America / Americans - often rightly so - face so many sorts of big-ugly-American stereotypes abroad. We're the biggest. We're the baddest. We know it. Absorb our culture at your own peril. You know you want to. If you don't want to, we'll happily do it for you.
It's rare that we receive underdog status, particularly in international competition. But then there's the World Cup.
Last night I watched some sketchy pirate feed from the BBC of the USA / Belgium match. Great, agonizingly terrible, but still great, match. Soccer is one of the few realms where we're not even in the conversation.
The English commentators, time and time again called out the American's grit and determination while we held on for dear life against a vastly superior, skilled squad. These were likely backhanded compliments, perhaps not. I'm taking them. I'm taking them well. They capture nearly all of that cliché that is America. We will outwork you. With whatever substandard flotsam we have. Git. R. Done. I'm more than mildly embarrassed by typing this. Mildly is putting it mildly.
That idea of America may not ring true today, but it's nice to think that it does. Hearing USA USA USA bouncing around the stadium as we attempted to rally back in extra time, well, it was great. Reports stated that about 30% of the audience were USA supporters, 10% Belgium supporters, and 70% other. That other...I'd like to believe that, based on the noise of the crowd, they were all-in for USMNT.
Country didn't matter. Policy didn't matter. American greed and arrogance and excess and obfuscation didn't matter. What mattered is that the US was over-matched and yet continued to work. Scratch and claw and grind and grit and grit and grind and etc. The audacity! Everyone loves an underdog.
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