World Cup exit puts another nail in America’s summer of fun

WASHINGTON: Americans wanted a summer of fun. They got a giant Donald Trump cage fight instead.

Team USA’s ejection from the World Cup at the hands of Belgium on Monday underlined the souring of the national mood already underway since divisive July Fourth celebrations.

It was about more than the 4-1 score or occasionally embarrassing lapses in skill.

These US players had previously charmed Americans. In a nation that doesn’t care much for football, vast crowds sang the cheesy, sunny song “Country Roads” to motivate their heroes. And social media brimmed with foreign fans admiring the US way of life.

But even before taking the field in Seattle, the plucky group found itself under an ugly, Trump-sized cloud.

The president’s extraordinary intervention with Fifa to reverse a red card against star player Folarin Balogun had yanked them deep into Trump’s harsher political arena.

And while Trump got Balogun to play, the vibes had died.

Belgians were outraged. Prominent football figures worldwide were dismayed. US fans had split into the same bitter pro- and anti-Trump camps already facing off in every other sphere.

“We went from… a World Cup that made everyone fall in love with all distinctly American parts of our daily life to reminding everyone why 90% of the global population hates us,” Rob Dauster, co-founder of prominent college basketball media network The Field of 68, posted.

Another sports writer, Shane Ryan, said the most direct fallout of the scandal around Trump was on the team itself.

“This team had a boatload of good vibes behind them and in the last 48 hours that vanished, and replacing it was a story of implicit political corruption that turned them into the bad guys.”

Even a pro-Trump commentator, Sage Steel, wrote on X: “I wish president Trump hadn’t gotten involved.”

Promise of joy

Just two days earlier, the country had struggled through a Fourth of July where Trump’s abrasive presidential style transformed the most unifying of holidays into political combat.

The Republican’s holding of a mixed marital arts contest in a specially constructed cage at the White House the previous month set the tone.

Then came his war over the Reflecting Pool, a once benign feature on Washington’s National Mall where Trump improbably claims leftist radicals are sneaking in to destroy expensive upgrades that he ordered.

Finally on Saturday – the 250th anniversary of American independence – Trump marked the day by sprinkling his celebration speech on the National Mall with crude insults against opponents and dark claims of a looming communist threat.

He’d done the same thing a day earlier at another shrine to US togetherness, Mount Rushmore.

That’s why amid all the politicisation, the US team’s showdown with Belgium had promised something happier.

At least, until Trump’s fight over Balogun and the subsequent rancor.

“I feel disappointed with too many people. They put politics and manipulation, talk about ethics and integrity” first, US coach Mauricio Pochettino said after the Belgium game.

Mary Trump, a psychologist and niece of Trump who is highly critical of the president, identified a common thread to the summer’s dramas.

Trump “casts a shadow over everything.”