The 4th Star

The whole country stops working when the World Cup arrives. Neighbors hang flags, drunk uncles howl patriotic nonsense into the street, and even people like me—who don’t actually care that much about soccer—suddenly have opinions about penalties and shirt swaps. When it’s South Africa, when it’s summer, when the whole thing is happening on this distant continent, the fever just takes over.

I’m not a huge soccer fan. But something happens during those weeks that’s hard to resist. A country of millions just… agrees on something. Cares about the same thing. Erupts together when a ball goes in the net. It’s ridiculous and deeply human and you can’t help getting caught up in it, even when you know better.

Those summers happen once every four years and they’re strange and brief. By August it’s back to normal—the cynicism, the fragmentation, everyone disagreeing about everything again. But for a moment, a whole nation of strangers is holding its breath at the same time. It’s not nothing.