Thank you to the international fans visiting for the World Cup to show Americans… America. And if you think the hospitality is planned for your benefit, most Americans didn’t even know the World Cup was coming here… so what you get is genuine.
As the World Cup has brought visitors from around the world to America, I’ve found myself paying attention to something that has absolutely nothing to do with soccer. It’s not the goals. It’s not the stadiums. It’s not the rivalries. It’s the perspective.
For years, many of these visitors have seen America the same way most people see distant places: through news reports, social media clips, documentaries, and secondhand opinions. To be fair, some of what they saw was true. America has problems. Every nation does.
But if there is one thing the modern news cycle has mastered, it’s the ability to convince people that the worst five minutes of a country represent the other twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes. If aliens landed and judged humanity entirely by the evening news, they’d assume we spend every waking moment arguing, crashing cars, setting things on fire, and posting about it online.
Yet many World Cup visitors are discovering something else entirely. They’re discovering friendly people. Helpful strangers. Beautiful parks. Massive portions of food. The freedom to travel thousands of miles across the country. And the simple reality that most Americans are just trying to live their lives, raise their families, go to work, and enjoy a soccer match.
One of my favorite stories involved a Japanese visitor eating at an American restaurant. The server brought him a basket of chips and salsa before the meal. He ate them. The server brought more. He ate those too. The server brought more. By the time his actual meal arrived, he had consumed enough chips and salsa to sustain a small village and wasn’t even hungry anymore.
The reason was simple. He didn’t understand unlimited free refills. He kept asking why they continued bringing him more food when he hadn’t earned it. To him, the chips weren’t an appetizer. They weren’t part of a business model. They weren’t something included in the meal. They were a gift. And in his mind, it would have been rude not to appreciate a gift. Meanwhile, the restaurant staff saw an empty bowl and assumed he wanted more. The result was a cultural misunderstanding fueled entirely by kindness, gratitude, and an industrial quantity of tortilla chips. I laughed when I heard the story.
Then I realized there was something deeper hiding inside it. Most Americans never think twice about free refills. They’re just there. We’ve become accustomed to them. The visitor saw a gift. We saw an expectation. The blessing hadn’t changed. Only the perspective had.
I’ve noticed the same thing with many of the World Cup visitors. They marvel at things we’ve stopped noticing. The size of our national parks. The friendliness of strangers. Free ice water at restaurants. Air conditioning everywhere. The variety of food. The sheer abundance that surrounds us. Things that have become background noise to many Americans are still remarkable to someone seeing them for the first time.
But perhaps the moment that impressed me most wasn’t in a restaurant. It was in a stadium.
After several World Cup matches, videos surfaced showing international visitors staying behind to clean up trash in their sections. Nobody asked them to. Nobody paid them. Nobody handed out awards. They simply believed that if they enjoyed a place, they should leave it better than they found it. And as I watched those videos, I couldn’t help but admire the mindset. Not because they were visitors. Because they were demonstrating something we all need more of.
Stewardship.
The idea that just because something belongs to everyone doesn’t mean it belongs to no one. The idea that enjoying something creates a responsibility to care for it. The idea that gratitude naturally produces respect. And if I’m being honest, the contrast was hard to ignore. I’ve seen people celebrate championships by damaging property. I’ve seen disagreements turn into vandalism. I’ve seen public spaces treated as though someone else should clean up the mess.
I’ve never understood that mindset. If I enjoy a place, my instinct is to take care of it. If I disagree with someone, my instinct is to explain why. At no point has setting fire to a building ever appeared on my list of reasonable responses. The more I thought about it, the more I realized this wasn’t really a story about America. It wasn’t a story about Japan. It wasn’t even a story about soccer.
It was a story about gratitude. Some people look at a blessing and ask: “How can I take care of this?”
Others look at the same blessing and ask: “What else do I get?”
The difference isn’t wealth. The difference isn’t nationality. The difference is perspective. Perhaps that’s the real gift the World Cup is bringing to America. Millions of visitors came here to watch soccer. But some of them are unintentionally reminding us to see our own blessings through fresh eyes.
To appreciate what has become familiar. To value what we’ve stopped noticing. To leave things a little better than we found them. Because maybe gratitude isn’t measured by what we receive. Maybe it’s measured by what we leave behind. A clean stadium. A stronger community. A better conversation. A kinder interaction. A place improved because we were there.
The world came to America for the World Cup. And in the process, some visitors may have reminded us of something we forgot. The world hasn’t run out of blessings. We’ve simply stopped seeing some of them.
Troy P Zehnder 