Emotional State of Matt #18: UNITED
- 50statesofmatt
- 18 hours ago
- 10 min read
Like so many others, for the last few weeks I’ve been consumed by World Cup fever. And, for the first time in ages, I've felt like the United States was truly UNITED with the rest of the world. The World Cup was the wonderful 250th birthday present we didn’t know we needed, but unfortunately it ended for the US team in a way the country probably deserved.
I’m not a huge sports fan. When I was a student, and for years after, I was a diehard USC football fan. After I moved to Portland I followed the Timbers and Thorns for a while. At some point I decided that the dividends weren’t worth the emotional investment for me. At times I can even be a little dismissive about sports and their value altogether. But I was riding a high the last few weeks…until I wasn’t. But I’ll get into that.
It started a month ago with the first games of the World Cup and the Knicks' Championship. Normally, I couldn’t give two shits about basketball, but I was visiting New York City for a week and they won the day I arrived. New York is crazy about their Knicks, but the team hadn't won a championship in 53 years, so New Yorkers had gotten used to disappointment.
This year was different. Rather than choking, the team came back from record deficits to win game after game. It was game 5 and the Knicks needed just one more win in San Antonio. The city was practically vibrating. I knew the game had started because people started cheering outside my window. I looked outside and saw that a crowd had gathered at a bar and was spilling into the street. After listening to the revelry for over an hour I decided to walk around and soak it in.
The West Village was wild, as was most of the city based on the news reports. The game was being projected on the sides of buildings. Entire streets were full of people, completely cutting off traffic. I saw a fire engine pull up to one such street. I thought the fire department were going to shut it down, but they’d just come to officially close off the street for everyone’s safety.
Another block had been closed with barricades and 100 people were watching the game, sitting directly on the street - something no sane person would never normally consider. An apartment building I passed had a tiny computer monitor propped on the stoop, with 30 people watching it from folding chairs on the sidewalk. And even though the Knicks were down by double digits, the vibe was electric - New Yorkers believed.
The crowds were as diverse as you could imagine. It’s one of the reasons I love New York - it truly is the melting pot of American metaphor. But rather than walking or riding the subway, actively ignoring each other, New Yorkers were united by a common purpose. The city felt like one, and it was beautiful.
Of course the Knicks won, and the city erupted with positivity. A perfect example of the unity the city felt was an excited Puerto Rican fan’s rap? poem? that went viral. “My mayor’s still Muslim, my bagel's still Jewish, the Pope’s on our side, Knicks in five.” I was witnessing A Moment.
That positive vibe continued throughout the week while New Yorkers awaited the Knicks ticker-tape parade. I turned my attention to the World Cup.
The World Cup is the most watched sporting event in the world, edging out the Summer Olympics. During the last one in 2022, five ba-ba-BILLION people watched at least some of it. And, since it’s focused on a single sport that rabid global fans engage with year-round, its enthusiasm is unsurpassed.
Football truly is The World’s Game. It’s played in every single country - all you need is a ball and a patch of dirt or grass. And this year, on the United States’ 250th anniversary, we got to be the co-hosts with Canada and Mexico.
Like every Cup, it's been an incredible tournament with thrilling underdog matches like Cape Verde v Argentina and wild rollercoaster games like England v Mexico. But what had me feeling so good was watching social media as international visitors discover the US and American culture while Americans discovered the rest of the world and soccer fandom.
By and large, I find social media to be vapid and toxic, so I try to spend very little time on it. My feed was suddenly filled with positive posts about the mixing of cultures surrounding the World Cup - and I couldn’t get enough.
First, and most visible, was a bromance for the ages between Scotland and Boston. The Tartan Army took over the city for two weeks, and Bostoners embraced them in a huge bear hug. There were a million great moments including a massive parade with kilts and bagpipes that marched to Fenway Park (at one point led by a duck) for a baseball game.
Alcohol sales were TRIPLE those on St. Patrick' s Day as Scots literally drank the city dry. Bars reported they were running out of beer and had to have emergency supplies shipped in. Orange traffic cones began appearing on every single statue in Boston.
Glaswegians have been putting a cone on their statue of the Duke of Wellington, outside the Gallery of Modern Art, for decades. When the tradition started in the 80's the cops would remove the cone, only to find a new one in it's place the next day. The city finally embraced it, and the cone has become an iconic symbol of Glasgow.
The love and joy the culture crossover generated wasn’t just on the streets, it reached up into the government. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed an executive order legalizing the iconic Scottish dish haggis (sheep lung was banned from the US in 1971). It should be noted that it was a non-binding symbolic gesture since food regulations are controlled by the FDA at the federal level, but still.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu signed a letter of intent for Boston and Glasgow to become sister cities, which is moving forward and will become official in April next year. The Glasgow Chamber of Commerce sent her a signed traffic cone.
Then there was Lawrence, Kansas, a city of less than 100,000 people and location of the University of Kansas. Lawrence was selected to host the Algerian team, partly because of its proximity to Kansas City, one of the game sites, and they went all out.
Lawrence officials held classes for local businesses educating them on Halal practices, French customs, traditional Arabic greetings, and more. Restaurants stocked Algerian foods and made alcohol-free sections. The city posted Arabic translations on street signs. 500 fans waited in the rain outside the team’s hotel to welcome them when they arrived. Thousands of people watched their practice sessions and the University of Kansas band played their national anthem.
A Lawrence man went viral after getting choked up when doing an interview about the experience. Algerian fans and players were overwhelmed by the welcome. At the game vs Austria the crowd held a banner saying “Thank you Lawrence”, which was later gifted to the city.
Norway took over Times Square with their Viking row and the Dutch & Argentinians crowds literally filled the streets of Kansas City. I was also entranced watching South Koreans and Mexicans share their cultures. They partied together in the streets, drinking tequila and dancing to Gangnam Style. More than one person joked there would be a boom of Korexican kids in 9 months.
There were hundreds and hundreds of videos from people blown away as they experienced our country and culture. Japanese ate Texas BBQ and rode mechanical bulls. An Italian guy was elated by free soda refills. Australians went on a shopping spree in Buc-ee's. Germans discovered Waffle House. Walmart hosted VIP tours for slack-jawed visitors. Brits gushed over our National Parks.
I watched dozens of people saying how gracious and hospitable Americans were. Tabs picked up in bars, rides when Ubers didn’t show up, strangers helping them find the best American snacks, even people just smiling and saying hi to them on the street. One guy had such a good time that while he was in the cab on his way back to the airport, he decided he didn't actually want to leave, and had the cab turn around. Europeans' sudden love affair with ranch dressing even gave the TSA a sense of humor.
Tons of people talked about how Americans were not at all like they expected. Their media had been telling them how awful we are and how unsafe the country is. Tons of people apologized to Americans for the low opinion they’d had about us, and how this trip had changed their perspectives.
Americans and people from all over the world came to the realization that if our leaders and media would stop being so divisive and get out of the way, citizens of the world would mostly get along great.
My 50 States trip has made me love this country more than I ever have - I dare say it’s made me patriotic. I was riding high with the World Cup, and for the first time in a long time I was hopeful. Me. Hopeful. Really. Then Trump put his slimy hands on it and fucked it all up. He truly is King Made-Ass. Everything he touches turns to shit.
Trump had refreshingly been laying low throughout this time. He was soundly booed at the one NBA Finals game he attended (the only one the Knicks lost), his Great American State Fair was faceplanting, and people from around the world were singing Kumbaya across the country.
Then came the USMNT player Falorin Balogun’s controversial red card during the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina. Getting a red card means the player needs to leave for the rest of the match AND they can’t play the next game. The USMNT played ferociously with only 10 players for the last 30 minutes of the match and won 2-0. But the team and fans were worried about playing without their star player for the next game against Belgium, which was win-or-go-home.
A few days later, FIFA (the organization that runs the World Cup) announced that after reviewing the red card decision they had decided to delay Balogun's one-game suspension, so he could play against Belgium. It was a ruling they had only made once before in a case with Cristiano Ronaldo. I had disagreed with the red card in the first place, so I was elated. Many cried foul against FIFA, but to me it felt like justice had been done.
Then Trump came out publicly and said that despite not knowing “what the hell a red card was” he had called FIFA President Gianni Infantino and asked him to review the case.
A famously corrupt president had asked the president of a famously corrupt organization to do him a favor, and he had. FIFA even refused to give Belgium an explanation of why the ruling had been overturned. This is the same Gianni Infantino who, last December, licked Trump’s boots by making up and presenting him the “FIFA Peace Prize”. Global outrage reached a fever pitch, but now it was directed at the US, not just FIFA.
The red card decision went from justice (in my mind) to slimy. It felt like the global goodwill we had been building up evaporated immediately. Welcome ladies and gentlemen to “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things - World Cup Edition”. Our Narcissist in Chief couldn’t let something good happen without putting himself in the middle of it and publicly taking credit. Public sentiment seemed to go overnight from “you’re nothing like I imagined” to “you’re exactly who I thought you were”.
Not only that, he’d put our team in an impossible position. Sure, they had their star back, but even if they won it would be "due to favoritism and corruption". It sucked all the air out of the room and dominated World Cup conversation for the days leading up to the game with Belgium. It took away the ability for the US team to play with a chip on their shoulder and delivered it right to the Belgian locker room with a bow.
To say that the USMNT showed up flat would be insulting to pancakes everywhere. They collectively whipped down their shorts and dropped a giant steamer on the pitch at midfield. They were nothing like the team that had played a man down against Bosnia and Herzegovina. They were timid and disorganized. With the most egregious self-inflicted error I have ever seen in high-level football, our goalie gifted Belgium a goal which put the win practically out of reach. It wasn’t just cringe-worthy, it was beyond embarrassing.
Our performance added insult to injury and the global football fanbase reveled in it. The Belgian players did the Trump dance after the game and their official account posted "Overturn This" on X.
To be clear, I am not blaming Trump for our loss. The USMNT were outclassed by a fantastic Belgian team in every way and they have to own their performance. All I’m saying is that so much of sports is mental and there's no way this controversy didn’t have an effect. I personally went from a hopeful high, to totally crushed. It’s not that we lost, it’s the circumstances surrounding the loss and what a big global spotlight was on us.
Here’s the BUT.
Sports matter. They can break our hearts, but they can also bring us together. Football is called The Beautiful Game for a reason. This was just one game, and it will fade in people’s memories. Visitors' joy experiencing the US will live on in the stories they tell for the rest of their lives. Reasonable people won’t blame the American people, but our leaders. This event will be just another stain on an already filthy FIFA reputation, so they’ll take a lot of the heat.
I choose to believe that the lasting impression of this World Cup will be the hospitality extended by ordinary Americans and the excitement everyone felt mixing cultures on our soil. I will always remember the weeks when I, millions of other Americans, and countless people of the world felt UNITED by the World Cup - in our country, on our 250th birthday. And it's not over yet.
Yes, and…
Matt
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