|
Ian Crouch
Newsletter editor
|
If you’ve been watching the World Cup on television this summer, you’ve seen it on repeat: a glossy Fox promo that imagines the U.S. men’s national team shocking the world and winning it all. Elvis croons. Fans in Los Angeles cause a minor earthquake. Texas runs out of beer. A beautiful couple draped in the American flag makes out while standing atop a bus in New York. Everything, we are told, is possible.
Photograph by Bob Kupbens / Icon Sportswire / Getty
Well, not everything. Last night, the U.S. crashed out of the tournament, run off the field in the round of sixteen by a Belgium team that looked stronger in every way. Even for jaded American soccer fans, the lopsided result landed like a shock. Our sports columnist Louisa Thomas has a report from the scene in Seattle. Her immediate verdict? “It was a bloodbath.”
And yet the U.S. team exits this tournament having inspired plenty of hope. Their playing style evolved to embrace superior tactics, thanks to their high-priced coach, Mauricio Pochettino, and their identity as a team that is populated, in part, by immigrants, dual nationals, and birthright citizens reflected the wider concept of diaspora that has defined this World Cup. In a column this morning, Jay Caspian Kang argues that a new national soccer culture may be emerging in the U.S., one that serves as a rebuke to “the revanchists and nativists who want to turn every instance of national joy into the same tedious referendum on who gets to be an American and who does not.”
Meanwhile, the tournament, which has already produced so many thrilling matches, rolls on. Earlier today, the defending champions, Argentina, looked cooked against Egypt, down 2–0 with just eleven minutes to go. But they still have Lionel Messi. Leading a wild final flurry, Messi assisted on one goal and then scored the equalizer himself, before his teammates carried the load on the game-winner. In a recent piece, the writer Jordan Salama tracked Messi’s evolution across six World Cups—and noted that the tournament’s all-time leading scorer was finally playing like he had nothing to lose. Yet, after today’s stunning comeback, Messi was in tears.
For the next two weeks, The New Yorker has got you covered. Do you want to jump off one bandwagon and onto an even bigger, sturdier one? Root for France. Do you want to back the tournament’s trendiest star? Root for the Viking. The coolest jerseys sold out? Buy a sticker book. Do you want to do something totally crazy? Canoe to the World Cup final in New Jersey. (Or don’t.) Everything might not be possible, but plenty of things still are.
|
