This World Cup—the twenty-third edition—has accomplished something no policy paper or demographic report ever could: it made global migration visible. When Western nations lined up for the national anthem, their squads looked nothing like the imagined “native” populations of half a century ago. The pitch became a mirror reflecting decades of immigration, integration, and demographic change.
For many viewers like me, the shock was immediate and visual. France, England, Belgium, Germany — their teams were filled with players whose families came from Africa, the Caribbean, Turkey, or the Middle East. In one match, a European team faced an African team, and I genuinely could not tell which was which without looking at the jerseys. Even Japan, long considered one of the world’s most ethnically homogeneous societies, fielded a goalkeeper unmistakably of African descent. The World Cup made one truth unavoidable: the nation state no longer maps neatly onto ethnicity.
And nowhere did this truth erupt more dramatically than in the Netherlands.
The Dutch–Moroccan Flashpoint
When Morocco eliminated the Netherlands in a penalty shootout, Moroccan-Dutch neighborhoods exploded in celebration—fireworks, flags, chants, and, in some cases, clashes with police. Commentators rushed to label it “rioting,” but the reality was far more complex. The reaction was not simply about football. It was a referendum on belonging.
To understand the tension, it helps to recall what happened before the Netherlands match. Morocco’s earlier victories in the group stage produced joyful, communal, peaceful celebrations in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague. No clashes. No confrontations. No political panic. Just diaspora pride — the same kind you see in Toronto’s Little Italy when Italy wins, or in Chicago’s Pilsen when Mexico advances.
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The escalation came only when Morocco defeated the Netherlands itself. Until that moment, the Moroccan‑Dutch occupied a seemingly privileged position—able to celebrate whichever side won—but that illusion evaporated the instant their joy collided with Dutch national pride. That match carried political weight, historical tension, and the unresolved question of who is permitted to be Dutch without qualification. Moroccan‑Dutch citizens are not only immigrants or the children of immigrants; they are also overwhelmingly Muslim. In an era when Islamophobia has become a political fixation of Europe’s right-wing parties, their celebration was read not as exuberance but as defiance. True to the old adage that nationalism is the last refuge of scoundrels, the loudest voices on the right immediately called for expulsions, revocation of citizenship, and yet another tightening of immigration laws—the same battle cry that has echoed through European elections for more than two decades.
This pattern is not confined to Europe. The same politics of fear and exclusion helped propel Donald Trump to the presidency in the United States, a country often described as the world’s oldest and most consolidated democracy. It was a sobering reminder of what America’s Founding Fathers understood with remarkable clarity: that democracy, without eternal vigilance and robust institutional checks and balances, is vulnerable to demagoguery and tyranny—whether by a majority inflamed by resentment or a minority empowered by grievance.
A Crisis of Belonging, Not Loyalty
For decades, Moroccan Dutch communities have lived under suspicion. Far right rhetoric has framed them as culturally incompatible, insufficiently integrated, or perpetually foreign. When a society repeatedly signals that one’s loyalty is conditional, cheering for Morocco becomes more than sports enthusiasm. It becomes an act of emotional refuge and symbolic resistance.
The celebrations were not a rejection of the Netherlands. They were a rejection of the idea that Moroccan Dutch citizens must constantly prove their loyalty to a nation that has never fully embraced them.
The Guest Worker Legacy
Moroccan migration to the Netherlands began in the late 1960s under labor agreements. The Dutch state wanted workers, not citizens. The second generation inherited legal citizenship without full social citizenship. Their passport says one thing; public discourse often says another. The penalty shootout celebrations exposed this contradiction. They were the visible expression of a community living between formal inclusion and social exclusion.
Integration on Paper, Segregation in Practice
The Netherlands speaks the language of integration, but the lived reality for many Moroccan‑Dutch communities is shaped by residential segregation, labor‑market discrimination, political stigmatization, and policing practices that treat their neighborhoods as security zones. Fatal incidents in police custody have drawn comparisons to the patterns of brutality documented in the United States. In such an environment, joy becomes a security risk and public space turns into contested territory. The penalty shootout did not create this tension; it merely illuminated what was already there.
The American Mirror: The Complexity of Dual Loyalty
The Dutch–Moroccan tension is not unique; it is simply more visible. During the U.S.–Türkiye match, I found myself talking with a young Eritrean American who told me, without hesitation, that he was cheering for Türkiye. I was stunned — how could he support a team playing against his own country? But he didn’t see it as a question of loyalty or nationalism. For him, Türkiye was simply the better team.
His answer forced me to confront my own dual identity. As a first‑generation Eritrean American, both nations matter to me. I want the U.S. team to reach the finals—if not win it all—and I long for Eritrea to finally appear on the world stage in a future World Cup. Whenever the U.S. or Eritrea play other countries, I cheer for them out of loyalty and pride. And if the two ever faced each other, I would step back, recluse myself, and honor the old saying: may the best team win. In truth, either way, I win.
This complexity is everywhere. When South Africa played Mexico, I found myself cheering for Mexico—not because I rejected Africa, but because, as a Texan, Mexico is my immediate neighbor. I know many Mexican Americans; I interact with them daily, and I genuinely like them. It felt natural. I feel the same way about our neighbor to the north: Canada. I am pleased that all three North American countries have reached the Round of 16. I also cannot ignore what South Africa has been doing to other African immigrants. Whatever moral authority South Africa gained by taking Israel to court, it has squandered through its mistreatment of fellow Africans.
I know Eritrean‑Americans who cheered for Sweden simply because Alexander Isak—an Eritrean‑Swedish superstar—was representing them, even when Sweden faced an African team. Unfortunately, Isak didn’t deliver what he has accustomed us to expect. Another Eritrean friend, now living in Europe but once subjected to racism in Brazil, told me he could never imagine cheering for Brazil. His personal history shaped his allegiance. He was thrown out of his hotel because some patrons with the “right” skin color objected to his presence, and management asked him to leave. Experiences like that do not fade; they reorder one’s sense of belonging.
As for me, I have always cheered for Brazil. Their footballing tradition — the finesse, the artistry, the effortless flair — captivated me from childhood. Even though the current team has been somewhat disappointing and has not lived up to the style we once took for granted, my affection for Brazil remains. It is a reminder that loyalty in sports, like loyalty in life, is rarely linear. It is shaped by memory, experience, admiration, and sometimes simple affection. And if my argument doesn’t persuade you, consult Awate’s resident expert, Dr. Sadia Hassanen.
These reactions are not contradictions. They are the lived reality of a globalized world. Identity is layered. Loyalty is contextual. Belonging is negotiated.
And when the U.S. played Bosnia and Herzegovina last Wednesday, that same young man and I watched the match together—both of us cheering, without hesitation, for the United States. USA all the way.
The Eritrean Dream Deferred — And Waiting to Rise Again
I was either not born or not old enough to witness the legendary Eritrean footballers of the 1960s and 1970s, but I grew up hearing their names spoken with reverence. The Bassalo brothers, Wedi Kitchin, Pache, Wedi Abdella, Kiflom, Joker, Yemane, and Bockre—giants of a bygone era—and the storied clubs they animated: Ganta Hamasien, Tele, and Embassoyra. These were not merely athletes or teams; they were institutions that defined Eritrea’s sporting identity.
I remember, as a kid in Kassala, Sudan, how mesmerized I was by the football stories told by my late uncle, aboy Tedros, who played for Ganta Kebabi before it became Ganta Hamasien. From him I first heard the name Congo Kinshasa (or Kingo-Kinshasha as he said it)—a term that sounded impossibly exotic to my young ears. Congo Kinshasa played in Asmera against Senegal during the Group A stage of the African Cup of Nations on January 20, 1968, two years before I was born. Eritreans also take pride in the belief that they made up roughly 80% of the Ethiopian team that played an international friendly match against the Mexico Olympic squad on September 29, 1968, in León, Mexico—an exhibition match of the pre‑Hispanic Mesoamerican ballgame known as Ulama. These fragments of history, passed down in stories and remembered in community lore, shaped how many of us came to understand football not just as a sport but as a thread woven through identity, migration, and belonging.
Incidentally, I was deeply disappointed last Wednesday when both Senegal and the DRC lost to England and Belgium, even though I thought they were the better teams. In a way, their losses underscore a larger truth: Africa is overflowing with talent and potential, yet somehow it has not figured out how to fully capitalize on them. Sporting imitating governance.
Eritrea once had a proud football legacy, a reputation for skill, discipline, and passion that echoed across the region. In a different political reality, Eritrea could easily have been represented in this World Cup. The talent exists. The history exists. The pride exists.
But the tragedy is unmistakable. Whenever an Eritrean national team travels abroad, half the squad now defects to seek political asylum. Under such conditions, imagining Eritrea qualifying for the World Cup becomes impossible. The regime’s gross incompetence has suffocated Eritrean football just as it has suffocated Eritrean society. To be young in Eritrea today is to live as a convict sentenced to life under harsh conditions, without due process and without the hope of parole. A nation that once produced disciplined, gifted, and beloved footballers now produces refugees—not because its people lack talent or ambition, but because its rulers have turned daily life into a punishment.
Shortening the life of this grossly incompetent regime should be the top priority of every responsible and enlightened Eritrean. Giving it more time only deepens the scars it will leave behind, making them indelible.
Human Movement: The Oldest Story in the World
Throughout most of human history, people migrated, settled, and expanded into new lands whenever they had the power to claim and defend territory. Borders were fluid, contested, and often undefined. Travel itself long predated the modern state. Merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, and wanderers crossed continents using caravan routes, footpaths, and seasonal trails. They carried letters of safe‑conduct, guild certificates, or pilgrim credentials—informal documents that facilitated passage but were nothing like the standardized passports we know today.
Europe even experienced a remarkable era between 1861 and 1914 when most countries abolished passport requirements entirely, allowing people to cross borders without presenting any document at all. The modern passport system only emerged after the 1920 League of Nations conference, which standardized identity documents and encouraged states to adopt uniform travel rules. By the mid‑1920s, passports had become the global norm. What changed in the twentieth century was not the desire to move, but the administrative machinery that sought to regulate it.
Human mobility has always been a defining feature of civilization. The World Cup simply makes visible what has been true for millennia: people move, identities mix, and belonging evolves.
A Microcosm of Our New World
What happened in the Netherlands is not an isolated incident. It is a preview of the world we are becoming—a world where nations are multiethnic, identities are layered, loyalties are complex, and belonging is negotiated rather than inherited. The Dutch–Moroccan flashpoint is a microcosm of this new reality. It will happen again—in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, even in North America.
The question is not whether dual identity exists. It is whether societies can handle it without panic.
Conclusion: Nations Don’t Have to Be Penalty Shootouts
Penalty shootouts are unforgiving. Nations don’t have to be.
The World Cup has shown us that identity is no longer singular. The Dutch streets have shown us what happens when belonging is conditional. Eritrea’s story reminds us how political failure can silence a nation’s athletic potential. And my own experiences as an Eritrean American remind me that dual loyalty is not a crisis — it is a fact of modern life.
The challenge for every nation is simple: can we build a definition of belonging that matches the world we now live in? The American Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement were fought to redefine and expand the meaning of who is an American. It is an ongoing process because the meaning of belonging constantly evolves, and we must evolve with it.
Because the future is already here. It’s just wearing a different jersey.
To contact the author: weriz@yahoo.com
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