Fantasy Football
This article appears in the February 2026 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Read more from the issue.
It was December 2025 when the first (and likely only) FIFA Peace Prize winner gestured to a room of international football fans and remarked, “When you think about it … this is football—there’s no question—we have to come up with another name for the NFL stuff.” Who says our president is cognitively impaired? He understands that if the object of the game is to kick the ball with your foot, it should be called football. Solid work, Mr. Really Good Brain.
A month later, that same FIFA Peace Prize winner was bombing Venezuela, killing at least 75 people and kidnapping the country’s president and his wife. Strangely, one of my first thoughts after this illegal act of military aggression was “I hope the U.S. gets its ass kicked in the World Cup this year.” You know, the one that it’s hosting. A petty wish, I know, and I don’t really mean it. But I also kind of do.
Football is the world’s sport. Every country on Earth plays it, and you don’t automatically win by having more fighter jets than your opponent. It’s a great equalizer, accessible to all regardless of class as it requires little to no fancy equipment. The World Cup has cut great countries down to size and made them swallow their pride, even if it’s just a game. It’s an international playing field that’s arguably far fairer than the United Nations.
For decades, geopolitics has played out on the pitch. The tiny country of Uruguay stuck it to its larger neighbor Brazil in the Maracanazo of 1950, East Germany and West Germany had it out in 1974, and Argentina defeated its former English military foe in 1986 with the maybe illegal “Hand of God” goal. Whatever, England deserved it after the Falklands War.
When the U.S. plays in the World Cup, it’s actually kind of magical, because for the first time we’re not number one. We’re not even two or three. When we make it to the Round of 16, that’s a win. We only started regularly qualifying for the tournament in 1990, and in 2018, the men’s team straight up didn’t qualify at all. (Now of course the U.S. women’s team is a four-time champion in the Women’s World Cup, but thanks to both our feminist progress that gave us funding for it and continued sexism, this gets far less attention.)
The World Cup gives us the rare feeling of being part of the world rather than dominating it. Americans are so unaccustomed to being an underdog that it’s almost exhilarating. I’ve unironically chanted “USA! USA!” at World Cup games and could feel pride that I wasn’t cheering for war crimes or trans people being kicked out of the military. The fans who follow and love U.S. soccer tacitly understand that America’s lack of exceptionalism in the sport makes this harmless nationalism feel like a progressive, internationalist thing to do. After decades of being the world’s precision-guided asshole, we’re just out here being regular guys, missing obvious shots.
Our team isn’t even good enough to attract fair-weather fans. Even our chants seem to acknowledge our lack of prowess. The slogan for this year’s team is “Never Chase Reality,” which sounds like a loser admitting they suck.
Ironically, the U.S. shares its original national pastime—baseball—with Venezuela and Cuba, our supposed socialist enemies whose governments we want to topple and whose immigrants we want to eject. Well, all immigrants except the dozens who play for our sports teams and who, ahem, helped the L.A. Dodgers win the last “World” Series.
Sadly, Venezuela did not qualify for the World Cup this year, ruining this revenge fantasy for us anti-imperialists. I guess there were other things on the country’s minds, like being invaded. So that leaves the other Latin American countries—Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, even Argentina if Milei will allow it—to do the Yankee ass-kicking. Paraguay comes to town on June 12. Go Paraguay! Or what about an outright … boycott?
The 2026 World Cup might be the only time that the accusation of immigrants coming to our country to destroy us will be true. And I will relish it, while also lamenting that it could push us farther from a sport that draws us closer to the world.
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