If you know me, you know I like soccer, and that specifically I’m a fan of the United States Men’s National Team.
I have been since the 1994 World Cup, when the tournament was hosted in the United States for the first time.
And so you’d think that I’d be anticipating the return of the World Cup finals to the United States, which starts today, but I think the current state of American politics makes it hard to be anything but embarrassed as the entire world turns their attention here and visits a country that is quite a bit less free than it should be.
Before the summer of 1994, I actually didn’t care much about soccer. Soccer was the thing my father watched on Sundays when RAI would broadcast Serie A games, and it prevented me from watching cartoons.
But in 1994, I learned two things:
- The United States was an underdog in the tournament, and I love an underdog story.
- The United States had just barely gotten into the 2nd round and was going to play tournament favorite Brazil on July 4th, America’s birthday.
And for over 70 minutes, I watched a scrappy, determined underdog hold its own against eventual tournament winners. I remember when the broadcast cut to the stadium in Rio de Janeiro and the energy there was deflated because Brazil just couldn’t score against what was supposed to be an easy opponent. I remember when Tab Ramos took an elbow to the head and had to leave the game due to an injury, when Alexi Lalas wouldn’t let an opponent dribble past him and then threw his arms up in the air in victory, when it felt like Earnie Stewart almost did the impossible to get the US into the lead, when the entire US team stood in front of the goal to stop a direct kick, and when Tony Meola cried after the final whistle blew.
My family may have been behind Italy, but I found myself becoming a fan of the United States in a sport that I surprisingly enjoyed.
That next year I signed up for a rec league, and then in high school I played all four years. I remember being disappointed in the US team’s 1998 run in the next tournament, one in which I had high hopes. I remember going to see the Chicago Fire when they started playing at Soldier Field in their first year in the new MLS (“Chicago Fire and Crisco Oil, a winning combination” was my favorite announcement over the speakers). Seeing DaMarcus Beasley play for the Fire and then for the US team was inspiring.
All this time, I was also watching the US team in the Gold Cup and learning about the strong rivalry with Mexico. I was also learning about Project 2010, the US Soccer Federation’s plans to make the US team a serious contender by the 2010 tournament.
When I was in college, the 2002 World Cup tournament was in Japan and South Korea, and I watched the US make it to the quarter-finals after upsetting Portugal and then fall to Germany. I also really enjoyed watching Senegal that tournament. I understand that they declared a national holiday for their upset over France in the group stages.
I joined a rec league again, and other than getting an very early hamstring injury (make sure to stretch, kids!), I found myself enjoying life partly because I was making soccer a priority in it.
But things go in cycles, and in 2006 the US was once again eliminated in the group stages. I think this may have been one of the first times I’ve seen just how rough a USA vs ITA game can be.
And then there was the 2009 Confederations Cup. The United States was there due to being the Gold Cup champions, and they had to play Brazil, Italy, and Egypt in the group stages, and after two bad losses to Brazil and Italy, it didn’t look good, but Italy lost to Egypt whereas the US won their game by quite a few goals and so the tie-breakers worked out that the US advanced to play against Spain while Italy went home.
Spain at this point was #1 in the world and on a 35-game winning streak. I remember watching a quick interview in which US coach Bob Bradley was asked about their chances, and he had a smirk and said something along the lines of, “We know how to beat them.”
Then I watched the most amazing and coordinated defensive effort stymie the best team in the world, and the US felled Spain 2-0 and was in the finals of a FIFA tournament for the first time ever.
I remember when that game against Brazil started that my heart was racing. It feels ridiculous to type those words, because I was watching on TV at home. It wasn’t like I was there, and it wasn’t like I was playing. But then we were up 2-0 over Brazil, and it felt like we were finally going to get some redemption from 1994 and from the start of this tournament, another upset, until they came back with three goals to win. It was probably the first time I saw how disappointing it can be to come in 2nd.
The 2010 tournament was the first one I tried to watch all the games, and I remember watching Switzerland beat Spain 1-0 by playing what looked to me the exact same defensive performance that the US had the year prior, and then learned that the Swiss coach had actually studied the US vs Spain upset in preparations. Neat! The US losing to Ghana in the 2nd round? Less so.
The qualifying matches leading up to the 2018 tournament were heartbreaking. The US not qualifying for the tournament in Russia kinda meant that the World Cup was basically over for me. I can’t even remember that one well.
2022 was alright, and the US played England again, but the hype wasn’t as big as the 2010 matchup, and I don’t recall the scoreless draw was very exciting. Losing to the Netherlands in the 2nd round was disappointing, but I remember watching it with friends.
So here we are, it’s 2026, the US team is supposedly one of the best we’ve ever fielded, and we’re got the tournament in our own backyard. I clearly love watching the team, reading about the nuance of strategy and tactics, and again, I love the underdog story of a US team actually pulling off an upset in a sport that doesn’t even rank in the top five sports of this country.
But the United States I grew up in and learned about, the mythology and stories I internalized, isn’t the United States I know today.
Today we have Project 2025, we have billionaires with way too much influence pushing through policies that hurt everyone else, we have hateful and violent policies against immigrants and trans people, and we have so many attempts at trying to prevent people from being able to vote, the one action that is such a symbol of what we can do and be.
In a time when we should be aspirational and leading the world in science and technology, healthcare and education, and peace and stability, instead we’re becoming antagonistic and distrustful.
We’ve destroyed the very systems that made us such a powerhouse of research and development, and instead we exchanged it for an expansion of prison camps and the pollution of our drinking water. What an own goal!
We have a President who wants to pretend to be Mussolini. It is disturbing to see his large scowling face draped on walls and buildings. My wife recently went to visit a friend in Washingon D.C. and noted that they still have military officers doing patrols. And this is supposed to be the United States?
Hearing about when FIFA presenting a “peace” prize to this President was especially disgusting, especially in light of the January 6th coup attempt, and especially now with the ridiculously incompetent management of relations in the Middle East.
I think in the past, I could enjoy international soccer, and periodically wonder about the participation of countries like North Korea in prestigious tournaments. Rivalries were on the pitch, but otherwise politics and corruption was more or less separate or at least background context.
But now it feels like I need to worry about my own country’s relationship with everyone else. How are visitors faring? How many people decided not to come watch the biggest tournament in the world because of fears of how the United States, of all countries, might treat them at the border? How did we go from being a supposed beacon of freedom in the world to being the kind of country that other countries give travel advisories about? Why is Amnesty International talking about concerns for human rights during this tournament?
Being a United States soccer fan and having the tournament here again should be so much more enjoyable than it is, but I can’t pretend that I’m not disappointed in how much far-right politics is marring things in a way that seems to purposefully mirror what was happening in Europe almost 100 years ago.
I really wish I could divorce the politics from the sport and from this tournament in particular, but I don’t know how.
