We value sports a lot. Every country does. National and local anxieties played out by proxy through team supports and individual sporting achievement. Brilliant distraction with a benign purpose – it grants respite from the everyday reality, from the horrific and the banal.
Most coverage of sports is predictably direct. It's about winners and losers, rivalries, tactics that succeed or go awry. Or about heroes and bums – narratives of personal triumph or failure. Sports coverage rarely strays outside the arena of the competition itself. When it does, it tends toward irony and indirection, is unreflective of the larger cultural context and instinctively puts the best face on things. Connecting with reality is someone else's job.
Well, say hello to the Copa America Centenario, which has more meaning, and explosive soccer, than any tournament in ages. And boy is it entangled with a larger political and cultural context. In our Anglo- and Euro-centric way in Canada there's huge attention for the Euro 2016 championship in France. Not so much for the Copa. (All the matches are in Spanish-only on Univision Canada, a channel most people have never heard of. It is free through June, thank heavens.) But the Copa merits close attention.
The tournament now under way in the United States is the oldest international soccer tournament in the world, the South America championship, basically. And it is being held in the United States because, well, it's the 100th anniversary of the first such tournament and, well, there is actually a lot of interest in soccer, of the South American variety, in the United States. And because it's the 100th anniversary some countries from Central America and the Caribbean have been invited. The United States, as hosts, is competing fiercely, too.
In the context of contemporary U.S. politics, the existence of the Copa America Centenario, with 15 countries from Latin America and the Caribbean, plus the United States, playing in massive stadiums in 10 U.S. cities, is simply bizarre. It's a retort to the xenophobia stirred up by Donald Trump and his supporters. It's a statement that Latinos and Hispanics are firmly established across the United States in vast numbers. The tournament is for them and American soccer fans.
It is also a laugh in the face of Trump's famous declaration about the need to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. "We are having people coming in through the border that are not people that we want."
And this: "They're coming from South America. These are total killers. These are not the nice, sweet little people that you think. We have no protection."
They have actually been coming, in reality, from South America in the tens of thousands to cheer on Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Ecuador and other countries. Such is the ludicrous gap between Trump's xenophobia and reality that a sports channel in Argentina is using Trump's speeches to promote the Copa America.
To catch you up, the Centenario is now at the quarter-final stage. Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, United States and Venezuela are the eight countries that have qualified to the knockout round. On Thursday, it's United States vs. Ecuador in Seattle. On Friday in East Rutherford, N.J., it's Colombia vs. Peru. On Saturday, it's Argentina vs. Venezuela in Foxborough, Mass., and in Santa Clara, Calif., it's Mexico vs. Chile.
Brazil, a favourite to win it even without striker Neymar playing, crashed out already. Coach Dunga has been fired, too. This is the usual cycle with Brazil. A disastrous World Cup, which it hosted, was followed by recriminations and the usual suggestion that Brazil needed to play more aggressively. Dunga returned to pursue that, and failed.
We're now at the business end of the tournament and the Chile against Mexico game looks juicy. Chile, the holders of the Copa, has been in sizzling form. Arsenal's Alexis Sanchez scored twice, one goal a classic, in a 4-2 victory over Panama. In that match Panama did better than against Argentina. That match had Lionel Messi coming on as a substitute and scoring a hat trick in 19 minutes during a 5-0 win.
Mexico is now tipped by many to win this Copa. It topped a tough group – Uruguay, Jamaica and Venezuela and did it in style. Its only weakness is in allowing set-piece goals. Coach Juan Carlos Osorio now has a 9-0-1 record in charge. It avoided meeting Argentina in the quarter-finals and now that could be the final itself.
It matters a lot for Mexico, this Copa played in the United States. There's a torque of indignation driving this team in a country where so many insults have been flung at it. And, crucially, average attendance at Mexico games has been 67,082, most of them hollering Mexican-Americans who are stirred by resentment into a frenzy.
If Mexico wins the Copa in the United States, the street scenes in some cities will be the loudest answer to his insults that Trump (and his followers) has received.
The recent mass murder in Orlando has also seeped into the Copa. There is a rising disgust with the use of the word "puto" chanted as an insult by Mexican fans and by other Spanish-speaking supporters. It can mean "coward" or idiot but it is widely used, too, as a homophobic slur. Erasing it would be as big an achievement as Mexico winning the Copa.
The United States is the dark horse in all if this. After an opening-night 0-2 loss to Colombia, Jurgen Klinsmann's team grew in stature and confidence with a 4-0 dismissal of Costa Rica and nervy but solid 1-0 win over Paraguay.
The U.S. team beat Ecuador 1-0 in a friendly last month and is likely to win again. There is growing interest in the Copa and support for the American team is deep and strong. Just as soccer – that most foreign of sports to many Americans – is becoming deep and strong across the United States, uniting multiple communities.
And it's more than a distraction – its meaning reaches deep into the turmoil of U.S. politics.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the U.S. team beat Ecuador 3-0 last month. This is the correct version.