Part of the 'charm', if one might use that word, of international football is precisely that it does, or should, allow the tribal rivalries to dissolve for a short while and for fans of the game to be united behind a team which is local to all of them.
Perhaps deep down we tire of the compulsory hatred for people who follow a team with a different colour shirt from another part of town. I met a bloke at the cricket last week - a fellow Middlesex fan watching them play the Surrey rivals - who was Spurs, and as he said: "It's ok - it's the summer".
The other thing is that World Cups are a chance for non-football fans to experience, and maybe enjoy, the ups and downs of football.
I admit to having my doubts about the Spurs component of this team, but eventually decided it was actually preferable to the collection of supposedly word-class thundercùnts of previous years who achieved rather less than this group of more modest abillity.
One way of measuring 'passion' is how hard it hurts to lose and long it hurts for. It hurt quite a bit last night, but not much, if any today. So I care a lot less than the two days of hurt I expect when Arsenal go out of something, which I would expect, but others might feel differently.
What is notable is that the people who hate England the most here are perhaps the three with the most proudly and robustly held right wing views, with a strong sideline in misanthropy. Interesting, that, should they ever question anyone's patriotism.
Originally Posted by Ash
Part of the 'charm', if one might use that word, of international football is precisely that it does, or should, allow the tribal rivalries to dissolve for a short while and for fans of the game to be united behind a team which is local to all of them.
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