"You ready to see some grown men cry?" My friend asks me as we sit down to watch my first World Cup.
I'm no stranger to grand sporting events, but I was ill-prepared for the ride it has been thus far.
In 2008, I watched the Giants play the Patriots in what was one of the most exciting Super Bowls match ups to date. You had the upstart Giants against an undefeated team that had not only a future Hall of Fame wide receiver on its offense, but a quarterback that had already cemented his status as one of the greatest of all time.
No one was going to leave that after a loss and be OK.
In 2014, I watched as Kawhi Leonard led the Spurs, and took home an NBA championship against a super team of LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade. My whole family was emotional after the final buzzer rang for our Texas team. While these moments stood out to me as spectacles that more than lived up to their hype, they do not compare to what I have seen from the World Cup.
The international support is obviously greater with soccer than any other sport, but what shocked me when my friend first started explaining the rules, regulations and process of the event was the intensity that these countries and the FIFA organization bring to the sport.
Unlike the NFL or NBA where players are free to sign contracts wherever they please, the decision making process for who plays where is predicated on nationality. This means that your citizenship and familial descent is the dictator of who you may play for. Teams are not allowed to go out and recruit players from different countries in hopes of building an all-star team.
With the emphasis on country, I began to understand the pride I witnessed during each interview, and the energy on display throughout the viewing parties and in the stands. This is an Olympic that kids around the globe dream about.
Here in the States, our teams carry such a small allegiance when compared to this stage of fandom. There is so much more at stake when these players take the field. That is compounded when you also consider the fact that the World Cup takes place once every four years. There are only a handful of opportunities for these men and women to bring their championship home.
Every loss is enough to break even the hardest of hearts.
The individual investment in this iteration of the World Cup also comes at an interesting point in my life personally. There is no U.S. team for me to cheer for this year, as they did not qualify, but having grown up third generation Tejano, I felt inclined to support Mexico.
In the first game of the group bracket, Mexico defeated the defending world champs, Germany, in front of audiences around the globe.
I was shook as a first-time viewer.
The screens filled with watch parties in Russia, Mexico and Los Angeles where young and old alike shouted and spilled tears of joy. My friend's Mexican immigrant father called him and told him how he wanted to cry. The analysts broke down the significance of the win afterwards, but nothing they said captured the cheers from our back of house staff at the restaurant I work at or the look in my friend's eyes.
While my first sport will always be American football, I do think that soccer has made a believer of me. From what these men and women invest in it, to what their countries invest in them, I do believe that soccer has the power to show sports fans here in America that there is an existence outside of the hypocrisy of the NFL or the division of talent in the NBA.
I believe it shows America that there is more outside of itself and it's in something that America is not great at. I believe that sports fans here in the states should sit down and watch these men pour their hearts out this year and practice becoming better listeners to the stories they tell, and realize that there is more out there than just the "normal" sports we were told to like and play.
Today, I think we tune in and watch grown men cry, and we can respect that.
