I was at the H Mart buying creatures of the deep for a Fathers Day meal when I was startled by the sudden roar of cheers and a polite, but enthusiastic, burst of applause. The Japanese and Korean checkers and baggers were gathered around a teevee that had a terrible reception of Telemundo. Korea had just scored against France to tie the match. Oh, that’s right. The rest of the world is intensely focused on the World Cup these days. The native lawnguylanders scowled at all the fuss and went back to their shopping routines.

I’m jealous of all the fuss and wish I could really get into soccer – er, futbol – the way hundreds of millions do. Aside from the occasional rioting and hooliganism, it does seem a wonderful bit of global togetherness. Back at the university – itself, a model United Nations – the student activities center has been a ghost town while all the international students hunker down in the basement to catch broadcasts from across the pond. Meanwhile, I was out in the cold at the happy hour in one of the labs as my friend, the Ukrainian scientist who’s an unapologetic union supporter, chatted with the skittish Chilean tech who’s got Visa worries about…some team or match or other. They really were in their own world when having that conversation, so I wandered down a little further to try to chat with the Argentinean scientist who refuses to talk to me. A friendly, casual, non-union ice breaker chat is just what the PhD ordered. A grad student mentioned Argentina’s team and she beamed with pride, “Aren’t they wonderful?” If only I caught a match, or had a clue.

At least America is apparently losing. The last thing we need, really, is to win at the sport that the entire world is bonkers about, but that we could give two shits about if we even bother to call it by its proper name.