…an old fool.

Guilty on both counts.

I have cruelly mocked soccer.

I am abjectly ashamed of that today.

The first complete soccer game I ever saw was on television in the home of a much-liked relative we were visiting in Columbus, Ohio on June 18, 1994. It was a day after OJ Simpson’s Hollywood slow-chase scene. I was far more interested in the second-by-second-rumor-by-rumor coverage of Mr. Simpson’s hi-jinx and the impending consequences than viewing tiny, indistinct players (no high-def in those days) with non-tiny unpronounceable names kicking a ball around to no discernable success. I found myself watching the clock on the screen like it was a countdown to a blessed rocket launch. The first time I heard the phrase “stoppage time” I slipped away to the bathroom to search the medicine cabinet for curare.

Someone must be made to pay for this travesty.

I railed against red cards, yellow cards, penalty kicks, offside rules too liquid to be serious concepts, and the word “nil.”

I was wrong.

A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon a televised Premiere League game and watched it un-coerced. For the life of me I don’t know why.

Maybe it was the challenge of translating the accents and vocabularies of the announcers. I love word games and codes.

Maybe it was the fantasy geography of the teams involved. Teams from places of which I’ve never heard, but sounded magical; Crystal Palace, Aston Villa, Tottenham prompted me to imagine they might be fielding quidditch teams instead of soccer.

Players didn’t run, they chased. Every good play was “brilliant!” The arc of corner kicks defied any physics I thought I had learned in high school. The insane courage of goalkeepers to stand in the face of penalty kicks or fling themselves into grass-eating dives to deflect one, count ‘em, ONE measly point was beyond Robert E. Howard’s wildest imaginings. The commitment of a striker to even attempt a bicycle kick, a maneuver with higher chances to produce a broken neck than a goal was intimidating. The very idea of a position on the team called “striker” was double intimidating.

I was hooked.

It’s a beautiful game.

And the World Cup of 2026 has been even more beautiful…in America. It has made me look away from Trump.

Watching fans from around the planet come to America and discover ranch dressing, mega grocery stores and truck stops, cowboy hats…to see them remind us how wondrous it is to be a young, energetic, headstrong, often foolish, bright and hopeful place as is this miracle in which we live…………despite Trump.

I don’t need the fake reality show of Trump.

I have glimpsed the reality of Messi, Yamal, Kane, DeBruyne, Mbappe, Haarland. Argentina, Spain, England, Belgium, France, and Norway having a real good time in America.

It’s brilliant.

I have learned to pronounce all those names plus Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Sweden) and been made a little better by all of them.

I’ve been made a whole lot better by the awakening from a 10-year distraction to realize all over again that I am lucky to live in a young, energetic, headstrong, often foolish, bright and hopeful place. I’m not always proud to be an American, but I’m damned lucky to be an American.

And that is most decidedly brilliant!