A lesson in football, blood and soil

There are teams you like and teams you don't. I like Germany. My grandfather was German; he taught me the game; I have relatives and friends living in Germany. I like Holland, not because I am Dutch, but because they play attractive football. I don't like Argentina. Mostly because of Diego Maradona. I don't like Brazil, not because they don't play great football, because they do; I don't like them because EVERYONE likes Brazil, and because they are expected to win every World Cup.

I am oft ridiculed for having multiple allegiances. The truth is, when it comes to the World Cup I have just one team, and that is the US. One has only to read my post following the US - England match to know this is true. While I have English blood, and love English football I would never root against the US in a football match between the two. As I said, I have German blood. In 2002 the US met the Germans in the quarter final. Did I support Germany because that is the birthplace of my grandfather, or because they play better football? Of course not. I am American. This is not grand patriotic posturing, because anyone that knows me, knows that I am no patriot. It is simply that in international competition, I feel one should support either the country in which they were born, or the country in which they live, whichever is the greater number of years. Let me explain. If I moved to France now, at the age of 41, and spent the rest of my life there, I'm still going to support the US in the World Cup. If I live beyond 83, well then, maybe it would be open to discussion which country I follow. If I was born in Mexico, but have lived all but my first year in the US, I'm going to support the US, not Mexico.

What is interesting about Americans is that we are all from somewhere else. There are Native Americans, of course, but everyone else is a descendent of an immigrant from another land. This is a more recent phenomena in Europe, one with which they are struggling. There has been much talk about the players on the German squad with Polish last names. People still expect Germans to have names like Beckenbauer and Muller. I have friends from England and Mexico that find it difficult to believe I can claim English, German, Hungarian, French, Mexican and Native American heritage. When the World Cup rolled around they enjoyed taunting me, questioning my loyalties, and even today as Germany battled Spain in the semi-final they thought it peculiar or hypocritical that I would root for Germany. People and cultures with very pure bloodlines cannot understand the American mutt. In 50 or 100 years when their own indigenous cultures have been watered down, and the white Anglo-Saxons are the minority in England, or the brown-skinned Aztec is no longer the majority in Mexico, perhaps then they will understand.