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Being a soccer fan in America is miserable.
First of all, while I’m proud to be an American, I’m generally ashamed of most things related to American Soccer. We lose our world cup qualifying matches to teams like Trinidad & Tobago. We sat by and let legends like Landon Donavon rot away at home during the end of his career (during which time he was still at peak performance). Every ten years or so we get a “golden generation” of youngsters who will “change the sport of soccer in America… FOREVER”… And then those players get old, retire, and soccer in this country stays the same.
In short, we are an embarrassment.
Luckily for me, I’m a dual-citizen. My ancestral home of Portugal is a much better soccer-faring nation. Portugal has a star-studded cast led by Cristiano Ronaldo, a deeply passionate fanbase, and most importantly, they qualify for big international tournaments (they even win them sometimes!)
Suffice it to say that my international footballing interest has been saved by my ancestral home. But most Americans don’t have the luxury of being immigrants from a country with a good soccer teams. Hell, most immigrants don’t even have that luxury. That Euro win in 2016 almost makes up for all of the disadvantages of coming from a family whose highest level of education was 4th grade in a country…
