1759 days have elapsed between the day I first came to the USA, and today. While not all of them have spent on American soil, it has been a significant period of time. Enough time, perhaps, to make at least some semi-formed reflections.
This evening, my sister and I went to watch the USA play Belgium at the local pub. It was packed, as were thousands of similar bars, pubs, and venues across the country. The numbers haven’t come out yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if 40m+ people watched the game in America. That is higher than any other event, bar the Super Bowl.
America is sometimes criticised for being insular, or close-minded, or prejudiced, or caught in the darker moments of it’s history. Sitting in the bar, that didn’t feel like the case at all.
Association Football, aka European Football, aka Soccer, is not America’s past time. For the majority of Americans, it is something they watch every four years. But the nation has caught World Cup Fever, and the people in the pub were feeling it.
For a country that is supposedly divided, the people watching alongside me were certainly united. For all the terrible deeds in the past, I saw with my own eyes a national celebrate a team which had a Latin American coach, a Croat-American captain, and a number of players descended from slaves.
In the 19th Century, Eastern Europeans were not considered American, and blacks weren’t even considered people. In the 20th Century, things changed, slowly. As we enter the middle decades of the 21st Century, almost all of that prejudice and division has gone away. Yes, there are terrible things that happen, and that can’t be discounted or forgotton about. But you also have to recognise what you see with your own eyes, and that was of a nation united.
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