Sports media gatekeepers try to dictate which American fans are allowed to cheer for Team USA at the World Cup

The World Cup is here, the United States men’s national team has already won its group, and American fans finally got the chance to meet the team wearing red, white and blue on home soil.

So, the liberal media had to make it weird.

Could this be a good time for American football? Apparently not.

Instead, some of the usual suspects in the sports media have decided that the World Cup is another opportunity to push all the popular narratives: race, identity politics, Trump, MAGA, immigration, American shame, and the idea that there is a right kind of American fan and a wrong kind of American fan.

The Guardian provided perhaps the best example in Sunday’s episode about Fox’s World Cup coverage and Alexi Lalas, featuring Thierry Henry vs. Lalas as “the most important battle of the World Cup.”

The headline called Henry a “French aristocrat” and Lalas an “all-American idiot.”

Subtle, huh?

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The piece called Lalas a “MAGA Hack” and cast him as a brash, loud, patriotic American who ruins the world’s game for everyone. It also said that football in America is for “immigrants, urban liberals” and people who are “too aggressive” in other American sports. Additionally, the column compared Lalas to serial killer John Wayne Gacy. There is really no line these people won’t cross when trying to take down their “enemies.”

But buried in all the ad hominem attacks on Lalas was a broader point the author wanted to make: Soccer is for them.

Not to you.

Not to the boy in the red hat. Not for a Fox viewer. Not to the American fan who calls it football, waves the flag and is unapologetic about his patriotism.

The Guardian just doesn’t like Lalas’ style. We go to great lengths to show that Lalas represents the kind of left-wing American soccer fan who can’t stand: unapologetically American.

That cannot be allowed.

For years, soccer in America has had the odd problem of waiting. A certain section of fans and members of the media wanted the sport to become more popular, but only if the right people loved it the right way. They wanted to grow, but not so much as the typical American enthusiasm. They wanted packed stadiums, but not “USA!” songs. They wanted mainstream relevance, but not Fox, Lalas, Trump voters or anyone else who might prefer to follow a 4,000-word essay on world soccer culture.

Now the World Cup is here, and the USMNT is giving the rest of the country a reason to care about their performance on the field. Sorry, gatekeepers, I mean “tone.”

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That should be the whole story.

But the liberal media can’t help themselves.

The Athletic chose to push the racial narrative in the social media post.

“Half of the US men’s national team is Black,” the outlet wrote of X. “After decades of predominantly White parties, the composition of this party is strong.”

The media’s immediate reaction was to turn the United States men’s national team into a platform for racial rhetoric. The group is not only made up of Americans. Each player must be further divided into categories based on immutable characteristics such as race.

Translation: this is acceptable America. This is the America the liberal media wants to celebrate. The US men’s hockey team that won gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics was not as liberal a media darling as this USMNT team. They mustered up the courage to party with FBI Director Kash Patel after winning gold and took a call from President Donald Trump. Courage!

The Athletic, owned by the New York Times, also published Jerry Brewer’s column before the tournament began. “Welcome to America, troubled World Cup manager” was the headline. Subtle, huh?

Brewer argued that the tournament came to the country because of “who’s from here.” Brewer and his colleagues at The Athletic believe that “the good America” ​​is the one that fits their worldview. “Bad America” ​​is the one that voted for Donald Trump, supports law enforcement and sees no need to apologize for chanting “USA!”

Athletic was not alone. USA Today had a pre-tournament column titled, “The United States has already lost the World Cup to its greed and hostility.”

I’ll give liberals credit, they finally said the silent part out loud. They just hate the United States. Or, at least, everything it stands for.

If the liberal media loves the American story, it is diverse, vibrant, immigrant-driven and culturally complex.

If the media doesn’t like the American story, it’s jingoistic, MAGA, and embarrassing.

Need more examples? I’m glad you asked, because there is no shortage of them.

The Atlantic ran a piece titled, “World Cup Feel-good Story Too Good To Be True,” about foreign fans who hate American staples like Taco Bell, Waffle House, Buc-ee’s, ranch dressing and Texas Roadhouse.

Americans saw the videos and posts and most had the right reaction: this is great.

Foreigners visit the United States, happily, they find joy in the destruction of American abundance and tell the internet about it. It’s funny, harmless and, yes, a little patriotic.

Naturally, The Atlantic had to step in and explain that everything might not be truer than people think.

Because God doesn’t let the world see all the greatness that the United States has to offer or the American people get a reminder of how lucky they are to live in the greatest nation on earth.

This is where the modern media brain breaks. They cannot simply process American happiness as American happiness. There has to be a reason to make sure that no one starts feeling happy about the world.

Conservatives are often accused of division, hatred and marginalization. But when the United States plays, conservatives usually do something very simple: they leave the United States.

They don’t need every athlete to agree with them politically. They don’t require every player to vote Republican. They don’t need Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Weston McKennie, Folarin Balogun, Tim Weah, Chris Richards or anyone else to pass the ideological purity test.

They are Americans. They wear the colors and the crest. They represent a hymn. That is more than enough.

It was the same in the Olympics.

There were plenty of American athletes in Milano Cortina who made political comments they didn’t like. Others criticize the country. Others criticized the Trump administration. Others seem to suggest that they only represent the version of America that fits their moral values.

And yet, many conservatives still root for Team USA.

Why?

Because they were Team USA.

Then the US men’s hockey team beat Canada for Olympic gold, received a phone call from President Donald Trump and celebrated with FBI Director Kash Patel, and the left-wing media went into meltdown.

Megan Rapinoe complained that the team allowed themselves to be “picked.” Tage Thompson caught heat for wearing a MAGA hat at the White House, and responded as rationally as possible, saying that she is proud to be an American and that everyone has the right to their beliefs.

That should have ended the “argument.”

It didn’t happen, because the “conflict” was never about hockey.

It was about who was allowed to represent America.

When an American athlete criticizes the country from the left, the media calls it brave, nuanced and thoughtful. When an American athlete celebrates with a Republican president after winning a gold medal, suddenly the media says that politics does not belong in sports.

Easy, right?

The same thing happened with the World Cup.

The USMNT is not just a team for these people. It is another battlefield in the culture war. The liberal sports media wants the team to represent the right America: diverse, urban, progressive, anti-MAGA, universally sanctioned and rightly shamed for certain forms of patriotism.

But that’s not how national teams work.

The USMNT represents the United States.

Everything.

It represents black Americans, white Americans, Latin Americans, immigrant families, rural fans, urban fans, liberals, conservatives, independents, football fans, casual World Cup fans, people who call football, people who call football and people who don’t fully understand all the rules but know that they want the US to win.

That’s the beauty of international competition.

It strips away the nonsense, or at least it should. For 90 minutes, the entire country must come together to represent the team that represents all of us.

But the liberal media keeps trying to turn something simple into something complicated.

They want to focus on America, but only their America. They want to celebrate the USMNT, but only through an authorized identity lens. They want to enjoy the World Cup, but only after reminding everyone that Trump exists, MAGA voters exist, ICE exists, Fox News exists and some Americans dare to sing for their country without shame.

What a sad way to watch sports. And, honestly, what a sad way to live.

The World Cup should be a celebration. It should be loud, emotional, patriotic and fun. It should include flags, face paint, chants, irrational hope and millions of Americans pretending throughout the month that they understand the importance of the 4-2-3-1 formation.

That’s the games.

That’s America.

But the media can’t just let it breathe. It should divide people into groups. It should decide which followers are true and which followers are fake. It must declare which version of America to enjoy and which version to hide.

Here’s the problem: the world is not theirs.

Neither does soccer or the USMNT.

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The team in red, white and blue is for all Americans to cheer for. And those they don’t like.

If that bothers the Guardian, the Athletic, the Atlantic, USA Today, the New York Times or any other source that tries to turn the World Cup into another political lesson, maybe they are the ones with the problem.

We all want to fight for our national team and be proud of our country.