During the World Cup, Backheeled will examine the tournament’s weird, heartwarming, and unexpected moments. After the first round of group stage fixtures, here’s what stood out.
I wasn’t excited about this World Cup.
The reasons were not unique or particularly interesting at this point. Take the crude, repulsive economic and political maneuvering from FIFA. Or the Trump administration’s actions both domestically and internationally. It’s difficult to get amped for a geopolitical sporting event when your country is, to put it lightly, not inspiring patriotism.
And then the tournament started. And all the reasons I wasn’t excited before the tournament didn’t go away magically; in fact, the tournament magnified many of them. The joy of the World Cup does not supplant everything else happening in the world. But the joy is still there, bright and brilliant and silly and weird. In many ways, this World Cup has reminded me more about what I love about this game and this competition than far less fraught tournaments before it.
The World Cup is here. So is our biggest discount ever.
The games have been good, with some feel-good stories to boot, yes. But so much of the joy is radiating from the fans, thousands and thousands of them that have poured into North America, come together, and realized none of us are so different.
All of the fun and funny stuff exists hand in hand with the bad. We can enjoy the World Cup in the same breath as we decry ticket prices and corporate greed, the denied visas from Somali referee Omar Artan to Cabo Verde goalkeeper Vozinha’s mother, the restrictions placed upon the Iranian team that’s being treated far more like pawns in a wargame than a team in a World Cup. We hold it all together because this game is ours. It does not belong to FIFA, or the United States, or anyone just because they are rich and powerful.
The game is ours. Love it. Fight for it. And recognize how fighting for it is often just fighting for each other.
