When Europeans boo the US team at the 2026 World Cup, they will be discrediting Trump's opponents
In an age when democracies are under greater stress, symbols can become dangerous shortcuts. A flag or a team can be made to carry the sins of a government, even when the people wearing them are among that government’s first victims and fiercest opponents.
When the FIFA World Cup kicks off in the US, Mexico, and Canada, millions of fans around the world will be watching with something more than sporting interest. For many Europeans and others who have watched the United States under Donald Trump with alarm, it’s not uncommon to hear people saying they plan to cheer against the US and gleefully await their defeat on the pitch. Rooting against the US team will feel like rooting against MAGA.
The problem is, they’ll be rooting against the wrong Americans.
The US soccer community is not the America of closed borders, performative nationalism, and contempt for the outside world. It is younger, more multiracial, and more comfortable with global belonging than much of mainstream American sporting culture. It is the America shaped by the 1994 World Cup, Latin American neighbourhoods, African and Caribbean communities, European migrants, Asian-American families, and children who grew up understanding that the world was not something to fear.
