What I saw at the World Cup that the Trump admin doesn't want you to see

This Appalachian fulfilling his lifelong dream was only part of the experience.

I promise this post won’t be as long as my last one. I know it’s been a minute since my last post, but rest assured we are so back and I’ve got a lot planned, including the first post from a new contributor!

A little “libbed up” background

I have said many times that while I loved watching and playing soccer football growing up, I cannot begin to describe to you how bad . . . unskilled . . . utterly lacking in athletic talent I was when I played. I never made it past junior varsity in high school, despite playing through my junior year. I’ve included an image below to illustrate this, with the story included in a footnote.¹

However, I have always loved the sport and have had a dream since I was a six year old boy of attending a World Cup match at some point in my life. That opportunity presented itself last year when I found a pair of tickets to a group stage match in Atlanta for an insanely cheap price. I bought them on spec when the teams playing were still TBD v. TBD.²

When it was announced in December that my game would be Cabo Verde v. Spain, I genuinely cried tears of joy. I knew Spain was one of the best, if not the best, team in the world, and realizing that I would be fortunate enough to witness them play in person was emotionally overwhelming.

Needless to say, I was excited.

The culturally immersive experience of the World Cup

It is no secret that FIFA is a vast, worldwide criminal enterprise cosplaying as an international football governing body. But I won’t get into that at the moment. It’s also no secret that the Trump Administration has made racism a cornerstone of its immigration policy.

One of the reasons many world cup tickets went unsold this year was simple: fear. People travel from all over the world to attend world cup matches, but the fear of being detained and sent to a literal concentration camp due to something as simple as a clerical error meant that many understandably decided not to travel to the United States. It’s shameful, disgusting, and embarrassing.

A picture I took at the game. Spain and Cabo Verde’s flags are displayed over top of the turf.

Despite this context, many did still decide to travel, and I’m grateful because it gives people in the United States a rare opportunity to be exposed to a mass melting pot of cultures (and vice versa) that otherwise doesn’t happen unless you live in an extremely diverse city.

Appalachia as a host to the world

This experience started, for me at least, with standing in front of a gate outside the Embassy Suites in downtown Chattanooga waiting for Spain’s national football team to arrive. They had chosen Chattanooga — Appalachia’s “Scenic City” — as their home base during the world cup, where they would stay and train in between games. Spain is by far one of the best teams in the world, and you know my ass was going to be front-and-center to welcome them into town.

A picture from my vantage point approximately an hour before the team’s arrival

Hundreds (possibly thousands) showed up to welcome La Roja to Chattanooga after their long transcontinental flight. People of all ethnicities, ages, backgrounds etc. came together to welcome the team and their massive staff into town and spread to them a little bit of that southern hospitality that we’re known for.

This may sound insignificant, but to me it wasn’t. Putting aside the fact that I went there to catch a glimpse of some of the greatest footballers in the entire world, I also wanted to be there to show the Spaniards that our xenophobic government doesn’t speak for all of us. That there are good people in the south who aren’t just obsessed with American football and dually quad-cab trucks. That Appalachia is a place that would embrace Lamine Yamal not just for being arguably the best player in the entire world, but for standing firm in his solidarity for Palestinians regardless of the risk it held for his future career prospects.³

Venturing to Atlanta, an epicenter of cross-cultural joy and jubilation

I’m probably gonna come off sounding very stereotypically white American lefty (non-derogatory?) for the next few paragraphs, so bear with me folks because it might get a smidge cringy.⁴

I took this at the Atlanta FIFA Fan Festival right before kick-off of the Saudi Arabia v. Uruguay game

The world cup is a unique event that quite literally brings together people from all over the world, unlike anything else. Atlanta felt like the epicenter of this. I loved hearing the dozens of different languages being spoken as I meandered around the FIFA Fan Festival, where many people gathered to watch games on a jumbo screen. I saw people from opposite ends of the world sharing in collective joy when someone scored, saw them exchanging items they brought from their home country with other people who had never been there, saw total strangers embrace one another - united in their love of the game. I know this sounds a lot like a Disney made-for-tv feel-good sports movie, but I don’t know how else to describe it. It was fucking awesome.

My wife and I went to the game on a Monday afternoon, where Cabo Verde — in their world cup debut — shocked the world by refusing to concede a goal to Spain. We were seated next to a guy from Colombia, who was ride-or-die for La Roja and gladly gushed about the various accolades of Spain’s starting 11 to my wife as she listened with intent interest. After Cabo Verde’s keeper, Vozinha, made an iconic backwards diving save, my wife said to the guy, “Cabo’s keeper is pretty good don’t you think.” The man, in a remarkable admission for a die hard fan of the opposite team, conceded “yeah, he’s alright.”

I loved this interaction, because it was emblematic of the world cup. It brings people together over a shared love of the sport, regardless of background.

It is the type of event that allowed me to communicate with a group of strangers speaking a different language than me.

I saw a small crowd of people on the sidewalk wearing Cabo Verde jerseys and speaking what I assume was Portuguese as I walked by the evening after the game. I threw my hands up in the air and yelled “VOZINHA!”, a nod to their standout goalkeeper who was so celebrated after the game that he has since gained 15 million instagram followers in the span of a week. They immediately started jumping up and down and yelling “VOZINHA” back to me as we both smiled and laughed.

(Also, I made my debut on Chattanooga local news with this 7 second clip where I was interviewed after the game in Atlanta)⁵

It is also the type of event that brings the people of Algeria and the quaint small/midsize town of Lawrence, Kansas together in what is one of the most heartwarming stories I’ve seen about the world cup.⁶

Confronting our history

The world cup is a beautiful event that brings people together in a way no other event can. When else, for example, would thousands of Norwegians descend upon Times Square and do a Viking row? More importantly, it also forces citizens of the United States to confront the uncomfortable truths of our history.

Michael Nkuka Mboladinga aka Lumumba Vea Source: AP

One of the more interesting stories of the tournament has been that of DR Congo’s superfan Michael Nkuka Mboladinga, colloquially known as Lumumba Vea

Mboladinga became well known for standing straight up, completely still, raising his hand for the entirety of the games during the 2025 AFCON competition dressed in incredibly impeccable menswear, a solemn nod to DR Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. Mboladinga was denied entry into the United States due to “clearance restrictions” regarding the outbreak of ebola…or at least that is the official story the government is pushing.

While a lot of attention has been brought to Mboladinga, particularly his very smart looking attire, he is also bringing attention to the life of Patrice Lumumba, and the horrific role of Belgium and the United States in his assassination — something most U.S. citizens have likely never given much thought about, nor learned about.

The U.S.-sanctioned plot to assassinate Patrice Lumumba shortly after their independence from Belgium is worth learning about, but I’ll leave you with this final…uniquely American….paragraph about it from this extensive Politico article:

Eisenhower’s directive did not appear to weigh heavily on his conscience. Having just become the first-ever U.S. president to order the assassination of a foreign leader, he headed to the whites-only Burning Tree Club in Bethesda, Maryland, to play 18 holes of golf with his son and grandson.

Alright, I’ll get to the point

The unity I witnessed and experienced, the cross-cultural joy and discovery of common interests, the uncomfortable confrontation with the bloody history of our country….are all things the Trump Administration hates. They have spent billions of dollars waging a racist propaganda campaign designed to make you believe that people from different cultural backgrounds — particularly people of color — are “the enemies” that are making your life more difficult. It’s why they have instituted racist immigration policies that led to many people being unfairly denied entry into the country to watch the world cup, officiate it, or even play in it.

The proliferation of white supremacy and white grievance politics has been a hallmark of Donald Trump, and has been pumped through the “manosphere” media ecosystem, with JD Vance playing the role of sanitizing it through a “smart guy” archetype.

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Okay, I’m done ranting. I do genuinely get fired up about football. For all the flaws that exist in the industry itself and the corrupt, wealthy interests surrounding it, it truly is the world’s game, and the world cup is a tool for global unity and cultural immersion. I am fortunate to have experienced a small piece of that, and will keep these memories with me forever.

Normally, I don’t really care for having my picture taken at events. However, I liked how this one turned out and needed a display image.

1. Footnote for image: When I played in high school, the team had someone who would take semi-professional pictures throughout the season. At the end of season banquet, each player received a framed picture of an action-shot of themselves. I was so bad that they couldn’t even get a picture of me doing anything impressive that would advance our team’s interests even somewhat. So instead, the picture is of me losing possession of the ball.

2. Would not recommend doing this in the future though. I used StubHub, and later learned that a lot of people had their tickets revoked by the seller so the seller could put them back on the marketplace and sell them for more money. A real shitty system if you ask me.

3. And it held a fuckload of risk, because he is only 18 years old.

4. I will remind you, dear reader, that I am 1/4 Syrian, so only 75% of me was stereotypically white.

5. They cut the part where I offered my cutting and profound insight on how Spain did not have an answer for Cabo Verde’s “parking the bus” defensive strategy, but that I had no doubt they would rebound quickly.

6. The Guardian described it as “the world cup’s unlikeliest love affair”, and its worth checking out.