The World Cup and What It Can Teach All of Us

            The World Cup is not over, although by U.S standards it has ended in an amazing yet saddening defeat. In an amazing 17 minutes of absolutely fantastic soccer, the U.S team almost was able to fight back enough to go to penalty kicks. Unfortunately for us, Belgium was just a little too good for that to happen.

            Although our participation in the World Cup is over, the effect it had on our nation was startling. Soccer, a sport in which the US has shown historically little interest, has become a growing phenomenon. It may be due to immigration from soccer-avid nations (basically every country but the U.S) or it may be due to a new interest in international competition. However, it may be due to a desire to forget about the international worries facing our nation. This is a lesson that I believe the whole world can appreciate and has been.

            International sporting events, especially the Olympics and the World Cup, do a great job of bringing people together in the spirit of international competition and forgoing the desire to be hostile towards one another. For the US, the situation in Iraq and Syria drew both rational thinking and radical ideas that we are best left without considering. Amongst the World Cup, cooler heads prevailed as a small contingent of U.S forces has been sent and has somewhat stalled the ISIS advance.

            If there is ever a region that needs to funnel its hostilities into athletic competition, it is the Middle East! The area has been nothing short of a colossus of geopolitical events in the past 5 years. Iraq and Syria have ceased to be countries. Egypt has had two revolutions and is now in the midst of becoming just as authoritarian as before. Israel and Palestine are not any closer to peace and the spree of revenge killings and attacks are only furthering the violence.

            While I recognize that setting up some local sports matches won’t solve any of these problems, I do believe it will help for people from opposing sides to understand one another and recognize that violence may not be the answer.