Green, Orange, and DC United

When I woke up and saw the green and orange signs separating the sides of the floor, marking the sinks in the bathroom, the seats in the lounge, and the elevators, I was confused at first, and then I got annoyed. I felt no sense of pride in my "orange" side, nor any hostility toward the green side, I just kept thinking "why are they segregating us?" The creation of the blue nation seemed to reflect that thought, although I don't think it was a good counter move, since not everyone was invited to leave their side and join the blue. Nevertheless, it was an interesting experiment to see what would happen if we were separated into two different "nation-states," but as someone pointed out in the discussion, there were some flaws to that plan because we did not choose to be in either one, and thus could not really have much pride in our color. 


The DC United game was also interesting to me in a few ways; first, it seemed very different from many of the games described in How Soccer Explains the World in that there seemed to only be a few people that were really passionate about their team (such as the guy dressed at Darth Maul with the light saber... I'm not really sure what Star Wars has to do with soccer, but it was cool anyway). Most people there seemed to not be very into the game, or at least not super passionate about it. There was also very little hate directed at the Columbus Crew and their fans, unlike in some of the stories in How Soccer Explains the World. After the game, on the train platform, a few Crew supporters were holding up their giant yellow flag and waving it around. I barely even saw any unfriendly glances in their direction. Maybe it's that as Americans we care less about soccer. Maybe we just like the game and don't care as much about particular teams. Maybe it's that we're less violent than other societies (such as Serbia.) Whatever the reason, all things considered, the crowd was just not very passionate about the game.