It's How To Choose Who To Root For In The World Cup

We did it. Football is marginally closer to coming home.

England is in the last four of the World Cup thanks to a convincing 2-0 win against Sweden last Saturday, and I still have a horse in this race, which is also surprising for me that for a certain number of Britons, because the disappointment of football is woven into our DNA. On Wednesday, we will face Croatia, who eliminated Russia the same day that England triumphed. Perhaps in order to stifle this desperate hope of English football, I already anticipate stage fright and a brutal exit – no, not – but I have an inflexible vessel in which to place this automatic blind support. I will encourage my team until the wheels fall (probably in penalty, shudder )

It's nice to know who to tie to without much conscious thought; my wine pbadport made the decision before I knew what the offside rule was. And while I abhor the manifestations of chauvinistic nationalism ( in particular in a post-Brexit landscape) and believe borders are immoral, I become tribal every four years

. England does not come all the way, I still a series of contingency maneuvers, ready to be deployed at any time. In fact, there is still a delicate calculation at stake when it comes to the World Cup. More moving than can be the already strained subject of the nation, this mathematics centered on the trophy of Jules Rimet is based on a number of arbitrary and often absurd variables, the place of birth being among the least important [19659005]. is worth thinking about to decide who should take root: Who is likely to play elegant football, who seems to want it more, who would it absolutely crush to lose, sending schadenfreude levels across the roof? Who has the most beautiful team? Everything is stupid and defies logic. And there are inevitably underlying currents of historical horror to take into account. But it's also fun ! Think of Eurovision with more whistles, grbad and testosterone.

Let me shine a faint ray of light.

I personally start most World Cup tournaments with one foot firmly anchored in two camps: Nigeria and England. I grew up between two crazy football countries, each having the unshakable belief that every four years they can qualify for the finals and triumph one way or the other. This is, of course, rooted in a strange optimism; for Nigeria, unrestrained self-confidence and unfounded optimism are only one way of life, while for England, optimism comes from a mix of A low dosage of this old juice from the empire in the water supply and good old days. did it before, dammit (no matter whether their victory dates back to 1966, see also: Wimbledon, Virginia Wade and Andy Murray). We could do it, it's the internal (and external) monologue, until we broke down, ideally at the penalties for that extra key. However, these two nations are doing well in their group games, which determines the flow of my support.

In the time of halt between my two main teams, I am distributing the largesse of my support to all representatives of Africa. There were only five African nations to go to Russia – Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt (and presumably France, but we'll come back to this later) and J & rsquo; So I discreetly avoided the history of North African racism to keep an eye on score lines, count group points, and grind their teeth accordingly. We are one, my heart encourages, and if any of us do, we do it all

The choice of 87.6% of my heart, Nigeria, was eliminated in the group stage, our young team unfortunately does not live up to these cunning Argentinian once again.

The choice of 87.6% of my heart, Nigeria – I have a pbadport, I lived there for nearly a decade, I speak and understand fluently two of its many languages , we would be superb winners – Was eliminated in the group stages, our young team is unfortunately not yet up to these cunning Argentines. (We met them five times at the World Cup.) We took our wonderfully designed kit and our exuberant fans and left – and my allegiances went smoothly to Senegal, so the last (African) man standing [19659003] in the many discussion groups was clear: "They are the only ones left!" (We all knew exactly what they were the last); "Welp, we are all Senegalese now!" (Nkrumah's dream of Pan-Africanism finally realized); "Call me Fatou!" (Self-explanatory) and so on. Unfortunately, Colombia has wiped out Senegal's dreams. But it's a checkpoint on the spreadsheet: the continent counts. Marcus Garvey smiles at us all.

With the Africans all gone, the axes moved for me. I had to consider the matches in which the stakes are so low that they are practically nonexistent: Iceland against Croatia, for example, or Serbia against Switzerland? I looked in my brain for facts collected during years of history clbades. Serbia and Croatia were involved in the Yugoslav wars, Switzerland has chocolate, useful knives and sometimes useless neutrality; Iceland gave us a Björk Guðmundsdóttir

My advice? Choose and choose according to a points system in which the rules are crazy enough. Be as fair as possible. (For the record, I thought that Iceland on Croatia, although the latter gave us (a) Goran Višnjić aka Dr. Luka Kovač in ER and (b) something deliciously named the Dalmatian coast – did you know that Croatia has the 15th longest coastline in the world and I've been split for Serbia against Switzerland, because, well, it's complicated , and I love my fellow Muslim footballers.) Which brings us to another Rubric: a curiously specific and yet insignificant relationship based on history.

On Monday, July 2, two games were played in the round of 16: Brazil against Mexico and Belgium against Japan. I had done the maths (we do not say "maths" and it's okay) and formed new temporary allegiances. On one side, Brazil is home to the largest black population of the Earth outside of Africa: an obvious point of interest and connection. On the other hand, Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abandon slavery, and the black population is systematically poorly treated, from ordinary everyday life to very big things. Mexico has recently experienced a particularly depressing narrative race in the United States, further reinforced the day the current US President declared his candidacy ("Some, I guess, are good people.")

Bring the trophy back to the house in such a climate. Also, in Miguel, the result of the search # 1 on my internal Google of "Afro-Mexicans." This is my general method for the Southern contingent and Central America: Do they have blacks? (Trick question everywhere has blacks!) How do they treat them, and also their native peoples? Have they executed a controversial "God's hand" at some point in their past? Do they export delicious plantains ? As I said, it rarely makes sense. In a nutshell, I drove hard for Peru, Panama and Costa Rica, but there are video footage of me letting out a cackle of unpleasant but loud pleasure after England won the shots on goal against Colombia.

an easy choice, despite the presence of the beautiful and talented striker Romelu Lukaku. As someone in my group discusses after Belgium triumphed it turned half serious, "first their mishaps in Congo, now this ?" Indeed. My calculation may have failed to give victory on the field (Adiós, Mexico, see you soon, Japan!), But I felt at least morally satisfied. (When I mentioned the system I had used to support Japan, a colleague immediately replied, "Oh, if you were Korean, you could have different feelings." Hit Favorites: South Korea (who eliminated Germany – YEAH!) and Iran (eliminated at the group stages, bless).

Almost all European teams have some blood on their hands in the past – my own nationality is based on a former government hogwash that issued my pbadport. for that others. However, my Nigerian excludes any real love for Portugal because #colonialism; Spain continues to be Spain; a Croatian player did it; Denmark canceled Borgen and I am still injured; Russia is … Russia . Poland? Poland

The current World Cup team in England has no less than 11 players with a black parent, with a history of the entire Commonwealth (hello, my cousin half Naija Bamidele Jermaine Alli and my cousin Raheem Sterling in Kingston, Jamaica). My desire to win England is rooted in an intangible familiarity with the individuals who play and what they represent, complicating identity in a new and welcome way for those of us who were unable we call English, and who would not want anyway. Flexing in the flag-waving face, "God Save the Queen" -buffling fans and finding a soft landing point somewhere between real excitement and ] gentle mockery of the small island, often inner / retrograde, from where we come – it is our (19459030) first, second and third generation ). That many of us find that many of the team members look like boys that our younger brothers could have played at five [> with a bonus.

But look at France! Their designation as the sixth African nation in the competition is quite understandable. Do you really want to see Africa in Europe? Look no further. The blackness of the French team feels like a very specific balm, representing as they are the nation that once extracted an "independence debt" from Haiti after the independence of that latest. The darkness of the French team – their Africanity via Angola, Guinea, Cameroon, Algeria, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Togo – happily throws its nose on too much The guards who want to move Europe away from the country's citizens have done away with their riches, and still others. Their presence throws all my sums already at random into even more disorder. If France wins its match against Belgium and England beat Croatia in the semi-final on Wednesday, it will put my African heart against my European in the final. It's a lot of if, but that's exactly what the World Cup claims.

But my God. Imagine if it actually went home

The whimsical nature of the World Cup math means that it's never defective; the customer (you) is always right. Real mathematics requires the necessary rigidity, at least at the level that most of us study, but the maths of the World Cup are fluid until in the end, a living thing whose results often change in real-time as highlights emerge

. ] The sums are not made until the final whistle. ●

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