Seattle Times Seeks Anti-Trump Soccer Fans To Root Against Team USA

The media’s attempts to suck the fun out of the World Cup are not confined to television. They extend to the local papers of the host cities as well. On Thursday, the day before the U.S. defeated Australia in Seattle, Seattle Times reporter Daniel Beekman took it upon himself to highlight certain locals who either refuse to root for Team USA or feel conflicted about the matter because of their dislike of President Trump or, in one case, the country more broadly.

In a widely mocked X post, The Times wrote, “Some Seattle soccer fans have mixed feelings about patriotically backing the U.S. team during the FIFA Men's World Cup, given the actions of President Donald Trump.”

As for the actual article, Beekman began by highlighting a conversation with Carey Lefkowitz, who “thinks Trump is tarnishing what it means to be American on the global stage.”

 

 

Beekman then quotes Lefkowitz, “I still want the U.S. team to win, but everything that goes with that? I’m conflicted.”

He then opined, “These are questions that many people are pondering in Seattle, an internationally oriented, soccer-impassioned city dominated by Democrats who vehemently disagree with how the Trump administration is running the U.S. and hosting the World Cup.”

As it turned out, “many” was a vast overstatement. The crowds both inside and outside the stadium showed up in what colleague Mike Vorel was later forced to concede was a display of “pure, uncomplicated patriotism.” He even recalled how one fan gave him a yellow card for not wearing Team USA apparel.

As for Beekman, he was also forced to concede that his efforts to make the World Cup about Trump were not so easy, “Some local soccer fans say current affairs actually won’t affect their approach to this summer’s tournament at all.”

 

 

However, that did not stop him from continuing to try, “But it’s not surprising that many other fans are dealing with complex emotions around the World Cup, said Sebastian Mayer, a University of Washington politics lecturer who teaches a class on sports and politics.”

Beekman continued to cite Mayer, who compared Trump’s America to previous World Cup hosts, “Since the World Cup began almost 100 years ago, many host-country leaders have used it to promote their political agendas and ‘sportswash’ their reputations, said Mayer, 33, mentioning tournaments hosted by Argentina’s brutal military junta in 1978 and Qatar’s repressive regime in 2022.”

 

 

At least Lefkowitz still claimed to want Team USA to win. The same could not be said of one of Beekman’s other interviewees, “Ken Langner will be pulling for England because he enjoys watching the English club soccer league and has some English ancestry, he said last month. But he can’t afford tickets to the matches at Seattle Stadium, typically Lumen Field, and — as a progressive who believes his taxes should be spent on healthcare, not bombs — he said he can’t bring himself to fully back a U.S. squad in this moment.”

After citing a few more lukewarm fans, Beekman highlighted:

Sebastian Diaz, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Colombia who runs the South End soccer nonprofit Cultures United, will root for the U.S. and Colombia.

If they face off in a knockout game, however, Diaz will back Colombia, the 33-year-old said, partly because of how the U.S. government has been operating.

Finally, Beekman cited Fio Bazo, who is also being conditional with her support, "She's turned off by the corporate side of the World Cup and by the possibility that soccer could help the U.S. government scrub its image after carnage in Gaza and other wrongs… ‘If the U.S. plays Germany, of course I’m going to root for the U.S. But if it’s the U.S. against a small country where soccer is the biggest joy in their culture, I’m going to root for the small country.’”

Whatever the sins of its politicians are, Seattle is an excellent sports city, and the whole world got to see that on Friday. When dealing with such a large amount of people, it will always be possible to find a handful of killjoys. That does not mean they need to be the subjects of a major newspaper article.