For me to be really interested in a football match, I have to decided who I am going to be cheering for. It’s not enough for love of the game, you have to be emotionally involved with the outcome. I came up with a little spreadsheet that accurately reflected how I make choices on who to cheer for. This is a little different than my attitude in the Women’s World Cup where I cheer solely based on what is best for the US. I ranked them based on the things I care about.
- If your are related to the US Women’s National Team (which is to say the USMNT) then I award you five points. It’s nearly a trump card.
- If you are in the same region (CONCACAF) as the US, you get one point.
- If you’re on Continental Europe, you lose one point.
- If you speak an Iberian Language (functionally Spanish or Portuguese), you get one point.
- If you’re uniforms are a pretty shade of sky blue, you get one point (Uruguay and Argentina).
- You get a point for every player I know and like.
- You lose a point if you were an Axis power in World War II.
- Any ties are broken by Five Thirty Eight’s Soccer Power Index — I will always cheer for the underdog, all other things being equal.
So I fed all that information into a spreadsheet and very happily got a list that put the teams that I knew I liked or hated in the right place, and gave me some insight on how to apply my preferences to teams I didn’t ever think much about. If you’d asked me before I made this whether I’d cheer for Netherlands or Japan, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. But now I’ve got numbers telling me what to do. As you can see, if it wasn’t for the association with the US Women’s team, the US would only be 6th on my list, and France, Germany, and Italy, who I only cheer against, are all at the bottom. They really should be tied, because I can’t imagine cheering for any of them. On principle. (Thank you England for these wholly irrational prejudices). That said, I love to watch Germany play, they make beautiful soccer.
For those who can’t read the chart:
- United States
- Uruguay
- England
- Spain
- Mexico
- Argentina
- Honduras
- Costa Rica
- Brazil
- Ecuador
- Colombia
- Chile
- Algeria
- Australia
- Iran
- Cameroon
- South Korea
- Nigeria
- Ghana
- Ivory Coast
- Portugal
- Netherlands
- Japan
- Croatia
- Greece
- Switzerland
- Russia
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Belgium
- France
- Italy
- Germany
Oh, you want to know who to cheer for in all the matches? Many of the first matches have already passed, but I am going to put the whole list here. Will update when we have knowledge on the next rounds. A reminder that this isn’t meant to be a prediction of who will win, just who your heart should belong to for ~2hrs. Bold is who I cheered/will cheer for and gray is games that had passed at the time of posting this.
Brazil v Croatia
Mexico v Cameroon
Spain v Netherlands
Chile v Australia
Colombia v Greece
Ivory Coast v Japan
Uruguay v Costa Rica
England v Italy
Switzerland v Ecuador
France v Honduras
Argentina v Bosnia-Herzegovina
Germany v Portugal
Iran v Nigeria
Ghana v USA
Belgium v Algeria
Brazil v Mexico
Russia v South Korea
Australia v Netherlands
Cameroon v Croatia
Spain v Chile
Colombia v Ivory Coast
Uruguay v England
Japan v Greece
Italy v Costa Rica
Switzerland v France
Honduras v Ecuador
Argentina v Iran
Germany v Ghana
Nigeria v Bosnia-Herzegovina
South Korea v Algeria
USA v Portugal
Belgium v Russia
Australia v Spain
Netherlands v Chile
Cameroon v Brazil
Croatia v Mexico
Italy v Uruguay
Costa Rica v England
Japan v Colombia
Nigeria v Argentina
Bosnia Herzegovina v Iran
Honduras v Switzerland
Ecuador v France
USA v Germany
Portugal v Ghana
South Korea v Belgium
Algeria v Russia