OZONA, TEXAS – I’ve been through six US states so far, driving 3,000 miles. Not everybody cares about the World Cup, but there is a shared fascination with a sporting culture different to their own that I have found incredibly endearing.
Americans largely endure a difficult reputation when it comes to their embrace of anything outside their own sphere. You will have heard the statistic, uttered as a spiteful joke, about the percentage of them that don’t own a passport. The intended slur is: ha, thickos, you don’t even want to leave your own country.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that joke has it all wrong; Americans don’t need passports. I’ve only travelled through six states so far and I’ve seen ski resorts, beaches, deserts, woods, lakes and mountains. I’ve stayed in a vast sprawl of 13 million people and stayed in a place with a population of 2,000 that calls itself a city.
The National Park Service alone covers 430 separate areas in this country. You can drive a massive motorhome on empty freeways and drag along a jeep just for fun. Of course other countries are fabulous and fascinating, but wanting to visit all of the USA is an ineffective stick to beat anyone with. How could you ever hope to see it all?
The accusation of insularity absolutely held some weight before this World Cup. I suspect most Americans didn’t know much about European football culture; perhaps that is a mark of ignorance. Although ask 10 colleagues at your work in the UK about tailgate parties and seven innings stretches and see which face they pull.
Clearly not everybody cares. In Seattle, when picking up my hire car, the friendly gentleman behind the counter did not know which sport the tournament involved. In Washington, Oregon, New Mexico and Texas so far, hotel staff have treated this bumbling Englishman with bemusement and openly laugh when I mention “football”, “Maine” and “driving”. But then…fair enough – it is a nonsensical thing to do.
Three distinct layers of heavy interest have developed over the first eight days of this World Cup and all have helped to generate a mood that has shocked me with its intensity, even in smalltown USA.
The first is the manner in which support for the US national team has grown outside of its core support. We understand that as a concept: people sit down to see England play in a major tournament who would laugh in your face if you asked them if they were watching a qualifier.
In the US that effect is multiplied because equivalent people are adopting the sport as well as the team. But it is a real thing. Multiple times over the last week I’ve spoken to – and overhead – people in hotels, restaurants and coffee shops who are tentatively realising why soccer transfixes us and why a home national team at a major tournament hosted at home is the perfect vehicle for its growth.
Second is the embrace of foreign football fan culture in every form in the big cities. In Dallas they delighted in Japanese fans cleaning the stands at the end of the match and the orange wave of Dutch supporters marching to the stadium. Bostonians adored the Tartan Army and their good-natured booziness and loved the Norwegians and their Viking-style rowing chant. You’ve got Thomas Tuchel throwing the first pitch at a Kansas City Royals game. This is brilliant and non-normal.
But the final layer is the most fascinating to an outsider: the immigrant experience. Already in this tournament I have watched Mexico with Mexicans in a taqueria in California, watched Panama with Panamanians in a wing house in Texas, watched Canada with Canadians in a sports bar in Oregon and sat in a hotel bar with Mexican guests who actively cheered against Spain.
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The immigrant experience, particularly in California and Texas, is what makes America such a brilliant place to travel around but now it’s also creating a World Cup buzz amongst Americans via osmosis. Over the last few days, I’ve seen more green or white Mexican shirts than I’ve ever seen of a single nation in one place. That sweeps you up.
In the US, that combines with an individual warmth that surpasses any other large country I’ve visited. It’s important to note that I am in a position of privilege – white, male, straight – but the general friendliness in the US to strangers catches you off guard. Friendliness plus tournament buzz creates the perfect atmosphere.
I’ve been to the US a number of times and worried that this time I might find a country more divided in two than ever before with anger at its core. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite “factors” within the nation’s leadership that I dislike intensely, the America – and Americans – I’ve seen has been open, welcoming and increasingly pumped about the World Cup. I now feel silly for my doubt and nervousness on both topics.
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