The Question Lingers: What Am I Doing Here?

The question lingers: What am I doing here? This sentiment, echoed from writer Dag Solstad's 1994 reflections on the World Cup in the United States, now gnaws at the author as he observes the modern game. The spectacle unfolds in Los Angeles, a world away from traditional football heartlands, where super celebrities flicker across giant screens and 70,000 Americans fill the stands, creating an atmosphere that feels both alien and strangely familiar.

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The question must be asked, but Europe should put aside its arrogance.

Solstad's critique of the 1994 tournament as a "business idea" and a "failed marketing effort," driven by an insatiable need for expansion, resonates today. FIFA, despite football's global prosperity, still eyes the lucrative American market with an ambition that borders on desperation. The decision to award the World Cup to the US, again, highlights this relentless pursuit of growth, a development worth examining closely.

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It is an insult to all of us, all of us who are not Americans, and who cultivate football, not baseball.

But as the author contemplates FIFA's ambitions, a counter-question emerges: Is football conquering America, or is America Americanizing football? The game itself seems to pause, not for tactical adjustments, but for a "water break presented by Powerade." This commercialized interruption, a distinctly American touch, hints at a deeper transformation underway, blurring the lines between sport and entertainment, tradition and commerce.

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The idea that without expansion everything goes to hell, the very key behind any business operation, lay behind it.