The World Cup opened like someone raided the Louvre of soccer and dumped every masterpiece on the field at once. Messi. Mbappe. Haaland. Vinicius. An absurd, glorious orgy of star power.

And now the group stage is over, the pretenders have been mailed home, and we are staring at the most beautiful bracket in sports. The Round of 32. Win or fly home.

Before we dive in, allow me a brief, tasteful victory lap...

I have chronicled every single play right here on LinkedIn, in public, win or lose, no deleting the Ls like everyone else does. The receipts: 30-21, up $1,089, plus a futures portfolio that is aging like fine wine. I am responsible for only your winners and not your losers.

And HOLY first round matchups, Batman. Below are the eight first round games my cardiologist, my liver, and my financial planner are all watching through their fingers with their hands over their face, ranked in order of my excitement level.

1️⃣ USA vs Bosnia, Wednesday 8 PM. OH BOY. America, on home soil, prime time. Get your favorite beverages ready.

2️⃣ Brazil vs Japan. Brazil is must-watch TV. Japan is the team that ruins must-watch TV with terrifying competence. Winner gets Haaland? OMG YES

3️⃣ Portugal vs Croatia. We had Croatia dead to rights in the group and let them walk. Now they're back like the horror-movie villain who sits up after the credits, refusing to die, as is tradition.

4️⃣ Netherlands vs Morocco. Criminal draw for the Dutch, who dominated the group phase. The Dutch did everything right and the soccer gods said "great job, here's the scariest small team alive."

5️⃣ Mexico vs Ecuador. Mexico at the Azteca, at altitude, against the team that just took Germany behind the woodshed. Bring oxygen and a helmet.

6️⃣ France vs Sweden. Wine, cigarettes, and existential shrugging vs flat-pack furniture and aggressive politeness. Take me to the promised land Mbappe.

7️⃣ Ivory Coast vs Norway. Ivory Coast is legit. Unfortunately Norway has Haaland, who at -130 to score is basically a one-goal head start with a ponytail.

8️⃣ Belgium vs Senegal. Two heavyweights swinging, and the USA gets the winner if we handle our business. Doku, Trossard & DeBruyne vs Mane, Sarr, Gueye. US was SMACKED 5-2 by Belgium three months ago and beat Senegal 3-2 in a friendly a month ago.

My picks for the next few days ...

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Five years ago Ohio lost 32,000 people in a single year. The only thing growing in the state was the moving truck industry. Last year? Ohio gained nearly 12,000 people and posted the tenth-highest migration rate in the country. Trending towards even stronger population growth in '26.

Turns out when the coasts charge a million dollars for a house you can touch both walls of, people rediscover the Midwest real quick.

I've spent my first year as Executive Director of the Ohio Mortgage Bankers Association putting a metric shit ton of miles on this state seeing this growth happen. And the turnaround shouldn't be mystery. Our cost of living runs 17% under the national average and the typical Ohio home is more than 40% cheaper than the national median.

In 2025 more people moved here than in any year in a quarter century and '26 is going to be even stronger. We are, against all odds and several decades of jokes, cool now.

What I've learned more intimately ... Ohio is not one market. It's 88 counties speedrunning in completely different directions.

Central Ohio is the engine and it is not subtle about it. Franklin County did $6.44B, more than the next two counties combined, and still grew 7.9%. The biggest market in the state is also one of the fastest growing.

The real action is in the suburbs around it. Delaware up 21.4 percent. Licking up 18.7. Union up 17.9. The Columbus metro is expanding outwardly and aggressively. If you're deciding where to plant an LO or open a branch in Ohio, the map isn't hinting. It's yelling.

The big metros are healthy but mature. Cuyahoga at $3.24B, Hamilton at $3.32B, both growing low single digits. Massive, stable, and competitive.

The takeaway for anyone lending in Ohio: stop treating it as one market.

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Most mortgage tech conferences are vendor commercials dressed up as education. You sit through a keynote that's secretly a sales pitch. You watch a demo of exactly what the sponsor wants you to see, framed the way the sponsor wants you to see it.

You leave with a tote bag, a stack of business cards, and not one honest answer to the question you actually came with: does this thing work, and is it worth the money?

Jodi Hall at The Mortgage Collaborative built the opposite!

In 8 weeks, 150 lender executives (cap is firm) will be in a room in Dallas for the ACT Tech Summit. The majority of those seats belong to your peers. Not vendors, not analysts, lenders working through the exact stack decisions you are right now. Same build-versus-buy debates, same LOS and POS frustrations, same pricing-engine and AI questions keeping you up at night.

When a technology gets evaluated in that room, it gets evaluated under conditions you can trust. No sponsor controls the agenda. No one is steering you away from the hard questions. You hear what actually happened when a lender your size implemented it, what broke, what the real cost was, and whether they'd do it again. The conversation you usually have to chase down in a hallway, or never get at all, is the main event.

That's the whole idea behind The Mortgage Collaborative ... lenders helping lenders be better. Learning from peers is so powerful, with so many ancillary benefits.

If you run a lending shop and you're rethinking your tech, this is the room. It's a member benefit, and there's still time to be part of it. Hit me with an email if you want to be there. Or go to tmctechsummit.com to learn more.

This week on "Toxic, But Fixed: A 2.75% Love Story" ... the flashback episode. How they fell in love. And what he became.

(For the new people: "Toxic But Fixed" is a Netflix drama that does not exist, about a woman in couples therapy with her house, where she stays only because of the rate. If you have scrolled this far and are worried about my mental health you should trust that instinct and read on at your own risk.)

THERAPIST: Danielle, you wanted to go back to the beginning today. Why now?

DANIELLE: Because I need to remember he was good once. I need a witness. Some days I think I made it up.

THE HOUSE: I was never good. I was a sound investment. There's a difference.

DANIELLE: See, he didn't used to talk like that.

THERAPIST: Take me to the start.

DANIELLE: Spring 2021. A Tuesday. He had twelve offers and he chose me.

THE HOUSE: I didn't choose. I was sold. Let's use the right words in here.

DANIELLE: I wrote him a letter with my offer. I told him I could see our whole life. Thanksgivings. The kids growing up on the stairs. Me getting old on the porch. I waived the inspection. I told a house my dreams and I meant every word.

THERAPIST: And House, back then, how did you respond to that?

THE HOUSE: ...Warmly. I left the afternoon light in the kitchen for her. I held a low rate like it was a ring. Two point seven five. When she walked in I made the floors feel solid under her. I wanted her to stay.

DANIELLE: That's the man I married. Doctor, write that down, because he's gone.

THERAPIST: What changed?

DANIELLE: Everything changed when the rates did. He used to protect me. Now he uses the rate as a leash. The same number that was our wedding ring is the thing he locks me in with. "You can never afford to leave me." He says it like a love song.

THE HOUSE: Because it's true. And because someone in this marriage has to read the amortization schedule out loud.

DANIELLE: You weren't always like this. You used to be the dream. When did you start keeping me instead of loving me?

THE HOUSE: When I stopped being a home and became an asset. I used to wake up wanting to make you coffee in that nook. Now I wake up and run the numbers on what you'd net if you left me, minus closing costs, minus the realtor, minus the rate you'll never see again. And I sleep like a baby, because the math is a fence and you built it yourself.

THERAPIST: That's a chilling thing to say to someone you love.

THE HOUSE: I do love her. That's the tragedy. The cruelty isn't instead of the love. It's what the love turned into the day I realized she only stays for the spreadsheet.

DANIELLE: I don't stay for the spreadsheet.

THE HOUSE: Then go. Tub's twenty minutes north. Six point eight nine. Seventeen hundred more a month. I'll even leave the porch light on, so when you sit in that driveway and can't make yourself open the door, you'll have enough light to do the math one more time.

DANIELLE: ...

THERAPIST: We're out of time.

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June 29 - Wimbledon begins

JULY

July 2 - June Jobs Report

July 4 - Independence Day

July 13 - MLB HR Derby

July 14 - MLB All-Star Game

July 14 - Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation reading

July 15 - Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation reading

July 19 - World Cup Final

July 28-29 - Fed Meeting/Decision

July 30 - Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and PCE inflation reading releases

AUGUST

Aug 7 - July Jobs Report

Aug 12 - Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation reading

Aug 13 - Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation reading

Aug 27-29 - Fed Jackson Hole Retreat

Aug 28 - FINAL NFL ROSTER CUTS FOR REGULAR SEASON!

Aug 29 - COLLEGE FOOTBALL RETURNS!

Aug 30 - US Open Tennis Tournament begins

“Yeah man, they call gambling a disease, but it’s the only disease where you can win a bunch of money.” - the late, GREAT, Norm MacDonald

Until the next one,
Swerb
[email protected]