS1 and FS2 (and on its regional networks in the southwest).

As Liga MX kicks off its year, it was a good time to preview the season - and about how Mexico is coming for soccer fans north of the border.

I started this week to try to find out how the United States can learn from France, the newly-crowned World Cup champions. What I found is that Major League Soccer is way ahead of the game - but when you look deeper, you realize that while this is good, there’s only so much MLS can do.

Minnesota United has 14 games to go this season. It is probably not going to make the playoffs, but it still has a shot to do so. Yet the team is also building towards the 2019 opening of its new stadium. So should the team build for the future, or try to win now? So far, the team has proven they can’t do both.

For the Star Tribune, I wrote about the World Cup Final between France and Croatia, what to look for in the game - and why France would win.

(Postscript: I was right about France. I was wrong about the game being cautious and defensive; it featured a penalty, an own goal, and an all-timer of a goalkeeper blunder, and finished 4-2.)

This week in the Saturday Star Tribune, I wrote about Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappé, and Neymar - the three biggest stars of the World Cup, who’ll pick up the slack as Messi and Ronaldo fade away.

Minnesota United is halfway through its 2018 season, and so far, the first half of 2018 has been just as bad as either half of 2017. For 1500 ESPN, I identified three areas that need to improve - and if things don’t get better, I am expecting consequences.

For the Star Tribune this week, I wrote about the knockout round of the World Cup, and the expected favorites.

Unexpectedly, the paper also asked to print my picks. I leave them for posterity here:

Quarterfinalists: Uruguay, France, Brazil, Belgium, Spain, Croatia, Switzerland, England

Semifinalists: France, Brazil, Spain, England

Final: France 1, Spain 0

(I also wrote about 100 words why each team would win in the final; I’m sure whichever unlucky soul had to edit it laughed bitterly as he had to cut it down for the actual space alloted, which was about 20 words per team.)

Near as I can tell, Mexican soccer and American soccer are the same. Same challenges, different languages. And so at Soccer Insider today, I wrote about how Mexico beat Germany - and how the United States might have the same in its future.

The World Cup is on right now, and two of Minnesota United’s players - one of whom I admit I forgot about - are playing in Russia. At 1500 ESPN, I wrote about what this tournament might mean for those players, and for Minnesota.