There's a Crack in Everything

La La Land

I swore I wasn't going to pay for World Cup tickets. Not at those prices. But when a friend invited me to join him and his family, of course I said yes. I offered to pay him. He hasn't accepted. Then I saw the number. $1,940 for seats that were good but very high up. I have a feeling he won't take my money.

I took an Uber to the stadium from my hotel near LAX. Korean-American guy, Tesla Model X. He was amazing. Not just a footie fan. A hell of a driver, threaded the mean streets of LA and got me right up close, closer than I had any right to be. We talked the whole way. I think he was more excited than I was.

And the world right now? Immigration. Political divisiveness. Economic instability. Pick your war. How was this possibly going to work, 48 countries descending on a place that couldn't keep a grass pitch alive a few months ago? The answer. Bagpipe parades and chanting at Fenway. Dancing 'til dawn in Houston. BBQ enlightenment in Dallas and KC. I gave more high fives in the bathroom lines at SoFi during US versus Paraguay than I did the entire last decade. Hygiene be damned.

The moment of this cynicism siesta wasn't even in the run of play. The anthem. Our anthem. Sung by Dan and Shay, two guys I'd honestly never heard of. Caught me completely off guard. Me at a World Cup game in the city I was born in, with a friend, watching the sport I love most. And 70,000 strangers around me who suddenly felt like parts of me.

Where the fuck did all this humanity and goodwill and patriotism come from? Aren't you supposed to get unrest when cultures collide? When American football stadiums get repurposed for real football? Who would have believed Americans, us, would be the gracious ones?

And why aren't the stands all rich and privileged? How did these families pull it off, the ones who emptied a savings account on a week they'll tell their grandkids about? Who would've guessed that betting it all on a once-in-a-lifetime experience might actually buy one?

And tell me, why have the early matches been this good? Why aren't the minnows getting hammered? Who predicted that sixteen more countries would make the thing richer, not thinner? Where's all the dilution we were promised?

Cape Verde's keeper woke up the morning of the Spain match with about fifty thousand followers. A nation of half a million people most of the stadium couldn't find on a map. By the time he'd thrown his body in front of a seventh Spanish shot, the place was chanting his name like he was one of theirs. A million by the final whistle. Ten million by morning. He didn't even win the game. Or maybe he did.

He wept at the whistle. Some of it was his grandparents, gone now, who raised him. Some of it was his mother, who wasn't in the stands. They couldn't get the visa money together in time. The barriers I'd been cursing at…the ones I were sure would keep the wrong people out, had kept ‘her’ out. And then, days later, it didn't. They found her a visa. She's coming.

A stranger did this. Some Brazilian streamer saw the keeper had nobody following him and told a few million people to go find him. Social media. The thing I've been sure is poison. Apparently it cuts both ways.

I am a vivisector. Ask my family. But even I bend to the oppositional forces that run the universe.

I'd like to tell you this just found me. The truth is messier. I've spent a life teaching myself to look for these moments, making it the whole point. But the looking and the cynic don't get along. The looking sets the bar high, and the cynic is always there to tell me it won't clear it, and usually he's right, and that's the trap. The wanting is what arms the disappointment. I lean to the dark pole. I always have. So I don't know if I found this or it found me. Maybe the looking cracked the door and the cynic was just too slow to shut it this time.

None of it is fixed, mind you. The wars are still on. The animosity is still there, idling, waiting for the tournament to leave so it can have the country back. I know that. I'm not an idiot. But for a few weeks the other thing is winning, the thing I'd written off, and I didn't order it and I can't explain it and I'm not going to argue with it. Thank God.

My friend still won't take my money. I'm beginning to understand why.

What a fucking lesson. Hold the tension of the opposites. Just not too tightly.

SoFi, before USA–Paraguay. (Photo: the author)

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