When “Ecuador 2, Honduras 1” finished tonight — tomorrow morning, in Eurasia/Africa — 26 of the 48 group stage games had been played. That still leaves plenty of time for (some) teams who didn’t start fast to do some damage in the 2014 World Cup.

But …

What we have seen so far is perhaps the most powerful performance in a World Cup by teams from the Americas, reinforcing the historical reality that European teams have trouble in the New World and, for that matter, suggesting Africa and Asia might be even less prepared than the Euros to win World Cup games played in South (and North) America.

Let’s look at the results, to date.

South America’s six teams have played 11 matches and won eight (!) of them, drawn one and lost two.

North America’s four teams have played seven, won four, drawn one and lost two.

Together, the Americas have played 18, winning 12, drawing two and losing four. (And two of the four defeats have come at the hands of another American team.)

The other three continental confederations, when facing one of the western hemisphere’s teams?

–Europe has played eight, won two and lost six. (The winners: France over Honduras, Switzerland over Ecuador.)

–Africa has played three games against the Americans … and lost all of them.

–Asia has played one game … and lost it.

Let’s look more closely at the 10 American teams, so far.

–Chile, Colombia and Costa Rica have the maximum six points from two games and have secured places in the last-16 knockout stage.

(Costa Rica, the surprise team of the tournament, along with homeward-bound Spain.)

–Brazil has a win and a draw, versus Mexico, and advances with a point against Cameroon.

–Mexico has a victory and a draw (versus Brazil) and advances with a point against Croatia.

–Uruguay has a win (over England) and a loss (to Costa Rica) and needs to defeat Italy to advance.

–Argentina has a win over Bosnia, and can secure a spot in the knockout round with a win over Iran.

–The U.S. has a win over Ghana, and has a good chance to advance with a result against Portugal.

–Honduras has two losses, to France and to Ecuador — but still has a (very small) chance to advance.

The Old World respects Brazil and Argentina. And Uruguay a little. Chile a smidge. Mexico, sometimes. The rest? “Not really” to “not at all”.

The Euro/Africa/Asia contingent, however, continue to approach a tournament in the New World as Just Another World Cup — when we are beginning to have a lot of evidence that it is going to be a bigger problem for them than usual.

We still have out there that hard fact: No European team has won a World Cup contested in the western hemisphere and this is the eighth time the tournament has been in the New World: 1930 (Uruguay), 1950 (Brazil), 1962 (Chile), 1970 (Mexico), 1978 (Argentina), 1986 (Mexico), 1994 (U.S.), 2014 (Brazil).

And in some of those tournaments, the western hemisphere was limited to a handful of teams — five, as late as 1966, when 10 European teams were in a 16-team field.

Even still, Europe has 13 teams, in the 2014 tournament, and the whole of the New World has 10 — and journalists on the UAE side of the Atlantic continue to insist that those are too many teams for the western hemisphere, by at least two teams. They would like to give another spot to Africa, which is doing a face-plant in Brazil (same as it did four years ago, in Africa), or (when they finally own up to it) give one back to Europe — seeing as how it is a crime against humanity that Sweden, Ukraine, Romania and Iceland (the four who came closest to qualifying) are not in Brazil.

So, what is going on here?

A few thoughts.

1. Europe’s troubles in the New World reflect the Euro trouble adapting to what is, to them, a strange environment.

In Europe, planes are not needed for most club matches. In Europe, rare is the game that is not played within one hour of the time zone in which they live. In Europe, the climate is mild to cool (or chill), while the Americas tend to be quite warm in the summer — aside from Canada. We have seen, over the past nine days, several matches in which a jet-lagged European team has appeared to wilt in the final half hour.

2. South American teams are getting better. Brazil and Argentina have set the bar pretty high, and Chile, Uruguay, Ecuador, Colombia, Paraguay and Boliva are always trying to catch up. They seem to have done a better job than usual of it, ahead of this tournament.

3. European players very rarely play in the New World. Essentially, never in South America, and rarely in North America — and that would be Major League Soccer, not the Mexican league. Meanwhile, New Worlders routinely go to Europe to play. Leading to New World players who already have dealt with “strange” languages and societies and food and weather and cultures, while the Euros far more often stay home in their cocoons, which is fine for domestic leagues but can cause a problem when they have to leave their soggy little continent and cross an ocean.

If we include the 2002 World Cup, in Japan and South Korea, and the 2010 World Cup, in South Africa, the presumably superior European sides add one more victory — Spain’s, in South Africa, the first by a European side outside of Europe. However, it should be pointed out that South Africa is in the same time zone as is most of western Europe.

Things probably will get harder for the New Worlders. The U.S. still has to play Portugal and Germany, and the latter, anyway, is tough in any environment. Honduras is pretty much cooked. Ecuador probably has to beat France to advance.

But the other seven American teams look quite likely to reach the final 16.

A group of 10 national teams, taking nearly half the places in the last 16? While the other 22 get nine or eight?

And who would be surprised by a Brazil-Argentina or Brazil-Chile final? Pretty much no one who is paying attention.

That’s why the 2014 World Cup could turn out to be the 2014 Americas Cup.