SHANE STAY - Blog

The 2026 World Cup arrives soon

10/24/2025

A big event for the FIFA World Cup!

Over to the left are 3 nations hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup!

In ancient times, what would compare with our World Cup?

Wilson, perhaps due for a soccer comeback?

If only Johnny could announce the World Cup!

As far as we know, the World Cup champs are the best around!

These pictures might not make sense. We'll talk to the editor!

Malta. Again, this picture might not make sense. Never mind.

Wherever you go during the World Cup, you're likely to encounter a barcode! Canadian barcodes might have different accents!

Action from the 2022 FIFA World Cup final.

A previous World Cup book, ahem!

Books!

This is where your teams reside!

Back to Wilson. This is not a Tom Hanks thing.

Feel free to guess...it isn't super World Cup-related. (Answer: Baalbek, an ancient mystery!)

Time to party?! I'm upset I wasn't invited!

Some Argentinian guy left, not sure his name. We'll focus on the book to his right, rather. There we go!

more around the corner Vince Guaraldi...

museum of me

10/18/2025

Museum of Me
12-30-22

I’ve realized I’m just lugging my own personal museum of my pointless stuff.

For my stuff, it’s my own personal museum—that only I care about.

A pair of Dockers dress shoes from circa 2004 that were snazzy, once upon a time…like Frank Sinatra, etc.

(I’ve been accused of being a hoarder. No. Hoarders are like someone I know. My fiancee hoarded and accused me of hoarding. They often deflect. You’re telling me a couple TVs, coffee maker, and a box of cologne packages is hoarding? I don’t think so. I gotta a couple things but it’s nothing like a garage full of mysterious boxes that only one person knows about.)

Hoarders are just really bad museum curators.

They’re like the worst museum curators in the world.

Their intentions are good, save things. But they are a mess!

visit w/ the guys at "The soccer dad-pod"

10/14/2025

Joined the guys from "The Soccer Dad-Pod," for my 2nd visit on Episode 256 featuring the 100 American Soccer Legends list, from Soccer Park, St. Louis, Missouri, October 13, 2025, my favorite month.

More around the corner with "The Soccer Dad-Pod" including but not limited to interviews with USMNT standouts Thomas Dooley and Tab Ramos!

A way back team for inspiration! More where that came from.

top 5 fifa world cup final games

9/29/2025

Down there is the list.

Top 5 FIFA World Cup Final Games:

1.
2. 2006 Italy vs. France
3.
4.
5.

What would yours be?

The 2026 FIFA World Cup, getting closer!

9/25/2025

Newsletter
Shane Stay
September 2025

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is getting closer!

The USMNT will have much of the attention, alongside Mexico and Canada, for a special reason.

It's not that teams have increased from 32 to 48. That's a big deal but it's something else unique to World Cup history.
With Canada, Mexico, and the United States hosting, it will be the first of its kind...three nations hosting together!
With the focal point of games being in the United States, along with the US being the leading sports-nation on earth, the USMNT will have plenty of people watching, wondering, doubting, and keeping score.

As for the increase of teams to 48: how will that play out?
Will the tournament be "watered down" as some analysts think? The rationale is that with so many teams, the stringent nature of qualifying has gone out the window. The competition will be weaker, some assert.
At the same time, it will be enticing to see 48 teams starting the tournament! As each one tries to escape its group, the amount of games to watch and talking points will be endless.
By tournament's end, it will likely be clear as to whether or not fans buy into the 48 team model.

As qualifications build up, there's more around the corner!

For more book info, visit:

Meyer & Meyer Sport
Cardinal Publishers Group
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Bookshop

2026 FIFA World Cup: usmnt are underdogs?

7/27/2025

No one has said the USMNT will win the 2026 FIFA World Cup next year! Maybe someone has. Don't know who it would be. It's possible. Yet unlikely. Here's the thing: It's now cool to support the USMNT because of that fact! It's an underdog situation we have here!

I didn't create it. It is what it is.

I'm a firm believer that with the right combination of players, with the right coach, the USMNT can win a FIFA World Cup.

Fans in the past have somewhat misguidedly cheered for a championship, as if to say: if the team tries hard enough it could happen. Well, that dream's gone. We need more than effort. We need the right coach, me. Hold a second. It's possible. Let's move on. Did you see the 2025 Gold Cup final against Mexico? Pretty much all Mexico. And Mexico isn't exactly a World Cup favorite, either; it's a strong team but not a favorite. (Who would the favorites be? The usual: Argentina, Brazil, Germany, France, Spain, for example. Essentially, after that group, you have strong teams like Mexico, Denmark, Portugal, the United States, and so on.) Not to mention, the USMNT hasn't been to the quarterfinals in a World Cup since, you might wanna take a seat, 2002.

Hold on, there's an upside.

Currently, fan support in America is huge and they have now accepted, in a way, that the USMNT is an underdog. Essentially, what we're dealing with here is a Chicago Cubs situation. It's a quality team we have. Yet it's a team that is yearning for a championship that always seems to be out of reach. All the same, the Chicago Cubs have a strong following. So does the USMNT.

There's a correlation here. Stay with me.

So don't hate someone if they say the USMNT has a low chance of winning the 2026 FIFA World Cup. It's an underdog team. Fans have accepted that, embraced that, and passionately move forward. That's the interesting place the USMNT is in which should make World Cup games very exciting. Underdogs, that's what it is. It's cool to be underdogs.

A statue carved out of stone at skinwalker ranch

5/2/2025

Photo courtesy of HISTORY Channel.

“A Statue Carved out of Stone at Skinwalker Ranch” | Shane Stay

From The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, I noticed a new structure.

As far back as S2 E3, I noticed the structure. I had paused the TV. The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch had been going through a montage of nature shots regarding the ranch. Just then, on the lower right hand corner of the screen, I noticed a human-like face carved in a rock-like structure near the water. There it was on the paused screen. It’s unmistakable, it was a human face.

It has all features: they’re symmetrical as well. I understand the phenomena—pareidolia—that makes one think there’s human characteristics in nature, something symmetrical, when it’s actually just nothing. This, however, is too consistent with symmetry of a human.

Does it look like depictions of Lord Pakal? Lord Pakal was an ancient Mayan King circa 603-83 AD. That lends credibility to the idea—by Scott Wolter and other research based on maps, legend—that the area to the north of Mexico—around Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado—is a genesis location for the Aztecs…perhaps, in my opinion, Mayans as well. Found at Palenque is the carved lid of the tomb of Pakal. There you see Lord Pakal supposedly operating a "spaceship" of some kind according to Erich von Daniken, and others. Okay, we’re getting off track, aren’t we? Or are we? Hey, aren’t you supposed to be talking about soccer? We’ll get back to it. For now though, we have an interesting parallel. You see, the high strangeness of the Uintah Basin, where you have The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, could be the origin point for Aztecs, perhaps Mayans. Or, if not the origin point, it was connected to them. Certainly it’s within traveling distance, even by foot and some effort. Nonetheless, if indeed Lord Pakal had a connection to the area then it would lend to a striking ancient past that even local legend there is out of touch with (to some extent).

The region has reports of strangeness that go back to times of yore, some 200 years ago, with respect to the Ute and Navajo tribes (that eventually had conflict with one another; the area was cursed by the Navajo as they were unhappy with the Utes.) This petroglyph is evidence, in my opinion, that something grand, something ancient, was there at the current area of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch. It’s extremely interesting.

What’s more, on a train journey—using Amtrak in the late 1990s—from Emeryville, California, to St. Louis, Missouri, I saw structures embedded in the landscape of rocks and cliffs in and around that area, Colorado and the like.

What about soccer, Shane? What is this? Okay, sure: Travis Taylor is like a center mid with an eye for distribution while Dragon is a goalie in line with Hatch—played by Sylvester Stallone—from Victory. There we go.

First posted at present website.

"Mysterious Structures Under the Pyramids of Giza" related to Fibonacci numbers

3/26/2025

"Mysterious Structures Under the Pyramids of Giza" related to Fibonacci Numbers

Initial reports, 3-23-2025, for example, from the underground areas of the Great Pyramids of Giza are interesting. It arose from radar images.

If true, what has been shown so far are Fibonacci numbers.

0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13…

Below the Great Pyramid:

Atop it all would be a Pyramid.
Next are 5 Shaft-like structures.
Below that are 8 Pillars with spiral shafts.
The base consists of 2 Cube-like areas.

1 (1 Pyramid)
5 (5 Shaft-like structures)
8 (8 Pillar-like structures with spirals descending up and down)
2 (2 Cube-like structures below)

Out of order? But something’s there; the Fibonacci numbers are there.

As an example. It's not the following:

1
7
3
9

The point is, such a structure, built in this fashion, disperses the weight in very mathematical, thoughtful, brilliant ways. For one, it helps the massively heavy Pyramid(s) stay intact. It also helps lesson damage from earthquakes, other disturbances. And that was circa 2,500 BC, the "dawn of human civilization?" No. It indicates there was something highly advanced before that time.

So what built it (the structure under the Pyramids, the Pyramids)?

Answer:
1 A higher power.
2 Advanced ancient humans that we have amnesia about.

All these years later and the Pyramids are still revealing secrets.

Pat mcbride's funeral

12/22/2024

Attended Pat McBride’s Funeral (December 21, 2024)

Location: Saint Francis Xavier College Church, 3628 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis University, St. Louis, Missouri.
Attendance: Perhaps 1-2,000 people.

I interviewed McBride for my St. Louis soccer book, This Is Our CITY. That talk probably took place in 2020.

McBride—a true leader, one to learn from—was a St. Louis and American soccer legend, a pioneer of the sport. He won a NCAA national championship with SLU, played pro for the St. Louis Stars, represented the US national team, coached the original St. Louis Steamers, and earned a Master’s degree from SIUE.

When I spoke to him on the phone for the first time, regarding This Is Our CITY, it was like talking to the Frank Sinatra of soccer. In our introduction, I told him a bit about me. But the conversation was about his contributions to St. Louis, and, essentially, American soccer. We had a good talk. After we hung up, a few moments went by and my phone rang. It was McBride. He said, essentially, "Shane, I just realized I didn't ask you more about your background! Tell me more about you!"

He was a class act and I learned from him how to sincerely show interest in the success of others. That was an attribute noted at his funeral—his desire for others to do good.

When you look at American soccer, he was a pioneer and one of the best ever.

Pat McBride's Funeral, 12-21-2024. Photo by Shane Stay.

I interviewed Pat McBride for my book about St. Louis soccer (above). He is a key figure in the book. He's one of the best to come out of St. Louis and a pioneer for American soccer.

As a key figure in This Is Our CITY, Pat McBride is also featured in a book of mine out shortly.

2024 uefa euro cup & copa america: predictions are correct

7/16/2024

Published with Cardinal Publishers Group, 7-16-24 (Link)
By Shane Stay

"The 2024 UEFA Euro Cup & Copa America: Predictions Are Correct"

2024 UEFA Euro Cup

My prediction: Spain are champs!

My UEFA Euro prediction came true. At the outset, it may look like I’m bragging. Absolutely not. It’s just reflection. Reflection on yet another prediction that was correct. Let’s skip ahead. See below prediction…

2024 Copa America

My prediction: Argentina are champs!

Another correct prediction! Again, does it look like I’m bragging? What am I supposed to do? Predict two tournaments correctly and not mention it?

How do my predictions work?
What makes a successful prediction? As mentioned in THE Women’s World Cup 2019 Book, and elsewhere, it comes down to a few crucial factors that are tells. One would be the overall history of a nation. History repeats itself. The others are in there.

For the rest, visit Cardinal Publishers Group...

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