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In the past, I thought it was easy to fight an imperialist team, but the calculus gets complicated when the team changes. Paris-born star Kylian Mbappé is the son of a Cameroonian father and an Algerian mother. Alphonso Davies from Canada was born in a refugee camp in Ghana. Twelve of the 26 players on the U.S. team are Black, the 1994, 1998, and 2002 teams combined.
One of them, Sergiño Dest, was born in the Netherlands to a white Dutch mother and an American father from Suriname. On Tuesday, in the 38th minute, Dest directed the ball to Christian Pulisic, a white American considered to be the best player in the country, who hit the goal to give the USA a 1-0 lead.
“USA!” the people around me were saying, exchanging high notes and screaming. I also cheered, raised my arms in victory and pride for the country that the Filipino elders moved to.
When the Iran–USA game started, I calculated that I was one of three people of color in a bar filled with nearly a hundred people. Then, at the beginning of the second half, two others took open seats next to me, Bassel Heiba Elfeky and Billy Strickland, NYU graduate students in Boston for a physics conference. I quickly realized that Elfeky was rooting for Iran. He spoke quietly at first, breathlessly, slowly rising in tenor as the game intensified in the final minutes with the U.S. desperate. When the rest of the bar groaned over the penalty called in the US, he pumped first. As the rest of the bar clapped for the US corner kick, he shook his head.
“Going to the U.S., it didn’t feel right,” said Elfeky, who grew up in Egypt and moved to the U.S. for college. “He has a lot of money. And men make more than women, even though women do better. Then you have Iran, who are complete underdogs.
Strickland, who grew up in LA and is partially of Japanese descent, said he would support the Japanese team over the U.S. if he played. Elfeky said he’s always rooting for the U.S. men’s soccer team.
“At the end of the day, they play a boring game,” he said of his tactical style.
In the closing minutes, the U.S. blocked an Iranian shot that looked like it would tie the game, and Elfeky let out a “goddamnit.” When the final whistle blew, sealing the US victory, he sighed, shrugged, and said, “It was a good game.” Both teams play hard, help each other up off the grass, and demonstrate the camaraderie that leads people to say that sports transcends politics. On Instagram postUS player Tim Weah will call the Iranian players an “inspiration” for how they “show pride and love for their country and people.”
Elfeky carries the familiar disappointment of fans who are forced to admit that justice rarely exists in sports. As others around him took celebratory shots of whiskey, he and Strickland threw on their jackets and backpacks and headed out. Soon the Iranian players will also go home, to face whatever they will do.●
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