World Cup tourists appreciate the REAL America
Having lived in Australia and the UK, as well as of course being raised in NZ (all combined for well longer than my time in the US), and having more than half of my regular business colleagues based in Europe, Canada and other foreign countries, I am fully aware of how the US is perceived internationally. Foreign mainstream media and elite opinion are universally hostile to the US and often paint an ugly stereotype of Americans as: loud, ill-informed about world affairs, obese, with tacky poor fashion sense, entitled, racist, gun-toting — which leads to mass shootings, subsisting on junk food and full of jingoistic, misguided patriotism. These stereotypes are bipartisan in that foreigners have held these misconceptions regardless of what political party or President is in power. In the era of a Trump second term, elite and mainstream media opinion layer over the top their loud and incessant condemnations of Trump’s aggressive illegal immigrant removals, his bombastic attacks on his opponents and the media, his widely condemned Iranian war, his capricious and seemingly arbitrary tariff policy, and his loud pro-American rhetoric. When you add in the fact that football (or soccer as they universally call it here, to differentiate from their own American football or gridiron) is only the distant 5th ranked sport in the US (after baseball, basketball, gridiron and ice hockey), American disinterest in the 2026 FIFA World Cup was predicted by some negative European and Latin American sports commentators to result in the tournament being a disaster.
Foreign media’s negative portrayal of America has been so pervasive and widespread that it was predicted that hordes of global football fans, fearful of ICE raids at airports, gun violence in the streets, hostile and insular Americans, and a lack of experience in hosting the world’s largest sporting event, would vote with their feet and stay away from the World Cup, and that those who braved the journey would be in for an unpleasant experience.
Then something interesting happened. When foreign football fans got here, they found the REAL America to bear little resemblance to the negative stereotype that foreign media had sold them. Thousands of these visitors took to social media not only to apologise for their incorrect misconceptions, but to detail the many things about America that they found different, exciting, fun, amazing, and the opposite of what they had been led to believe. I thought that perhaps these social media posts were exaggerated and that pro-American influencers were merely replaying a handful of pro-American social media posts for almost propaganda effect. But the trend was undeniable. The algorithms on my social media (I use, in order of frequency: X, YouTube, Instagram, Rumble and Facebook, with a scattering of Truth Social) are not accustomed to jingoistic content, as I view a wide variety of material and only a percentage of it is political in nature. Yet within the first week of World Cup games, I was inundated with literally hundreds of social media posts of happy World Cup attending football fans from all over the world. As a person who has made America home and has taken for granted what America has to offer, it was somewhat heartwarming to see first-time visitors to the US discovering and extolling various unique and pleasant aspects of life here. This is a summary of what World Cup tourists are saying. I could link to a different social media post for every single item I am about to detail:
The Attendance
The doomsayers got their predictions entirely wrong. By the end of the group stage alone, there had been 4.6 million attendees, already more than the entire 1994 tournament (the last FIFA WC in the US), with an average of about 64,500 per match and a reported 99.7% stadium occupancy rate (as per the Ministry of Sport). Projections for total attendance for the entire tournament exceed 6,000,000. Global media viewership is similarly off the chart and far ahead of expectations.
The Stadiums
Various football-oriented commentators from overseas have commented positively on the US stadiums. This ought not come as any surprise, given the huge multi-billion investment by the NFL franchises and college football programmes into the building of large, world-class stadiums. In addition to the 32 NFL football franchises, each of which possesses a modern, large stadium, there are dozens of very large, world-class college football stadiums, so in many respects there was an embarrassment of riches when it came to stadium choices. Even some of the best stadiums in the United States were not part of the FIFA World Cup offering, because FIFA requires each stadium to be what is called “clean” meaning absent any stadium advertising. Quite extraordinary lengths have been taken by various stadiums to cover up their sponsor names. To give an example of how far this has gone, take Levi’s Stadium, which is the home of the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara CA in Silicon Valley. Every single seat in the stadium has the Levi’s logo, so in addition to putting an awning over the giant Levi’s logo on the side of the stadium, they had to put tape over every single Levi’s logo on all 68,500 seats in the entire stadium. Various social media reports came from people who have extensive experience attending international football matches in stadiums in Europe and Latin America, and each of these commenters spoke very positively about the size, quality, and amenities of the US stadiums.
The Air-Conditioning
Social media posts on this topic ought not come as much of a surprise to Americans, who take ubiquitous air conditioning for granted, but nonetheless that fact is perhaps not as well known outside America as you’d think. All but three of the US stadiums (Los Angeles, Santa Clara, and Seattle) are in parts of America that get very hot and humid in the summer. Almost all of the games are being played in temperatures in the 30°C+ range. Fans braving the intense heat and humidity and bracing themselves for 2 hours of profuse sweating became very pleasantly surprised to walk into a fully air-conditioned stadium. This is of course not the norm in Europe and other parts of the world, so the climate-controlled environments that American fans take for granted in most US stadiums was a whole new experience for foreign football fans.
But the air-conditioning story does not stop there, because anyone who has ever travelled to the United States and spent time in the sunbelt, or even in the Midwest and other older parts of the country, will find that air conditioning is virtually ubiquitous: every car, every commercial property, every shopping mall, every school, and almost every home. The few exceptions are older homes in more temperate parts of the country like California, Oregon, and Washington. You will also find that many older homes in the more humid parts of the northeast and the Midwest have bolt-on after-market air conditioners similar to NZ style heat pumps.
When you juxtapose the ubiquitous air conditioning that foreign tourists found in America with reports coming from European media of people suffering through Europe’s recent heat wave, the comfort that Americans take for granted was something frequently commented on. Now of course all kinds of environmentally sensitive foreign liberals will opine about America’s energy-hungry habits and become very self-righteous about their lack of air conditioning, but it is important to point out that significantly more people in Europe die in the summer from heat than in the United States, and the big difference is the significant percentage of spaces that are air-conditioned.
The Hugeness
Anyone who has been to America almost always comments on the size of the place. America is a large country, but it is large in so many ways, and the hugeness was something frequently referred to by many social media commentators from overseas. They began with the roads; there are more of them, motorway lanes are wider, and many urban freeways in the United States have many more lanes. It is not uncommon to have four, five, or six, and in extreme examples up to ten lanes, going each way. It is rare for European motorways to have more than three lanes even in urban areas. Another aspect of the size of roads in America is the size of parking spaces and car parks. When you come into a car park, particularly in the western United States, there is plenty of room for cars to move around. I always find when I come back to New Zealand that navigating shopping centre car parks is a much more difficult task because the space is much more constrained and this is even more so in Europe.
Visitors travelling around America would often comment on the vast distances in the United States, and it is very true that Americans take for granted driving long distances as just a matter of course. Some of the big cities that are very spread out take multiple hours to traverse, and various people commented that it is not uncommon for locals to drive an hour just to go to a restaurant they like. For my own part, I have quite often jumped in the car and driven ten hours from one city to another with nothing more than fuel and food stops, and thought nothing of it.
As expected, there were frequent comments about the size of American vehicles and the ubiquity of pickup trucks and SUVs. What is less well known is the number of pickup trucks and SUVs manufactured by non-American car manufacturers in the United States specifically for the American market, models almost exclusively not found in any other market, owing to Americans’ love affair with large vehicles. Obviously, you also see a lot of older restored cars from previous eras — large sedans and station wagons from the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and even early ’90s still on the roads. I have seen footage from British and European tourists who have rented a large SUV simply marveling at the sheer size of the vehicles. American vehicles reflect America: American families are larger, the roads are larger, the distances are larger, and petrol is cheaper, so it makes sense that the culture around large vehicles is enormous. For first-time visitors to America, it comes as quite a surprise.
Many visitors also notice that the hugeness of America extends to the size of houses. American houses are on average bigger — they have larger living areas, larger bedrooms, and bigger appliances. The average American fridge is often twice the size of those in other countries. The same is true of washing machines, dryers, microwaves, and virtually any kind of appliance. Things like trailers, caravans, and RVs are all much bigger than their equivalents in other countries.
There is a huge amount of media coverage of portion sizes in American restaurants. Anyone who has ever eaten in US restaurants will know that the size of food portions can be quite staggering. But even more commented on was the size of soft drinks, both those served in fast food restaurants and those available at petrol stations. People would comment that a medium from a 7-Eleven is the size of somebody’s head. The size of soda cups is very frequently commented on.
Perhaps the poster child of American hugeness comes in the form of the famous Buc-ee’s gas station franchise. For those unfamiliar, Buc-ee’s is a chain of giant petrol stations with up to 120 petrol pumps and a gigantic main building that sells huge amounts of different types of food, almost like a giant supermarket. They have specialty foods like 30 different varieties of beef jerky, a whole section on doughnuts, a whole section on pulled candy, huge sections of clothing, and probably most famously the most luxurious and best-kept public toilets in America. Visiting a Buc-ee’s became almost like a pilgrimage for travelling foreign football tourists, with so many people expressing amazement and awe at the sheer size of what they see.
The wonderment at the size of stores extended even to Walmart, which is of course a very well-known American chain. Many foreign tourists expressed amazement at going into their first Walmart Superstore, commenting that they could buy a gallon of milk, some baby nappies, and a gun all in the same place. Whilst it is true that the quality of some of the food at Walmart is not the highest, the sheer size and amount of choice, the long double aisles of just cereal were often commented on and comes as a surprise if you are from Europe, where everything is on a much smaller scale. As for Costco: whilst it does have stores in Australia and New Zealand, there are many countries in Europe where it does not exist, and the sheer size, volume, pricing, and concept of Costco comes as a surprise to an amazing number of foreign tourists. I was also surprised to see the number of people who went into a Bass Pro store, a chain of giant sports shops in America, gob smacked at the giant aquariums in the middle and the huge range of guns and sporting equipment available all in the one place.
A final shout-out goes to American movie theatres and the huge buckets of buttered popcorn that can be purchased. Once again, that is an aspect of American culture that locals do not even think about, and yet it comes as a big surprise to foreigners.
The Convenience
A topic of frequent comment was how convenient American society is. Various people would talk about shopping hours and how late shops and restaurants stay open. The ubiquity of drive-throughs is remarkable, not just fast-food drive-throughs, which are present in other countries, but banks, pharmacies, coffee shops, ice cream parlours, liquor stores, and dry cleaners.
Commenters singled out American restaurants for positive comments as good examples of efficiency: the professionalism of most wait staff, the relatively short length of time you usually have to wait for food, the longer hours that restaurants tend to be open, and of course the fact that almost all of them offer takeout service. An extraordinary number also have an online presence that enables online ordering. That is not to say that equivalents are not available in other countries, because they are, but in America it is simply more ubiquitous.
Convenience extends to children going to school. Most foreigners are familiar with the iconic American yellow school buses because they feature so often in US movies. What a lot of foreigners do not realise is how prevalent school buses are in urban America. Virtually every school district has an extensive school bus fleet and network, and almost every child has access to a school bus route with stops a few minutes’ walk from their home that enables them to get to school. It is very common during school hours to see huge numbers of yellow buses all over the city. School buses do exist in other countries, but they are more limited, often for rural, sparsely populated areas. In other countries, children tend to walk, ride bikes, or catch public transport to school.
Whilst many countries, particularly in warmer climates, feature public pools, the extent of private swimming pools in America comes as a bit of a shock to many visitors. In sunbelt areas, where a higher percentage of people live in standalone single-family homes, the percentage of homes with in-ground swimming pools is quite extraordinary and significantly higher than in other countries. An in-ground swimming pool in most other countries is the preserve of wealthy people, whereas in suburban sunbelt America, large numbers of middle-class homes have swimming pools.
Americans are of course convenience-hungry, so a significantly higher proportion of homes have waste disposal units, automatic garage door openers, washing machines AND dryers, and microwave ovens. When it comes to consumer durables of whatever type, whilst all of these products are available in other countries, they are simply not adopted with nearly the ubiquity found in American households.
The Food
Foreign commentary about American food frankly came as a surprise to me. When you talk to some people overseas, they speak of going to America as stepping into a giant food rubbish dump. Perhaps the biggest surprise was foreign tourists’ obsession with ranch dressing. If any of you have ever been to America, ranch dressing is a creamy, thick, tasty dressing that is probably the most popular in the country and simply does not exist outside of America. The number of social media clips of people obsessing over ranch dressing was quite extraordinary. In fact, the obsession got to the point where the TSA had to issue a warning to foreign tourists leaving America that they cannot take ranch dressing in their luggage unless it is properly sealed, because so many people were taking home large bottles of the dressing!
The next most prevalent positive comments came when people came across Texas BBQ for the first time. Anyone who has ever been to Texas and tried top-quality BBQ will rightly tell you that it is really quite the most extraordinary food. The number of foreigners seen literally drooling and marveling over the flavour and texture of barbecue in America was quite extraordinary. In addition, it was staggering to see the number of foreign visitors who became obsessed with various American fast-food chains not available overseas, like Chick-fil-A and In-N-Out Burger. In-N-Out is the anti-McDonald’s for those who have not travelled to the western United States. Their burger outlets are wholly corporate-owned with no franchises, and the menu has not changed since 1948. All of the ingredients are prepared fresh on-site and nothing is frozen, the fries are cooked from scratch, as are the hamburgers. The workers are the highest-paid fast-food workers in the industry, the In-N-Out stores are the cleanest and most consistent in the industry, and their managers are paid around $180,000 a year.
Other iconic American food outlets were also singled out for praise. One of them was Waffle House; people going there at 2:00 in the morning and having what is considered pretty standard fare, cooked quickly and very cheaply. The numbers of Brits drooling over biscuits and gravy and raving over pancakes at various locations was notable. There were also a lot of positive comments about the pricing of food in American restaurants, which is generally pretty competitive. The free soda refills were frequently commented on, as was the fact that a number of restaurants (like Texas Roadhouse) provide free unlimited bread and butter, and that all Mexican restaurants provide unlimited free chips and salsa. Such things are very rare outside the United States, so it is no surprise that a number of people would comment positively on them.
The American obsession with soda, soft drinks, and ice was frequently commented on — not just the size, which I have already mentioned, but the sheer range of options. A number of petrol stations, not just Buc-ee’s, have huge banks of dozens of different flavoured sodas. And then of course there are the soda mix machines, where you can take a base brand like Dr. Pepper and add different flavoured syrups to customise virtually hundreds of different drink combinations. I am not sure whether those sorts of machines exist anywhere outside the United States, but they came in for very positive comment. Finally, the fact that water, even with ice, is brought to the table automatically at every restaurant in America and constantly refilled, without you asking, even if you order an alcoholic beverage or a soft drink, was noted with approval. You will always get a free water with free refills, whereas in various parts of Europe water quite often has to be purchased and ice is rare. Whilst plenty of foreigners do not share Americans’ obsession with ice, it certainly was commented on.
The Scenery
Football tourists coming to the United States for the first time are travelling around the country between games, and it was amazing to see the number of glowing comments about the scenery. The United States is not only an extraordinarily large country but an incredibly diverse one, with huge climatic and vegetation differences between states and some very spectacular scenery to be found in various National Parks. When you are from New Zealand, where we are used to pretty amazing scenery, you can get a little jaded, but I have to say that despite coming from New Zealand, there are a number of places in the United States where the scenery can be quite breathtaking. I think a number of tourists were simply not prepared for the sheer diversity and spectacular grandeur of American scenery.
The Hospitality
American hospitality was frequently commented on positively. Earlier in the tournament, the Tartan Army from Scotland came in for particular attention, not just because they drank all the pubs in Boston dry, but because their antics ingratiated themselves with the locals in a very positive way, to the extent that law enforcement often got into the spirit of their revelry. Anyone travelling in the South almost always commented on southern hospitality. If you have ever spent time in the South or in Texas, the people there are genuinely friendly, much like they are in New Zealand, and Southerners will help complete strangers with all kinds of things in ways that rarely if ever happen in European countries.
Brits and other Europeans commented on how open and friendly Americans are to strangers compared to Europe, where people tend to keep themselves to themselves. Americans will strike up conversations with you in queues, on public transport, and in other settings, in a very open and genuine way that does not exist in a lot of countries. That was frequently commented on.
The Safeness
One of the topics that became the subject of apologies was safety. People who came to America fearing they would be caught in the crossfire of gunfights and urban violence were surprised by how low the crime rate actually is. Historically, certain cities in America have had quite high crime, particularly violent and gun related crime, but one of the trends of the last six months has been the dramatic reduction in violent crime since the Trump administration began aggressively targeting certain key cities. It has been shown that up to 50% of violent crime in the United States was being committed by illegal immigrants, and ICE enforcement has been targeted mostly at violent illegals and those who have been prosecuted for crimes other than just being in the country illegally. The removal of such a large number of violent illegals, now over 700,000, is having a dramatic impact on the levels of violent crime in the United States. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this is Washington DC, which for a long time has been crime-infested, blighted by homeless encampments, graffiti-covered monuments, and non-functioning landmarks like the famous Washington Monument reflecting pool that has been filled with stagnant algae infested water for decades. Because it is Federal territory, Trump made it a priority to clean it up and police it more aggressively, and Washington DC has, in the space of nine months, been transformed into a clean, welcoming, and relatively low-crime city. A number of tourists have noticed this and commented positively. I think it is fair to say that most tourists realise that everyday life in America progresses on a naturally peaceful trajectory, and that the negative aspects of American life that attract a lot of foreign media attention are a microscopic, overhyped fraction of real American life.
The Patriotism
The patriotism of America has also come in for frequent comment. It is fair to say that the fans of many nations are passionate and will lustily sing their national anthem and be very proud of their team, but there is a pervasive national pride in the US that manifests itself in enormous flags, the ubiquity of flags, and the remarkable prevalence of the singing of the national anthem. People see American fans standing with their hand on their heart, lustily singing the Star-Spangled Banner. But most foreigners do not realise that virtually every high school and college sporting event begins with the national anthem, there are not many countries in the world that do that. Almost all public and private meetings held in all levels of government begin by pledging allegiance to the flag as do almost every school district every day in the first class of the day. Foreign football fans who have been present at American stadiums during a US military flyby are normally quite gob smacked at the sheer size of the American military and its presence at events like that. To give an idea of how grandiose things can be: on this 4th of July, there was scheduled essentially five hours’ worth of flyovers over Washington DC, involving more than a dozen separate divisions of either Air Force or Navy aviators, an in your face over-the-top display of American military might for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776.
4th of July
Fans of teams still in the knockout rounds of the World Cup who were still in America over the 4th of July holiday got to see another unique window of American life that prompted fresh rounds of social media reflection and amazement. If you’ve ever been in America on the 4th of July then you’re in for a pretty incredible outburst of nationwide celebration and patriotism. First off is all of the clothing, merch and food implements that come in patriotic Stars and Stripes or red white and blue. This year everything was on steroids because of it being the 250th birthday but the wearing of patriotic attire of many varied types is a feature of this holiday. Another big feature is the parades which universally are popular and very well attended. I’ve been to parades in: a small mountain holiday town, a luxury gated community in Southern California, suburban Salt Lake City Utah, downtown Tacoma Washington as well our neighbourhood parades and commemorations. Large stretches of roads are closed off, people go to elaborate lengths days in advance to reserve seating by way of placing a folding chair or a picnic blanket. There’s normally a very large law enforcement presence but not only to police traffic but to join the celebrations and the parades can last for well over an hour involving floats and vehicles of every kind (motorcycles, World War 2 jeeps, big trucks with big fat tires, off road razor 4 wheel drives, ATVs, collectible muscle cars, floats representing the police, the fire service, candidates for political office, school districts, sports clubs, churches, local businesses – you name it, if you know the Marshall and pay the fee, then you’re in the parade). Then there’s the barbecues which are normally huge family affairs with copious quantities of hot dogs and hamburgers and soft drinks and alcohol everybody drinks and eats a lot and then finally are the massive fireworks displays which in some jurisdictions can be as big as any you’ll ever see anywhere in the world. I think it was said that the fireworks display in downtown Washington DC after the drama of the weather delay was something like over 800,000 fireworks! The whole thing is a massive nationwide intense happy good-natured celebration of the country’s independence from Great Britain. Now I’ve not been to France on Bastille Day but I have been in Canada on Canada Day, in Australia on Australia Day, in the UK for Queens/King’s Birthday and Remembrance Day and of course in New Zealand on Waitangi Day and, combining those experiences with the views of various expats living here in the US from other countries, we all agree that nothing matches the vastness, the participation, the intensity and the sheer showmanship of America’s 4th of July celebrations.
The American Spirit
First-time visitors to the US often comment on Americans’ can-do spirit and innate, pervasive optimism. Some have noticed the relative lack of discrimination based on your origin. There was a poignant clip from a French lady who had only recently moved to the United States, in which she talked about the freedom of individual expression without judgment. In France, women are judged for what and when they eat because a culture of thinness amongst women is so pervasive. She was celebrating the fact that she could eat whatever food she wanted, whenever she wanted, without judgment and that she could walk down the street wearing whatever she wanted in America, whereas in France there is a lot of social pressure to dress correctly and within the norms of French culture.
Various Brits, Australians, and New Zealanders have commented on the absence of the tall poppy syndrome in the United States. I have commented on this in previous posts, but it is a very real thing. Americans are admiring and encouraging of success, whereas in other countries success is equated with exploitation, ambition looked on with contempt, people are jealous and will do a crabs-in-a-bucket, tear-you-down routine. Likewise, Americans treat failure (especially in business) as simply a learning curve with almost no stigma attached, you are encouraged to pick yourself up and have another go. In many Anglophone countries, by contrast, failure can result in a very lengthy and sometimes permanent black mark against you and at times copious quantities of judgement from ruling elites who have already made it.
Conclusion
A lot of the clips that I saw were very pleasant to watch. It is interesting to observe the extent to which negativity about America is so pervasive amongst elite classes overseas, and yet ordinary foreigners come to America and find a very different place to what they have been sold. I think that has come as a satisfying surprise to a lot of Americans. America is not perfect by any means, but it is certainly nowhere near as bad as a lot of media outside the country portray it, and it has been very pleasing to see foreigners discover all kinds of positive aspects of American life that we take for granted.