I hadn’t realized how much I needed the World Cup.

For the past several weeks, it has offered a welcome respite from the relentless bad news cycle. After months of war, politics, protests, and all the other stories seemingly designed to divide us, it has been refreshing to spend a few hours each day watching the world gather around something joyful.

Well, mostly joyful. FIFA remains one of the world’s most notoriously corrupt sporting organizations. Yet somehow, despite itself, and despite a few officiating follies, it has produced one of the greatest sporting spectacles on earth. I know that’s a bold statement, but after watching these past few weeks, I believe it. No other sporting event combines athletic excellence, national pride, and sheer joy quite like the World Cup.

The football has been magnificent. Team USA gave us plenty to cheer about before an all-too-familiar early and abysmal exit. Knowing they were unlikely to make a deep run, I had already purchased my England shirt, complete with the Three Lions crest, largely because I have become a huge fan of Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham. In 2018, two World Cups ago, I bought a France shirt and cheered for my favorite player at the time, the breathtakingly talented Kylian Mbappé, the youngest goal scorer in World Cup history. Apparently, every World Cup requires not only a home country but an adopted one as well.

But as thrilling as the matches have been, it is the supporters who have captured my imagination.

Living in Massachusetts, we have enjoyed something close to a front-row seat. Thousands of Scottish supporters descended on Boston in their kilts and tartan, drank several local pubs dry, and somehow managed to charm an entire city into joining their celebration. At the Sam Adams taproom, they reportedly consumed four times the amount of Boston Lager normally sold over a comparable four-day holiday weekend, forcing an emergency delivery. Boston, a city with its own rather intense sporting identity, seemed delighted to surrender itself temporarily to the Tartan Army. Luckily their bond is about to be officially........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)