Outside of our homegrown squad, 47 teams planted new roots in an eclectic array of North American cities. Not all are living the Miller High Life. Actually, “cities” might be too generous a term for some. The Bosnian team is in Herriman, Utah. The Ghanaians? Smithfield, Rhode Island. White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, pop. 2,154, is Iraq’s temporary home.
These cultural collisions are nerve-wracking. They’re unpredictable. When the World Cup is anywhere else, that unpredictability is someone else’s problem. As of today, it’s ours. It feels kind of like bringing someone home during a particularly destructive bender. Your place has definitely seen better days, your guest regrets saying yes soon after they arrive, but your humiliation doesn’t set in until long after they’re gone.
Sometimes the most unexpected people look past our flaws and see us for who we are. Maybe they’re backwards enough to actually enjoy some exposure to our chaos. This type of inexplicable, serendipitous connection is exactly what social media is allowing us to witness all over America right now. And nowhere is it stronger than Lawrence, Kansas.
A DoubleTree Hotel smack dab in between Kansas City and Topeka is serving as the backdrop to what I believe will be the greatest relationship development of 2026. Even more significant than a potential Chalamet-Jenner playoff baby. Here’s how the relationship is developing:
The first thing I noticed was the fedora. The second thing I noticed was that the fedora was bedazzled. It wasn’t until later, given an alternate angle in a different video, that I noticed the wearer of said bedazzled fedora also had a ponytail. Should’ve assumed as much. An off-camera reporter from sports channel El Heddaf asks what the man thinks about Algeria.
“I wanna say thank you to team Algeria for choosing our home town Lawrence, Kansas … I was so happy that they chose our town for their base camp.”
He adds that he doesn’t know much about the country other than it was a French colony, it touches the Mediterranean in the north, and the Sahara Desert in the south. A woman next to him closes out the clip by saying “1, 2, 3, Vive L’Algerie” to the best of her linguistic ability. This became the first cross-platform viral clip of the 2026 World Cup. And it was just the tip of the fedora.
How short-form video content made Lawrence of Algeria the example of global unity, why it makes me so emo, and what the European mind can and can’t comprehend … all below!
YES WE KANSAS
Social media allows me to satiate my most ravenous curiosities. Was it just the spirit of one bedazzled fedorable man unknowingly raising Lawrence’s profile? Or was he part of a community-wide effort to make these foreign footballers and their fans feel welcome?
The Algerian team arrived three days ago. With them came a swarm of die-hard supporters, lots of honking in traffic, tons of flags, and even a few Arabic-speaking journalists. What us media consumers, poisoned by cynicism, would have assumed is this would be perfect Fox News fodder for their ever-enlarging portfolio of alleged invasions in America.
Instead, the clips of the welcome celebration outside the DoubleTree would most certainly be left on their cutting room floor. El Heddaf interviewed a broccoli-haired teenage boy who said, “We love them, we support them, we want them to win.”Millions more views. An Algerian digital outlet, Le Lien, popped up with a ton of videos of their own:
Video: Another teenager waving the Algerian flag over a crowd of fans, saying, “I never thought I’d see anything like this.”
In a second video, he says, “I felt like I was from Algeria for a little bit there. … Everybody is so welcoming.”
Video: The crowd somehow gets two police officers to say: “1, 2, 3, Vive L’Algerie!”
Video: A mom and her two young daughters announcing, “We’re so glad you’re here.”
Video: A young man drove up from Texas to catch a glimpse of his favorite player and team captain, Riyad Mahrez.
At this point, I’m half-laughing, half-crying with every new video I’m coming across. Things are veering into the absurd in ways my brain cannot imagine. I’m watching a kid donning an SEC hat (the sports conference, not the government agency) bouncing gleefully to the beat of massive and ornate drums, in a crowd belting Algerian harmonies. So much dancing.
It feels too good to be true in this timeline, where our civility gets spooked and peace flees in an instant. I am speaking directly to those Knicks fans who attacked a Spurs fan. But the further I dove in, the more random Lawrence profiles I clicked on, the more intentional that warm welcome felt.
🦊 The staff at Johnny’s Tavern gathered for their welcome video in English, Arabic, and French. One held a fennec fox plushy in reference to the team’s nickname, Les Fennecs.
🪻 A local flowershop, Verdant, built a new window installation out of irises, the country’s national flower, in celebration of “the spirit of community that brings us together.” Why am I crying!
🪕 A band at a restaurant put their spin on an (allegedly very famous) Algerian song, “Zwit Rwit,” with the addition of a banjo.
📽️ A local film festival scheduled screenings of two films honoring Algerian culture — including one of the most respected war movies ever made, “The Battle of Algiers” (1966).
👕 Eccentricity boutique collaborated with Needle & Ink screenprinters on a merch collection putting the community’s pride in hosting on display. (The idea of a white Kansas mom walking around her suburb in an Algerian flag is just so good.)
All of this takes time and consideration, planning and preparation. In a world of such hollow honorifics, the depth of one community’s commitment truly moves me. It’s necessary to stop for a moment and recognize that everything I just put in front of you exists in complete contradiction to what we’ve been made to believe this country stands for.
Sports always serve as a reminder that we don’t have to sacrifice anything to let these bonds form. I’ll definitely have more to say on this as the games get going. Expect it.
Because I think we all deserve to have a top-to-bottom feel-good newsletter for once, I’m gonna drop some people to keep an eye on. I’m not sure who has broken containment, and if they have, how far they’ve gotten. So I hope I am putting you on to some joy you deserve.
We have four breakout stars at the start of these games — all Europeans, all being bamboozled by every turn they take in their visit to this great country.
Thanks! I desperately needed this positivity! ⚽️😎
I'm proud if America! Haven't said that in a long time. ❤️