Why the World Cup Makes Me Love My Country

By DAVID SCHMIDT

I’ll admit it — I’m not a sports guy. I have no idea who played in the Super Bowl this year, or when the ill-named “World” Series takes place. And yet, when it comes to international soccer tournaments, my attitude changes dramatically. Every couple years or so, I suddenly get into sports.

A friend of mine in San Diego noticed this recently, when I was talking about recent developments in the Women’s World Cup and the International Friendlies. When I mentioned the recent win by the Ivory Coast in the Friendlies and the US team’s victory against Spain in the Women’s World Cup, she was shocked to learn that I knew—well, anything—about these sporting events.

“That’s so lame that you know so much about all this,” she commented. “You don’t care about any normal sports—why do you suddenly get into soccer once every four years?”

Why, indeed?

Reason Number One is fairly self-explanatory, I think: these are athletic events watched by the entire world. That, alone, is unique in the world of sports that Americans watch. College football is important to the southeastern United States; the NBA matters to the two coasts of the US; the “World” Series of baseball matters to the US and maybe a couple other countries. International soccer, on the other hand, is watched by the entire world.

This is reason enough for a guy like me—not a sports fan by any measure—to get into soccer once every few years. When you’ve watched the latest World Cup, you have an automatic conversation piece to discuss with any person, anywhere in the world. Everyone’s seen it.

Then there’s Reason Number Two: the caliber of people in the United States who get into the World Cup.

American soccer fans are not your ordinary sports fans—they don’t usually scream in bars when you’re trying to order a beer, or go on a looting spree downtown when their team loses. No, World Cup people are a different breed of “sports people.” Indeed, they’re a different breed of American.

I’ve found American soccer fans to be some of the most educated, internationally-minded citizens around. These are the Americans who know that Mexico has paved roads and plumbing. They know that the USSR doesn’t exist anymore. They realize that Saddam Hussein didn’t plan 9/11. For that matter, they are able to find Iraq on a map.

But there’s a much more significant reason to love the World Cup, more important than the caliber of fans it attracts or the conversation topics it provides. Reason Number Three is the prophetic vision that the World Cup offers us of a very different kind of world—one where the United States is just another country, no more, no less.

In the world of FIFA, our girls and boys are on the same playing field as folks from Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe. In the world of the World Cup, nobody has any illusions about being the “best country in the world.” We’re not the best and we’re not the worst—we’re just another player on the field.

There’s no talk of “American exceptionalism” in the World Cup. Nobody suggests that we don’t have to play by the rules—that US players can grab the ball with their hands, score goals after the clock’s run out, or pull the ball out of the goalie’s arms. This is a place where we all get to recognize a key fact: we’re just one more player on the field. If we want to win, we have to play by the rules.

In international soccer, we stop claiming to be the world’s savior, or policeman or leader, and we just enjoy a little friendly competition between relative equals. When you root for your team in the World Cup, it’s the one blessed moment when you get to wave the Stars and Stripes without all the historical baggage associated with that flag. You’re not rooting for unprovoked invasions or global military hegemony. You’re not rooting for drone strikes or “Mission Accomplished” or Guantanamo or NAFTA. You’re not rooting for your country because you actually think it’s the best country on earth, or that it’s the nation that “invented freedom.” You’re rooting for your team for one simple reason: because it is yours.

And that—that kind of pride—is true patriotism.

True patriotism isn’t born of the claim that “our country is, objectively, the best country on earth.” Rather, true patriotism—real love of your country—is closer to the experience of being in love.

When you are in love, your lover is the only person in the world for you. You write poetry about him or her. You say that she is “the most beautiful woman in the world,” that he is “the finest man ever created.” But of course, you have the good sense to not take that literally. You recognize that, objectively speaking, there may be another person out there with better eyes than your lover’s, with a prettier voice, funnier jokes. Everyone recognizes this as a basic ground rule: when I say that “my lover is the most beautiful person in the world,” that statement is true—for me.

This is how patriotism works. When we understand this—as most of the world implicitly does—we respect everyone else’s right to love their own countries’ beauty. Every person’s homeland is unique and special, with its own idiosyncrasies, national heroes, music and cuisine, literature and history. And if that’s the country you are from, it is “the best” country—because it’s the best country for you.

The World Cup gives us a glimpse of a world where we Americans can think that way as well. Where we can wave our red, white and blue scarves, dress like the Statue of Liberty and sing our national anthem, without any illusions that this is “the best country on earth”. While we may shout ourselves hoarse rooting for the American team on the field, we still have enough common sense to understand that everyone else is doing the same for their team. And that’s just fine.

Some might say that I’m “un-American” for being inspired by this alternate vision of the world. Some would claim that it makes me a “traitor”. The current occupant of the White House is doubtless offended by such egalitarian thinking. Years before Trump came onto the political scene, Mitt Romney decried it during the 2012 presidential campaign. He accused President Obama of rolling back American exceptionalism and said he would, “devote [himself] to an American Century… [and] …never, ever apologize for America.”

I say that Romney is wrong. I say there’s nothing more patriotic than rejecting the “American Century.” Indeed, “World Cup patriotism” is the only kind of true patriotism that sensible Americans can engage in. The world of international soccer—a world of true equals—is the kind of world where we can, in good conscience, be proud to be Americans.

David J. Schmidt, a freelance writer and multilingual translator, splits his time between Mexico City and San Diego, Calif. He is the author of several books in English and Spanish, including the recent series on his work with coffee farmers in southern Mexico, “Into the Serpent’s Head.” He can be contacted at holyghoststories@gmail.com or via his website, www.holyghoststories.com

From The Progressive Populist, August 1, 2019

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