How the World Cup is Saving Summer.
There's a specific kind of chaos that happens in a room full of people watching a soccer match together, and I don't just mean the chaos of trying to explain offside rules to someone for the fourth time (love you, but pay attention). I mean the full-body, out-of-your-chair, screaming-at-a-television-that-cannot-hear-you kind of chaos. The kind where a stranger two seats down high-fives you like you've known each other for years, because for ninety minutes, you basically have.
That's been my June and July so far. The World Cup is here, on our own soil for the first time since I was in elementary school, and it has reminded me of something I wrote about back in the fall: that we are wired for collective joy, and somewhere along the way, a lot of us forgot how to go get it.
It’s Not About the Soccer
Truth is, soccer has been in the background of my whole life. Where I grew up in Florida, soccer was LIFE. I grew up on the sidelines of a soccer field tipping over in a lawn chair with my feet barely touching the ground, orange slices in a Ziploc bag, watching my brother play through college and beyond. My dad has also coached soccer for all of my childhood through early professional years. I abhor running so playing the sport never appealed to me. I was usually the ball girl for his practices until I found my own love of sport through volleyball. My dad ran the practice from the touchline in that coach voice that could carry across three fields at once. I couldn't tell you the score of most of those games now, but I remember the feeling of them. The parents, even at the college level, clustered together. The groan that went up all at once when someone missed wide. That was collective joy before I had a name for it.
And now I'm the one on the sideline again, except this time it's my own son out there, who loves this sport with his whole chest. In his short life, he’s accrued quite a few soccer seasons, some more competitively than others. He knows player stats I've never heard of. He has Opinions about formations. Watching him watch the World Cup, completely lit up, narrating every play like he's part of the broadcast, has been its own kind of joy this summer, a full-circle one. So no, I'm not out here breaking down formations myself, but I don't need to be. Because this tournament isn't really about the sport for me. (Although I do truly love it!) It's about what happens around it. It's watch parties with people who three weeks ago you only knew as "the family from the cul-de-sac." It's a bar packed shoulder to shoulder at 11 a.m. on a Wednesday because Round of 16 doesn't care about your work schedule. It's the entire office collectively losing its mind over a stoppage-time goal, and for one second, nobody in that room is thinking about the news, or the group chat drama, or whatever's stressing them out. They're just thinking: GOAL.
There's something almost sacred and ancient about it. Humans gathered around a fire to tell stories long before we had streaming services or split-screen replays, and honestly, a packed sports bar or soccer field turned watch party venue during a knockout match isn't all that different. Same fire. Different snacks.
The Whole World, Actually Together
Here's the part that gets me every time: this tournament has forty-eight teams. Forty-eight. Which means somewhere in my own town, there is a family draped in a flag I couldn't place on a map a month ago, absolutely losing it over a match that means everything to them. And instead of that being a "them" thing happening somewhere far away, it's happening on our screens, in our spaces, next to our seats. You end up cheering for teams you have zero personal stake in purely because the guy next to you does, and his joy is contagious enough to become yours for an afternoon.
That's collective joy doing exactly what it's supposed to do: collapsing the distance between people who'd otherwise have no reason to stand shoulder to shoulder. It’s the spontaneous singing of “Country Roads” and an entire stadium rowing with the Norwegian team. It doesn't ask you to agree on anything except that this moment, right now, is worth losing your voice over.
Little did we know a few years ago how much he’d LOVE this sport!
You Don't Have to Love Soccer to Get the Point
If soccer's not your thing, fine, I see you, but don't let that be the reason you miss out on the bigger idea here. The more life I live, the more I am convinced that we are wired for and need collective joy and connection. The World Cup is just this summer's excuse. Your excuse might be a trivia night, a neighborhood pool, a show’s finale airing, a county fair, whatever gets people in a room, invested in the same outcome, at the same time. The specific "what" barely matters. It's the together that does the work. That’s where the collective experience and joy can be found.
So if there's a watch party happening and you've been on the fence, go. Wear the wrong team's colors if that's all you've got, nobody will care once the ball's rolling. Let a stranger hug you when the underdog scores. Let yourself be a little ridiculous about something that, in the grand scheme, is just a game…because the joy was never really about the game. It was always about not carrying it alone.
Excited about a USA win and getting to the Round of 16!
And, since the US Men’s team is out…I’ve got my rowing muscles ready to cheer on Norway to a hopeful victory. What a team!
Love you, mean it, friends.
I’d love to know in the comments - where are you finding your collective joy moments?
Next week I’m wrapping up the Summer Unfiltered series! It’s one you won’t want to miss.