"For the good of the game" is a phrase that many US soccer coaches and officials end their letters with. If you love this game, as I have all my life, you don't give a damn about the countries, even as you support your own national team.
During the 2002 World Cup my son (then 12) would get up a 4:30 a.m. to watch the team live. On one such early morning we watched with trepidation as they took on Portugal, with their star Luis Figo - one of the three teams considered to have a shot at the finals.
That morning the USA pulled off a 3-2 defeat of Portugal, stunning the world of soccer. I drove to work as usual after the match all hyped up, listening to a local Bay Area sports talk show to get the reaction. "Oh wow, the US beats Portugal - does anyone care?" wisecracked he host. "No," said former Raiders coach John Madden, their guest. "Soccer is not an American sport and it's a stupid game for losers."
That attitude has been with us for a long time, long before MAGA or hipster were things. In a narrow sense, Madden was right: it's not an American game. There are probably no American boys who played this sport competitively who haven't played along side young men from all over the world. That is feature, not a bug.
It doesn't faze the millions of Americans who play the game or support their kids during ungodly hours of travel and competition, but it's always there.
That 2002 US team, a mix of pros with European experience and exciting young upstarts like Landon Donovan and Michael Beasley, eventually lost in the quarterfinals against a powerhouse German side led by the veteran goal keeper Oliver Kahn, who managed to hide a ball that slid over the line behind him, sealing a 1-0 win for Germany.
Germany went on to lose to Brazil, led by Roberto Carlos, the dazzling Ronaldinho and the legendary Ronaldo, in the finals. The trainer of my son's team, a Bolivian, said, "Sometimes we need Brazil to remind us how to play this game."
The US men that year showed us that we can do it. It was a great moment of national pride and love of the game. Parenthetically, it also produced the best-ever World Cup ad. There wasn't a single US player in the ad, but Elvis Presley provided the theme.
Patriotism is not conditional. Just as Thomas Friedman's Zionism is conditional therefore he is not a Zionist, the "Hipster Patriots" are in fact not patriots at all. So they can get lost.
"For the good of the game" is a phrase that many US soccer coaches and officials end their letters with. If you love this game, as I have all my life, you don't give a damn about the countries, even as you support your own national team.
During the 2002 World Cup my son (then 12) would get up a 4:30 a.m. to watch the team live. On one such early morning we watched with trepidation as they took on Portugal, with their star Luis Figo - one of the three teams considered to have a shot at the finals.
That morning the USA pulled off a 3-2 defeat of Portugal, stunning the world of soccer. I drove to work as usual after the match all hyped up, listening to a local Bay Area sports talk show to get the reaction. "Oh wow, the US beats Portugal - does anyone care?" wisecracked he host. "No," said former Raiders coach John Madden, their guest. "Soccer is not an American sport and it's a stupid game for losers."
That attitude has been with us for a long time, long before MAGA or hipster were things. In a narrow sense, Madden was right: it's not an American game. There are probably no American boys who played this sport competitively who haven't played along side young men from all over the world. That is feature, not a bug.
It doesn't faze the millions of Americans who play the game or support their kids during ungodly hours of travel and competition, but it's always there.
That 2002 US team, a mix of pros with European experience and exciting young upstarts like Landon Donovan and Michael Beasley, eventually lost in the quarterfinals against a powerhouse German side led by the veteran goal keeper Oliver Kahn, who managed to hide a ball that slid over the line behind him, sealing a 1-0 win for Germany.
Germany went on to lose to Brazil, led by Roberto Carlos, the dazzling Ronaldinho and the legendary Ronaldo, in the finals. The trainer of my son's team, a Bolivian, said, "Sometimes we need Brazil to remind us how to play this game."
The US men that year showed us that we can do it. It was a great moment of national pride and love of the game. Parenthetically, it also produced the best-ever World Cup ad. There wasn't a single US player in the ad, but Elvis Presley provided the theme.
https://youtu.be/XG0aCa9-bLI?si=wsOlplanhUZ2ychp
Patriotism is not conditional. Just as Thomas Friedman's Zionism is conditional therefore he is not a Zionist, the "Hipster Patriots" are in fact not patriots at all. So they can get lost.