To their question as to what the difference was between Americans and fans of other nationalities, our prompt response was — the Dutch, the French, the Iranians, the Bosnians, the Spanish, the Swiss, the German and the Portuguese were constantly fun and festive; Americans... Well, Americans were just occasionally loud.
Inside the stadium, US supporters accounted for at least two thirds of the nearly 52 thousand attendees, and yet they were only noticeable on two occasions: during their national anthem, and for the last five minutes of overtime. It was deafening. But for the rest of the time, all you could hear was Belgians and a few Salvador wags overlapping the Red Devils’ chants.
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but we, Brazilian fans, have been repeatedly embarrassing ourselves before the world by booing our opponents’ national anthems. The Belgians have elegantly showed us how to be respectful to our adversaries: they’ve clapped on as the US anthem played. But I don’t think we’ve learned the lesson — right behind us, a few locals asked themselves: “Do they know it’s the other team’s anthem that’s on?”
On the row just in front of us, a middle-aged Brazilian man showed two Japanese fans his appreciation for the Asian nation’s millennial heritage: “I love Honda,” the man said, much to my amusement and the friendly foreigners’ dismay; “Reliable cars,” he insisted.
Steph is Canadian, which goes to say we were automatically rooting for Belgium. You see, every US loss is a Canada win. So because America is going home, in some weird way Canadians have advanced to the next round.
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