The wonder of the World Cup: this year’s tournament already worth celebrating

If you’ve ever harbored any doubt of sport’s ability to bring people together, this year’s FIFA World Cup should put that doubt to bed.

This year’s World Cup tournament, hosted jointly by the United States, Mexico and Canada, is still in the group stage, but already we’ve seen some amazing scenes of camaraderie brought about by the worldwide love of the “beautiful game.”

You may have seen some of these scenes on social media. Rowdy Scottish fans singing in Boston pubs and parks—and making sure to clean up afterwards. Mexicans and South Koreans doing shots of tequila together outside the stadium in Guadalajara before their teams clashed. Switzerland and Qatar fans dancing together in San Francisco. It’s been amazing to watch.

The rise of nationalistic “blood and soil” politics in the United States and around the world has been depressing and demoralizing; but this sporting nationalism, characterized by sportsmanship and a love of the game—that, I can get behind. It’s uplifting and refreshing.

In addition to the solidarity fans have shown outside the stadiums and in the stands, the play on the pitch has been phenomenal and entertaining, as well. There have been some brilliant individual efforts like England’s Harry Kane’s brace against Croatia, Lionel Messi’s hat trick in Argentina’s 3-0 win over Algeria, and, of course, Folarin Balogun’s two goals in the United States’ opening 4-1 victory vs. Paraguay. The big time players, so far, have put in big time performances.

Underdog teams have made statements, too. In the group stage games we’ve seen to this point, Cape Verde, ranked No. 67, held world No. 2 Spain and traditional power Uruguay to draws; Saudi Arabia drew 1-1 with Uruguay; and the Democratic Republic of Congo, ranked No. 46 in the world, nearly nicked a winning goal in the dying minutes of its 1-1 draw vs. No. 5 Portugal. (What an upset that would’ve been!)

Whether you’re a die-hard fan, a casual one or even if you haven’t the slightest idea what you’re seeing on the field, there’s been a lot of entertaining viewing experiences. Japan coming from behind twice against the Netherlands and Germany’s second half comeback vs. the Ivory Coast immediately spring to mind.

And if you’re one of those people I mentioned, one that doesn’t know anything about soccer, this is the perfect time to get involved if you’re interested. With 48 of the top national teams coming together in North America you’re getting a glimpse of the best players in the world competing in a format that only comes about once every four years. FOX, which has the television rights for the entire World Cup, makes the games accessible, featuring most of them on your local FOX channel or otherwise on FS1; and the network has wall-to-wall coverage of the tournament with some of the best analysts and commentators, not just from the U.S. but from around the world.

As a longtime soccer fan myself, my hope is that the previously uninitiated will give the game a chance through this year’s World Cup. 

While the World Cup is held just once every four years, if you like what you see from now until the final is held in New Jersey on July 18 then there’s plenty more where that came from. Of course you can watch any of the prominent domestic leagues like the Premier League in England, Major League Soccer in the U.S., La Liga in Spain, the Bundesliga in Germany, Ligue 1 in France and many others. Even more locally there are professional teams you can support like Huntsville FC, Birmingham Legion FC, and Nashville SC, all of which were founded in the last 10 years. And then here in Franklin County we have the Russellville High School and Tharptown High School varsity soccer programs which have seen plenty of success in recent years with the RHS boys’ team reaching multiple state championship games and the THS boys typically ranked in the top 10 in their classification.

So, wherever you stand on soccer—whether you know everything or nothing at all or have other preconceived ideas—I hope you’ll embrace the World Cup and take this summer to experience it. If you’re like me it could turn out to be the sport you never thought you’d come to love so much. 

The game of soccer brings with it a lot of joy and sometimes a lot of pain—I know from my own experience as a fan—but more than anything it brings people together. And that’s something I think all of us, the world over, could use right now.