How to Choose Between Slovakia and Cameroon

A rare interlude in which I try to write about  soccer's version of the World Baseball Classic:

A great deal has been written about what the international game of football – soccer -- can tell us about global politics, human nature, and the deepest darkest corners of our very souls. However, I am concerned that not enough of the opposite has been written. How can global politics, human nature, and most importantly, our own irrational prejudices, affect the way we watch the World Cup? To this end, I have attempted to devise a tiered system that explains how a person’s – namely me—rooting interests in this great tournament come about. What follows are the results of my noble experiment:

1. The Home Country Goes First
   1. In the grand, jingoistic, tradition of international sporting tournaments, this goes without saying.
2. Space for the Random Affections
   1. Each of us has personal connections to countries besides our own. There are only 32 countries in the World Cup, so there most people shouldn’t have more than 2 or 3 of these.
   2. For me, these are Mexico (I was born and raised in Los Angeles, which is practically Mexico), and Spain (I studied abroad there and made great friends.
3. Initial Regional Bias
   1. Different people are drawn to different parts of the world – perhaps because of family history, travel experience, musical or other cultural interest, or just sheer randomness.
   2. I personally apply a Monroe Doctrine approach to my Initial Regional Bias: Central and South American teams are preferable to other parts of the world, especially Europe.
   3. Besides the aforementioned US and Mexico, there are 6 teams left from the Americas. How do I rank them? By a micro version of the categories I will lay out below.
4. Underdogs and Storylines
   1. As sports fans, we are all caught up in the images of unexpected heroism, of nostalgia, of “transcendent” moments. Basically, we seek magic. This category appeals to that very soft underbelly of the heart.
      1. i.     As such, we are inclined to support the host nation (barring any massive or recent socio-political sins they’ve committed), especially if they are not a traditional powerhouse.
         1. As an extension of that, this year, we support all African countries due to the warm-and-fuzziness of the fact that this is the first World Cup to be hosted on African soil, and that an African country has never won a World Cup before.
5. Political Sympathy Effect[caption id="" align="alignright" width="180" caption="My rankings"][/caption]
   1. International competition does not occur in a vacuum, or removed from politics and other global happenings. As much as some columnist and commentators wish that sporting events were “above” regular human events, they are not. Hence this category.
   2. We are naturally inclined to sympathize for countries where political turmoil or natural disaster has caused a great deal of pain to the general populace. Teams from these countries take on an identity similar to this past year’s New Orleans Saints – we find ourselves cheering purely out of sympathy, out of the strange notion that they deserve some kind of reward for their troubles.
   3. This category very frequently overlaps with the Underdogs and Storylines category – in fact, the two are inextricably linked. Many of the best international soccer storylines stem directly from the events of global politics.
   4. For me, Greece falls into this category because I believe its good citizens have been excessively derided by larger European cohorts (namely you, France and Germany).
6. The Bleh Countries
   1. Some countries you just don’t care about. Like Switzerland.
7. Application of Disdain
   1. One has every right to hate certain nations or teams – hatred being an undeniable force in the human experience.  These hatreds can be based on history, athletic events, or really anything else. There need be no logic.
   2. For example, an Irishman watching this year’s World Cup would have two immediately logical places to apply disdain: England and France. England for its centuries of oppression and abuse, and France for the appalling hand of Satan goal that destroyed Ireland’s chances at qualification and went un-mended by FIFA.
   3. I, however, don’t hate France or England. This totally coincidentally Jewish writer applies his disdain toward Germany (because I don’t like Angela Merkl’s economic policy, obviously), and North Korea because I feel like their success would vindicate an awful regime.

So there are the 7 tiers. It is an imperfect system no doubt, but in the end I think it does a fair job of explains my gut instincts, subtle biases, and irrational preferences. It does indeed turn out that my rooting interests in the World Cup are a pretty spot-on reflection of my broader world view. No surprise for somebody who is more into foreign policy than he is global football.

So I challenge you: think about why you are cheering and booing the way you are this World Cup. What is the logic to it? How do your mind, your guts, your very soul, sort these 32 nations?