Well, now what?

The Major League Baseball All-Star break, which was last week and lasted for four days for most teams, is usually the slowest week of the entire sports calendar, with almost nothing happening from a global perspective.

So thank goodness for the World Cup, which wrapped up Sunday with a coronation of Spain as the world champs, 16 years after winning its first. That came on the heels of Sunday morning’s final round of the British Open, that wasn’t decided until the final putt of the entire tournament, one New Zealand’s Ryan Fox buried to claim his first major championship.

But now what? The World Cup, that has carried the sports world for the last month, is over. Same with golf’s major season, as the British Open was the final of golf’s four majors.

The Tour de France cycling race has been all but over since Day 6 as four-time champ and reigning back-to-back winner Tadej Pogacar grabbed the overall lead less than a week into the three-week race and no one has come close to supplanting him. So no drama there.

The San Francisco Giants have stunk up the joint this season, so no real reason to tune in to them. The A’s are essentially off the radar.

So what is there to look forward to? Well, NFL training camps are days away from getting underway, with rookies already reporting for some teams. The NBA and NHL training camps are still a few months away. About the only thing left is the U.S. Open tennis tournament, but that doesn’t start for at least another month.

But by that time, the Daily Journal sports department will be neck deep in the 2026-27 high school sports season. The first official day of football conditioning is Aug. 3. The first day for practice for all other sports is Aug. 7 and the first scrimmages can be played Aug. 21. The first actual games of the 26-27 season begin Aug. 27.

It’s going to be a long month.

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I wouldn’t necessarily say Sunday’s World Cup final between Spain and Argentina was scintillating. It was a dominant performance from Spain, which did what it has done throughout the tournament — absolutely suffocate the opposition defensively and then do just enough offensively to win the games.

Which is the objective. There are no style points.

But when taken as a whole, there might not have been a more dominating run in World Cup history. Remember when Cape Verde played Spain to a scoreless draw in the teams’ opener June 15? There was some question about Spain’s chances.

Turns out, Cape Verde was the only team that held Spain scoreless. It found its footing in a 4-0 shellacking of Saudi Arabia a week later and it was off to the races for “La Roja.”

Spain, the reigning European champion, went 8-0 in the World Cup, allowing just one goal the entire tournament, to Belgium in a 2-1 Spain win in the quarterfinals. Otherwise, Spain outscored its opponents by a combined score of 14-1 and ran its unbeaten streak to a ridiculous 38 games, breaking the previous record of 37 set by Italy — which has missed the last two World Cups.

The last time the Spain national team lost was in March 2024, falling 1-0 to Colombia in a friendly. During its unbeaten streak, Spain has 29 wins and nine draws (in European soccer standings, it would look like 29-9-0).

And yet, somehow, Spain was still ranked No. 2 in the FIFA rankings — behind Argentina.

Nathan Mollat has been covering high school sports in San Mateo County for the San Mateo Daily Journal since 2001. He can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com.