Around this time last year, the host cities for the 104 matches of the 2026 Men’s World Cup were announced. The USA, Canada, and Mexico were the sponsor nations, with Kansas City and its Arrowhead Stadium as one of the sites, six driving hours from our home.
I’ve been a soccer fan for 25 years, learning the game during a year my family spent in England in 1999. From that point, I’ve watched the matches on TV for every quadrennial event for both men and women.
It was time, I thought, that I go to Lionel Messi instead of him coming to me. Of course, when I purchased a ticket for the July 11 quarterfinal game three months ago, I didn’t know one of the teams would be defending World Champion Argentina, with the by-consensus game’s greatest player, and that Switzerland would be the opponent.
Sport has always been important to me. I grew up playing baseball, starting with wiffle ball. It accompanied me through my growing-up years and has tagged along as I have aged. My friend Steve and I still play catch.
But baseball has always been more than a game to me. Two years before I was born, in 1947, Jackie Robinson claimed his rightful place at second base.
My only black friends growing up were baseball teammates, who my decent father, a man of his times, wouldn’t let me play with when they came over to my yard for a game of catch.
Today, Japan’s Shohei Ohtani is my country’s National Pastime’s biggest star, with Latino and Hispanic players making up 30% of major leaguers. The world has come to the game that is in my blood, even as Donald Trump and his masked minions round up, deport, and, intermittently, murder brown-skinned residents, while goose-stepping at our borders, bellowing NO ENTRY.
That’s why, on Saturday night, I loved sitting amidst a contingent of Argentinian fans.
For the 39 days of the 2026 World Cup, the world has also come to this beautiful game. It’s a terrible reminder of what my country was and could be again.
After the game, won by Argentina in extra time, I took an Uber back to my accommodation, a 45-minute ride in heavy traffic. By accent, the driver was from Eastern Europe. It gave me time to reflect on this peak experience, which was everything and more than I imagined, and on my country.
In soccer, a player earns a red card for an egregious offense against his opponent and the rules of the game. The punishment is banishment. In this game, the referee changed a card ruling after a video review of the incident, from an Argentine player to a Swiss player.
In American democracy, elections are a form of red card to the loser.
If only life could mirror our games!
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