After this World Cup, here’s what I feel: a kind of messy hope | Jonathan Liew

It’s nan World Cup final, truthful you prime a side. And don’t interest if you hap to beryllium portion of nan 98.9% of nan quality title that is neither Spanish nor Argentinian – conscionable make thing up. Maybe you for illustration nan Spain kit. Maybe you’ve ever been an admirer of Lionel Messi. Maybe you’re still earthy astir nan Falklands aliases Diego Maradona, possibly you disagree pinch nan Pedro Sánchez government’s stance connected Palestine/Israel, possibly you erstwhile ate a dodgy empanada connected your spread year. Nobody needs to spot your working. Only 2 rules really apply: beryllium partisan and beryllium speedy astir it.

The MetLife Stadium connected Sunday nighttime was a pouring cookware of colliding incongruities and impermanent identities. The erstwhile heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson was wearing an Argentina shirt. The comedian Trevor Noah wore a Spain shirt. Indeed, ticket income data suggests that an overwhelming proportionality of nan crowd was American. The astir consequential fixture successful world athletics was, arsenic it turned out, small much than a expansive cosplay for nan New Jersey leisure market.

And beyond nan final, possibly this has been 1 of nan hidden stories of nan World Cup: nan gradual reimagining of nationalist allegiance arsenic a benignant of single-use user brand. For six weeks, nan full federation of Bangladesh went crazy for Argentina. A group of cardinal Asian friends successful northbound London put speech their internecine rivalries to cheer for Uzbekistan. The Arab diaspora swung firmly down Morocco and Egypt arsenic nan tourney progressed. Leftwing progressives who revile nan transverse of St George erstwhile painted connected a mini-roundabout were abruptly daubing it connected their cheeks.

All of which upends what we person been told for decades astir nan World Cup, and world athletics successful general. A tourney that should successful mentation beryllium nan eventual playground for nationalism has successful truth demonstrated nan very opposite: nan expanding fragility of nationhood arsenic an idea. What nan societal scientist Michael Billig termed banal nationalism – nan subliminal mundane symbols of nationhood – has now go truthful banal arsenic to beryllium successful principle disposable. If nationalist personality is now thing that tin beryllium slipped connected and disconnected arsenic easy arsenic a shot shirt, past what usage is it, really?

We unrecorded successful an property wherever nan boundaries of nationhood are some ever-more piercingly evoked and ever-more hazily defined. Again, shot illustrates this disorder amended than almost immoderate different quality endeavour. Across occidental Europe, far-right voices preach nan doctrine of nationalism while reviling their ain nationalist teams for having excessively galore achromatic players. In Colombia and Brazil, galore leftwing fans person chosen to spurn nan nationalist squad garment arsenic a consequence of its appropriation by rightwing populists.

This is earlier we moreover reside nan teams themselves: successful galore cases not truthful overmuch cogent expressions of nationalist personality aliases moreover recognisable products of a strategy arsenic they are snapshots of a sprawling diaspora astatine a peculiar infinitesimal successful time, splintered connected aggregate planes by globalisation and migration, assembled retired of convenience and expediency. Forty of nan 48 competing nations contained a subordinate calved overseas. Only 1 personnel of nan Curaçao squad was really calved connected nan Caribbean island. The Cape Verde squad that held nan eventual champions, Spain, to a heroic 0-0 tie successful nan group shape featured more players calved successful Rotterdam than successful nan country’s capital.

And truthful nan modern World Cup serves 2 abrupt functions. First, it forces america to face nan thought that astir of america person aggregate identities cutting crossed aliases moreover against nationalist boundaries, that everyplace is nan merchandise of everywhere. Second, it interrogates nan criteria by which we promise allegiance to a country, a process that astir of nan clip lies latent and unspoken, only bursting to nan aboveground successful nan shape of an urgent binary question: “Who do I support for this game?” The historiographer Eric Hobsbawm’s celebrated quote astir shot gestating an “imagined organization of millions” takes connected a subtly different resonance erstwhile you realise that very often this is simply a organization pinch nary defined borders aliases polity, a organization that for 90 minutes draws its number from each area of nan planet.

Weirdly, this is simply a arena that has go neither exclusively left- nor right-coded. If nationalism was agelong regarded arsenic nan sphere of nan populist correct and internationalism arsenic nan sphere of nan intelligence left, these days nan image is acold much nuanced. Today’s rightwing agitators are arsenic apt to promise allegiance to Donald Trump aliases activity an Israeli emblem arsenic they are to champion nan state they’re really from. The Trump management has consistently demonstrated greater solidarity pinch white South Africans than pinch Black Americans. Across nan English-speaking world, blimpish outlets freely make alliances crossed nationalist borders and entreaty to absurd concepts specified arsenic “Judeo-Christian values” aliases “western civilisation” while denouncing and dehumanising galore of their chap citizens arsenic traitors and scum.

Football’s domiciled arsenic a federation builder is often overstated. France’s World Cup triumph successful 1998 was hailed arsenic a vindication of nan country’s multiethnic identity, but 4 years later it sent Jean-Marie Le Pen into nan last information of nan statesmanlike election. Argentina’s 1978 triumph connected location ungraded generated a surge of fame for nan country’s subject dictatorship, but by 1983 it had collapsed. England’s tally to nan European Championship last successful 2021 did not, for each nan bully vibes and unfastened letters, apprehension our wider descent into gutter authorities and civilization war.

But occasionally it tin clasp up a mirror. And possibly what this World Cup reflects backmost astatine america is simply a benignant of messy hope: that a world of hardening beingness borders is doomed to disintegrate connected interaction pinch reality. That for each nan flags and pageantry, nationality is yet small much than a brand, a user choice, a portion of contented – a disguise anyone tin happily deterioration for six weeks, and shed conscionable arsenic easily.

• Jonathan Liew is simply a Guardian columnist