Soccer, America, ‘Country Roads,’ and the World
Steve Cortes
• July 21, 2026
The country roads of America brought the world across our land, as our role hosting the World Cup fittingly coincided with America 250. The sprawling event on a grand stage reminded the world—and us—about important realities of our nation at its quarter-millennial birthday.
Now, like most Americans, I hugely prefer our football—which starts soon. We are just culturally biased toward a game that is far higher scoring, much more violent, and far more of a spectacle. We opt for the sports version of opera, with heightened, dangerous drama, rather than the grind and nuance of soccer.
But regardless of anyone’s sports preferences, the World Cup served to remind the world about the realities of Americans and life in the United States. Pew Research recently revealed that global polling shows China is now viewed more favorably than the U.S. around the world. It marked the first time in two decades of polling that China has surpassed America by this metric.
Notably, very few of those respondents wish to immigrate to China, even if it were possible. In contrast, most of the world yearns to come to the U.S. Nonetheless, America does have an emerging image problem. As America reasserts a populist nationalist worldview, some of this resentment is expected and even helpful. After all, it is more vital for a strong nation-state to be properly respected, and even feared, than to be loved.
But the World Cup experience made clear that much, if not most, of America’s image problem abroad flows from myths. Smears of the U.S. flow nonstop from legacy media platforms, especially the most powerful ones in the rest of the Western world. Unfortunately, the whole world lags badly behind America in developing alternative new media. Consequently, those legacy outlets in places like England and Brazil still shape public opinion very effectively.
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https://www.dailysignal.com/2026/07/21/soccer-america-country-roads/
