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

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

So of course the liberal media had to make it weird.

Could this be a great moment for American football? Apparently not.

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

The Guardian probably provided the best example in a piece on Fox’s World Cup coverage and Alexi Lalas on Sunday, framing Thierry Henry and Lalas as “the most intriguing fight of the World Cup.”

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

Thin, right?

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The article referred to Lalas as a “MAGA hack” and positioned him as the embarrassing, loud, patriotic American who was ruining the world’s game for everyone. It has also been claimed that football in America belongs to “immigrants, urban liberals” and people “too skinny” for other American sports. Additionally, the column compared Lalas to serial killer John Wayne Gacy. There is no line these people will not cross as they try to destroy their “enemies”.

But underlying all the ad hominem attacks on Lalas was a broader point that the author wanted to emphasize: Football belongs to them.

Not to you.

Not the man in the red hat. Not to the Fox audience. Not for the American fans who call it football, wave the flag, and make no apologies for loving their country.

The Guardian doesn’t just dislike Lalas’ style. It goes to extreme lengths to show that Lalas represents the kind of American football fan the left can’t stand: unapologetically American.

This cannot be allowed.

For years, football in America has had a strange gatekeeping problem. A certain group of fans and media members wanted the sport to become more popular, but this was only possible if the right people loved it in the right way. They wanted growth, but without a lot of normal American enthusiasm. They wanted the stadiums full, but there was too much “USA!” hymnody. They wanted mainstream attention, but not Fox, Lalas, Trump voters, or anyone else who might prefer to look over their shoulder at a 4,000-word article on global football culture.

Now the World Cup is around the corner and the USMNT is giving the entire country a reason to care about its performance on the field. Sorry, keepers, I mean “pitch”.

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That should be the whole story.

But the liberal media cannot help itself.

The Athletic chose to highlight the racist rhetoric in a social media post.

“Half of the US men’s national team is black,” he wrote to publication X. “After decades of overwhelmingly white teams, the makeup of this team is strong.”

The media’s immediate instinct was to make the United States men’s national team a topic of racial controversy. The team does not consist only of Americans. Each player needs to be categorized based on immutable characteristics such as race.

Translation: This is acceptable America. This is the America the liberal media wants to celebrate. The U.S. men’s hockey team, which won gold at the 2026 Winter Olympics, was not the darling of the liberal media like this USMNT group. After winning the gold medal, they dared to party with FBI Director Kash Patel and received a call from President Donald Trump. Bravery!

The Athletic, owned by the New York Times, also published Jerry Brewer’s column before the tournament started. “Welcome to America, troubled host of the World Cup,” was the headline. Thin, right?

Brewer argued that the tournament reached a country fighting over “who belongs here”. Brewer and his colleagues at The Athletic believe the “good America” is the country that aligns with their worldview. “Bad America” refers to those who voted for Donald Trump, supported law enforcement, and shouted “USA!” It is the country that does not feel the need to apologize for shouting.

Athletic was not alone. USA Today published an op-ed before the tournament with the following headline: “The USA has already lost the World Cup with its greed and hostility.”

I agree with liberals, they are finally saying the quiet part out loud. They just hate the United States. Or at least everything it represents.

When the liberal media likes the American story, we see that that story is diverse, organic, immigrant-focused, and culturally sophisticated.

When the media doesn’t like the American story, it becomes chauvinistic, MAGA, and embarrassing.

Need more examples? I’m glad you asked, because they don’t have any problems.

The Atlantic ran an article titled “The Feel-Good Story of the World Cup is Too Good to Be True” about foreign fans going viral for liking American things like Taco Bell, Waffle House, Buc-ee’s, ranch dressing and Texas Roadhouse.

Americans saw the videos and posts, and most reacted appropriately: This is great.

Foreigners visit the United States, have fun, revel in the absurdity of American abundance, and tell the internet about it. Funny, harmless, and yes, a little patriotic.

Naturally, The Atlantic had to step in and explain that things might be less original than people think.

Because God forbid the world sees the greatness that the United States of America has to offer or reminds Americans how lucky they are to live in the greatest nation on earth.

This is where the modern media’s brain breaks. They cannot simply render American joy as American joy. There must be a reason why no one feels so good about the country.

Conservatives are often accused of being divisive, hateful and exclusionary. But when the US is playing games, conservatives often do something very simple: They support the US.

There is no need for every athlete to agree with them politically. They don’t need 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 coat of arms. They stand up for the anthem. This is more than enough.

The same situation existed in the Olympics.

There were many American athletes in Milan Cortina who made political comments What conservatives don’t like. Some criticized the country. Some criticized the Trump administration. Some seemed to suggest that they merely represented the version of America that aligned with their moral values.

However, most conservatives still support Team USA.

From where?

Because they were Team USA.

Then the U.S. men’s hockey team beat Canada for the Olympic gold medal, he accepted a locker room phone call from President Donald Trump and celebrated with FBI Director Kash Patel, and the left-wing media went into crisis.

Megan Rapinoe complained that the team allowed her to be “co-opted.” Tage Thompson received backlash for wearing a MAGA hat at the White House, then responded as reasonably as possible, saying he was proud to be an American and that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs.

This should have ended the “debate”.

It didn’t happen that way because the “controversy” 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 him brave, tactful and thoughtful. When an American athlete celebrates with a Republican president after winning a gold medal, the media suddenly says politics doesn’t belong in sports.

Convenient, right?

The same thing happens in the World Cup.

The USMNT isn’t just a team for those people. Another battleground in the culture war. The liberal sports media wants the team to represent a very specific America: diverse, urban, progressive, anti-MAGA, globally sanctioned, and appropriately embarrassed by certain types of patriotism.

But that’s not how national teams work.

USMNT represents the United States.

All.

It represents Black Americans, White Americans, Latin Americans, immigrant families, rural fans, urban fans, liberals, conservatives, independents, football obsessives, casual World Cup fans, people who call it football, people who call it soccer, and people who still don’t quite understand all the rules but know they want the USA to win.

That’s the beauty of international competition.

It cuts through the bullshit, or at least it’s supposed to. For 90 minutes, the whole country should come together and support the team that represents us all.

But the liberal media is trying to turn something simple into something complex.

They want to support America, but only their own America. They want to celebrate the USMNT, but only through the lens of sanctioned identity politics. 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 have the courage to shamelessly sing for their own country.

What a terrible way to watch sports. And honestly, what a miserable way to go about life.

The World Cup should be a celebration. It should be loud, emotional, patriotic and fun. Flags, face paint, slogans, unreasonable hopes, and a month of millions of Americans pretending they understand the importance of the 4-2-3-1 formation.

This is sport.

This is America.

But the media cannot let him breathe. It is necessary to divide people into groups. He needs to decide which fans are real and which fans are embarrassing. It needs to declare which version of America is worth applauding and which version should be hidden.

The problem is: the country does not belong to them.

So is football or the USMNT.

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Wearing red, white and blue, the team belongs to every American who wants to cheer. Even the ones they don’t like.

If this bothers The Guardian, The Athletic, The Atlantic, USA Today, The New York Times or any other outlet that tries to turn the World Cup into another identity-politics lesson, maybe they’re the problem.

The rest of us just want to support our national team and be proud of our country.