Root For My Team! No, Mine!

Americans need suggestions for who to root for in 2018 World Cup so what better place to seek them than a pick-up soccer game in Prospect Park. And not just any game: this one has been happening most Sundays for more than 40 years. Most of its players are immigrants with both a passion for soccer and a knowledge of how it’s played around the world.

Let them tell you. 

Mario Pottinger implored everyone root for Argentina. But why, when he’s Jamaican? Because he’s named for Argentine striker Mario Kempes, hero of the 1978 World Cup. “I grew up watching Argentina,” he said. “That's my team!” Then he smiled, threw his arms in the air, and chanted while running backward toward the field: “Ar-gen-TEE-na! Ar-gen-TEE-na!"

And so it went with the others during warm-ups before the game. (Once the action started, there would be no time for a journalist’s frivolous questions.) Paris Gomez said he was rooting for France (naturally), while Ryan Walter of Saint Lucia extolled Egypt, based on the electrifying talent of the team’s star forward, Mohamed Salah.

But Luc Strybol of Belgium made the most direct appeal. “We are good,” he said of his team and, he seemed to imply, his country’s moral fortitude. “And we like America. So we hope you like us, too.”

Strybol also cannily reminded us that Belgium makes good beer and that it’s served in Belgian bars, which – wouldn’t you know it? – will be showing his country’s games. Well, then: go les Diables Rouges!

For more on the World Cup, check out American Fiasco from WNYC Studios hosted by Roger Bennett. The podcast chronicles the dramatic meltdown of the U.S. men's soccer team in 1998 when they finished in last place.