elder brothers?

Today has been a great day to be an American in Jo’burg. Everyone you see around town gives you the thumbs up after last night’s heroic victory over Algeria. Every car you pass with an American flag on it will beep its horn in solidarity for our team. My USA jacket has been getting a lot of attention today.

Interestingly, fans of the USA are not the only ones jockeying for my attention on this glorious Thursday. Believe it or not, I’ve had a number of England supporters flag me down to have an urgent chat… about ticket swapping.

Have a look at this actual email I received from a co-worker at the local office here in Joburg:

Hi Ben,

My name is Steve, I work for ________ in South Africa.

I am English and in light of last nights results (congratulations on finishing top well deserved!) I have Rustenburg tickets for Saturday and I need Bloemfontein! Just wondering if you are in the same boat and need to swap???

Thanks,
Steve

My response to Steve was a no-brainer:

Hi Steve,

It is a complete shock to hear that an Englishman presumptuously assumed that England would finish top of the group. In any event, my tickets are team-specific to the USA, so I won’t be much help to you in finding someone to swap tickets with — unless you’d rather sit in the USA supporter section versus Ghana.

Regards,
Ben

Steve was not alone in his quest. During a 10 minute walk through the international arrival hall at O.R. Tambo Airport today, I was pestered by two other very polite (much more polite than the ones I encountered in Rustenburg last week), anxious England fans. You see, because they were so confident in their beloved England, they just went ahead and booked individual match tickets for the knock-out stages assuming that England would finish top of the group. Well, football has a funny way of being played — namely, on the pitch rather than a flashy Nike advert. Unsurprisingly, this has confused an entire nation of fans who mistakenly believed that their starting 11 were pre-ordained for World Cup glory.

It suffices to say that there are a lot of embarrassed England fans here crawling on their hands and knees to get tickets from USA fans right now. And to be honest, I don’t think they’re going to have much luck in that department.

For starters, it’s not very polite to ask for tickets from someone under the auspices that you assumed you were better than them. That’s not a good way to start off a business transaction, and if there’s one thing we Americans know (OTHER THAN HOW TO USE OUR HANDS, ROBERT GREEN!), it’s how to succeed in a free market economy. Insulting your prospective business partner is not the route I recommend taking in this business transaction, or any other for that matter.

Secondly, our fans bought tickets to see the USA, not “The Winner of Group C.” It just so happens that we are also the winners of Group C, which makes sense because we were the best team in the group. But don’t worry, England. You can take a cue from Mexico and learn what it’s like to finish behind the US and still live in a make-believe alternate universe where you are always #1, even though that means you’re really #2 and kind of pathetic.

Have fun against Germany and possibly even Argentina, lads!

And remember, YOU ARE JUST A SMALL ISLAND NATION.