National Rivals

National sports bring out the competitive side of people; as well as their country’s but being from the United States we are a melting pot of different nationalities so who says that you can only support the one that you currently live in. The video bloggingheads was able to touch on the idea that multiculturalism is an issue in national sports.

The article in The New York Times explains more in depth how there are debates going on regarding immigrant issues in the World Cup. There are huge questions on how people with multiracial backgrounds are supposed to be regulated for during the World Cup and whom they should represent. There are players that end up playing for countries that are not their resident country and instead play for their long lost grandparent’s home country. How can you determine who can play for who if they are truly of that ethnicity?

The fact is if you are of many different ethnicities you should be able to play for any of those countries, but there has been so much taboo around this idea.  There are players that can qualify to play for practically any country and this worries people that the country that pays them the most or can give them the best give will get them.

The true idea behind allowing players to play for their true racial background; whatever that may be, is that it is the world cup and people go out to support their country, whether it may be their resident country or their native country. You can have a choice because a person shouldn’t be limited to where they live that defines them. Being from the United States we are all Americans but beyond that we each have different racial backgrounds.

National sports affect nationalism because it becomes a gray area how do you show you have nationalism for two or more countries. People get carried away and believe you have to choose who you support. Yet you can have pride in both nations but national sports bring friendly competitiveness between countries.

National sports should bring a sense of pride to a country and nationalism. People get excited for sports and love winning other countries in a friendly competitive way. So nationalism is a way to bring out old rivalries, like bloggingheads pointed out. Some countries used sports as a way to get back for wars they have lost. 

We are a mix of people, the United States is the perfect blend so why do we have to choose who we represent, everyone comes from somewhere so having pride in the United States is where it's at, but we can also support our native countries as well.