A Cup Of What?

Last year I had an experience that forced to reassess some fundamental beliefs. Before the youth pastor strums his guitar, settle down, the beliefs were about sports. Specifically, the sport of association football, aka soccer. I’ve written and deleted multiple iterations of this story in the past 14 months; it always feels like failing to do the subject justice.

But the World Cup is over now. Why worry? Who’s going to read this?  

Without getting into the various moral failings of FIFA and this year’s World Cup in general, it has been a unique experience for me. You see, it’s the first time I haven’t been the dime-a-dozen internet American being proudly dismissive about it. Being a stubborn killjoy is only fulfilling for so long.

Scene from "Mad Men", Season 2, Episode 12. Layne Pryce (played by Jarred Harris) informs his American colleagues that England has won the World Cup. Accurate depiction of American awareness of the World Cup specifically, and soccer in-general, prior to 1994.

It's especially true when you have to face your beliefs in person. In May, 2025, I attended my first soccer game. And it happened in London, at Wembley.

Understand that from about the age of 14 to 42, I HATED this sport. It was such a departure for me that I almost hesitated to mention the idea to my wife for fear of her shock.

(I expect the 3 people who read this will be American. On the off-chance I'm wrong, I want to explain why I'm going to keep using the term "soccer". First, it's useful for me as a follower of five football codes...it's not just us who use it. Second, the term was invented at Oxford anyway, so blame them, we can all get behind that.)

ANYWAY, let me explain.

I’ve written about grandpa before. Despite my efforts, my love and admiration for him cannot be expressed in words. He’s been gone 15 years yet I feel like I understand him more with each passing day. He knew how alike we were in a way he couldn’t articulate.

Grandpa with his first baseball mit at roughly age 6, circa 1934.

He saw an awkward, lonely kid who needed a friend and used baseball to open my world. Without that I’d still be a shy, lonely, sad kid trapped in a rapidly aging body. Alone, scared, and hopeless, plagued by an impending sense that I was a failure. A natural mark for the Joe Rogan Podcast.

I was born in 1982; for the first 10ish years of my life, soccer effectively didn’t exist in the US. It wasn’t on TV, it wasn’t covered at all outside the occasional special interest story or niche sports publication. We had a soccer ball for some reason; it was rarely inflated, sometimes used as a backup basketball. I might have known Pele was a soccer player, but I couldn’t name a second one.

When I was about 12 I met a friend who cared as much about soccer as I did about baseball. It was 1994: the World Cup was in the US, not that I knew that. My new friend on the other hand, was obsessed and fairly frustrated that nobody else in our group much cared. I don’t blame him, and I don’t hold a grudge, but it’s worth explaining.

We got along on nearly everything else, but for some reason there was no peace to be had when it came to these two sports. I'm sure I hold some blame I just don't remember, but what has stuck with me is that every mention of baseball by me was taken as an opportunity to extol the superiority of soccer. If my game got cancelled due to weather, well soccer players would never do that. If I got spiked, that’s nothing compared to getting tackled. It felt exhausting, to the point of being personal.

Eventually I snapped and told him nobody cared about his sport. Some of our friends agreed. He was stunned and hurt; I think in retrospect he thought I was taking the comments as ribbing. I was not.

We got over it, and agreed to not talk about our favorite sports anymore. But for me personally, the damage was done. I had a visceral anger towards soccer that eventual faded to a dismissiveness.

Fast forward to May, 2025. I am sitting in Section 208 in Wembley Stadium for the EFL Championship Promotion Playoff Final between Sheffield United and Sunderland.

I was on my way to the Middle East for work; travel policy connected me through London, a place I hadn't been. My friend, the erstwhile Frothy Gopher, is a well-traveled US-British dual-citizen and advised me on the best way to make the most of 30 hours there. One old friend inadvertently set me off-course; another course-corrected by convincing me to find a ticket to the Promotion Playoff Final. The winner stands to win a minimum of £200 million via Promotion to the Premier League. The loser returns to the 2nd division for another season.

What better way, I figured, to meet people?

I departed Minneapolis around 6 pm and arrived at Heathrow around 6 am. I took the train to Euston Station, checked into my hotel, showered, and walked. All day. I went down Regent Street to Trafalgar Square. St. Martin-In-The-Fields. Ben Franklin’s house. I walked to the Thames and the Battle of Britain Memorial. Parliament. Westminster Abbey. Horse Guards. Admiralty House. Buckingham Palace. The Canada Gate. Tesco.

Around 1 pm I got on the Underground at Green Park Station to Wembley Stadium.

I had prepared for the trip through my usual approach: sitting by a fire until 1 in the morning listening to music and falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes. Knowing I was going to see a soccer game in the country of origin, I researched the teams, learned the structure of the league system and promotion/relegation processes. The history, supporters, and politics.

My situation was eased by both teams having red, black, and white for colors. You have to either wear neutral colors or the colors of the team whose section you're sitting in. Those are the rules, they're on the ticket, and they're serious. Hating neutrals but lacking a jersey of appropriate colors (in this University of Minnesota house we avoid red), I landed on my Essendon Bombers quarter-zip in the same colors. What better way for an American of Irish descent to dress for London than an Australian-rules football shirt?

It was quiet until the next stop, when 8 heavily-lubricated Sunderland fans boarded and sat/stood/fell across from me. They shrugged off the “No Alcohol” signs and dug can after can out of a plastic bag. At first they took no notice; eventually the ringleader became aware of my presence. I’d guess he was mid-60s, clearly the father of some of the protagonists. Swaying loosely side to side and clearly struggling to identify the logo on my chest, he asked me if I was for Sheffield or Sunderland.

I had been awake for over 24 hours. “Whichever team doesn’t get me punched.”

The delayed processing of the drunken brain looks the same in any country. After an eternal stare, he shoved a beer in my hand and asked where I was from. He introduced me to all his family and friends, whose slurred names I have forgotten. I went instantly from stranger to old friend.

A friend recently said that the best part of solo travel is getting adopted by groups you'll never see again. Can confirm.

When the train arrived at Wembley Station, there were hugs, handshakes, and back-slaps by meaty hands that shook my backbone. I told them I knew how much this meant to them, and wished them well. Nicest guys I’ll never meet again.

Wembley Way (officially “Olympic Way”) is a half-mile street surrounded on both sides by apartments, office buildings, and other obviously post-1990s buildings that somehow manage to be simultaneously generic and iconic. On their own they’d be nothing; together they bound a public space that is greater than the sum of its parts. It was thick with people eating, drinking, and laughing all the way from the train to the stadium. Aside from the flares it wouldn’t have seemed out of place at a college football tailgate. I had a vague feeling of religious conversion.

Rugby league statue

I after a leisurely walk I climbed the Olympic Steps to the stadium, saw the rugby league statue, the Bobby Moore statue, and the CostCo. I was nervous that the gate agents might reject my resale ticket but I flew through to the 2nd level where I was immediately greeted by a bar. Why yes, thank you, I will have a few small beers.

Bobby Moore's statue. Moore was the captain and hero of England's 1966 World Cup victory.

For my fellow Americans who might not know, when I say there was a Sheffield end and a Sunderland end, I mean that. You can’t cross. Tickets explicitly state you have to be in the team colors or neutral and warn you’ll be kicked out if you violate the rules. I can personally confirm; a group of Sunderland supporters was kicked out of my section with extreme efficiency. It’s both odd, and kind of nice…once you’re in, there’s no hint of conflict, no suspicious side-eyes.

The Wembley CostCo.

With an hour until game time I found a bar stool and settled in to make a dent in the keg because you can’t drink in the stands; also an adjustment. At the table nearest me, there was a family that looked a lot like mine. Two boys around 6 and 8 years of age were bouncing in their seats, telling their dad what life was going to be like in the Premier League. Dad was cautious; he said “Well I hope you’re right, but be ready if you’re not!”

As a Minnesota fan, I felt immediately at home. Lacking firm connections elsewhere in the country, I had already landed on Everton as my chosen team in England. That was lucky, because in that moment I could have been swayed to Sheffield. Given the Blades' 2025-26 season, I was lucky to have already adopted the Toffees.

The Olympic Steps

After burning my tongue on a delicious meat pie (seriously, America, we have some catching up to do when it comes to meat pies), I found my seat. Like the walk to the stadium, Wembley itself is an odd mix of generic early 2000s stadium and unforgettable setting. The sight lines are good, crowd noise is amplified, it’s easy to navigate. It might lack the soul of the classic stadium it replaced, but you get the sense that the ghosts are still there.

I was filming the crowd when I heard someone yell “GO BOMBERS!” at me from a few rows down. Someone had noticed my Essendon quarter-zip and were shocked to find I had an American accent. This new friend lived in Melbourne and had Essendon season tickets, but like me was passing through London on business and found a ticket. And so for a fantastic 10 minutes I got to talk Australian-rules football with a fellow Essendon supporter in person, at a soccer game in London that we had traveled in opposite directions around the world to reach.

Pregame festivities were special primarily because they were carried out by the fans themselves. The place that marching bands, dance teams, and student sections hold in college football is held by the supporters/ultras here. I won’t bury the lede: the Sunderland fans put Sheffield United to shame. They arranged a stripe-out, a respectable tifo, and constant songs and cheers. The Sheffield section had heart to be sure, but coordination left something to be desired.

Sunderland fans, stripping out their side of the stadium with tifo and banners on display.

Despite that, Sheffield resonated with me. The fan experiences and perspectives were so much like the University of Minnesota that I have spent my adult life caring for and mostly serves to disappoint me. I talked to everyone I could in my section and each conversation was like a South Yorkshire-accented Gopher discussion. Lack of coordination was certainly not lack of passion.

The game itself is best left to those who truly know the sport. At kick off it finally dawned on me that this was my first in-person soccer game. It felt so much faster in person than the few I had seen on TV. I think part of the challenge for Americans with this sport is that it really is something that is best experienced in person, as a community event. College football in America is the closest comparison; there is a sense of community and identity that I don’t think compares well to most pro sports in the US outside a few unique situations.

If, like me, you initially struggle to understand what’s going on, think of it as a gigantic ice hockey game on grass. There are evolutionary similarities; the principles around ball movement and player positioning made much more sense when I viewed through that lense. I don’t claim to have understood offsides yet; the lifetime Sheffield supporter next to me mostly shrugged when I asked him. I think I get it now.

VAR has informed me I do not get it. Well, shit.

Sheffield United 1, Sunderland 0 in the 26th minute. The high water mark for the Blades.

Sunderland was favored, but Sheffield United scored first and my section exploded. I surprised myself by jumping and punching the air; sporting events are best experienced when you leave your inhibitions aside, something facilitated by 30 hours without sleep and about 8 beers.

After halftime, the game turned. Sheffield United played well but failed to capitalize and gradually ceded control of the pitch. To my very untrained eye, they made only two serious mistakes on defense, but both turned into Sunderland goals. The noise from the Sunderland end as the final whistle blew has only a Top 3 stadium noise experience for me. I later heard some say they were forced to leave the stadium by police.

I wasn’t there to see it, because I left with the Sheffield fans immediately. Though they were disappointed, the general mood was sanguine. I heard several variations on the joke that they needed to get ready for their new rival, Wrexham. Considering what had just happened, they handled it very well. Their ownership, not so much, but that's a different story.

A week later when I returned home, I found a used Sheffield United jersey to add to my collection. When it comes to England I’m for Everton, but I’ll always have a soft spot for the Blades.

This experience made me realize that my stubborn attitude caused me to miss something so special. As a sport, it transcends the mechanics of the game itself. The community and universal nature of this sport is something that cannot be replicated; it might be the first sport I've encountered where the supporter culture and community is almost of greater interest to me than the game. Frankly, you don't have to get into or seriously understand the action on the pitch to identify with the sense of togetherness and community. And the game understanding will come along later, so just...go to the game.

Several months later, work again had be traveling and I was lucky enough to see Everton play Manchester United in Atlanta on my way to Florida. So my first two in-person games were British. The scarves I bought at both hold pride of place for me in my office. Penance for a hard-headed lifetime ignoring the beauty that exists outside my biases.

I was wrong, I have lots to catch up on. I’m middle-aged now, but it’s not too late. Question your assumptions. Find the new things, no matter what age you are.

And above all...go to the game. Doesn't matter which game. Any game. Go.