(P/C:Manuel Fasico)
This is ostensibly a platform for me to write about American soccer -- MLS and USL, and that's what I've used it for. To frame this differently, I've intentionally boundaried this space from the other topics I often write about: politics and religion.
It seems, though, like the time has come to take down those walls, if only for a little while, to acknowledge that while the soccer is center stage during the World Cup, the world's game is equal parts relief from an unending barrage of socio-political upheaval as it is deeply enmeshed in that very same turbulence.
That's not breaking news to anyone reading this, but it does warrant saying out loud.
I, like many others following this tournament, have chosen to use my social media platforms to comment almost exclusively on the games (matches) themselves.
For me, this has been a very intentional choice –– opening the door, even just slightly ajar, to the abyss that is everything besides the games felt as though I'd never be able to watch with any joy at all.
That was the wrong choice.
The tournament itself has been perhaps the best World Cup in modern memory –– a hypothesis underscored by today's stunning Belgian counter attack for the ages. But while Lukaku was somehow in a state of mind to let a lifetime of glory roll between his legs (certainly the most glorious "dummy" I've ever seen), my mind was drifting to a world fraught with war, hunger, isolation and desolation.
As Chadli formalized the most famous six touches in Belgian footballing history I could only think: damn you, Vladimir.
Not only is your side through to the quarterfinals amid doping rumors, you're playing host to an unimaginably good sporting event. One that will be remembered forever alongside your thuggery, murder, and hijacking of history.
While this isn't the first World Cup to be played under the smoke of a burning world, it is the first one since 1934 that's been so intertwined with it –– FIFA's now exposed corruption fully welcomed in Putin's Moscow.
It's all so inescapable.
I've been challenged by the reporting of Clint Smith, Laurent Dubois, and Karim Zidan as well as few others during the course of this tournament to see the whole, complex, story unfolding before us. That while we enjoy the sport we can––and must––engage with the world that remains lest our temporary joy be the tyrant's permission.
