When Resolution Is the Goal

I am not a sports fan. I do not watch any of the sportsballs. However, my region did just host a series of FIFA games.

I even saw articles on Americans being patriotic and not having to bring politics into their Quarter Millennial celebrations…

…which, of course, is just asking for politics to get involved.

Let me approach this as a storyteller. In the realm of plot resolution, this is the best possible result. If the U.S. team had not had their beloved player with them, and they had lost 4-1, then they would have decried the red card decision. “Alas! Woe unto us! Would that we had been enabled our favored knight to slay all who encroached upon our kingdom with dastardly deeds in their souls!”

However, that player was allowed to mix it up with the rest. Now Belgium can, in their own subtle way, make it clear that they trounced the U.S. with or without politics entering the fray.

No excuses, no phone calls, no “what if” quandaries. Belgium won. They continue on and the U.S. does not. An epic way to celebrate the 250th? Perhaps not. A definitive ending? Most assuredly.

(And for those of you soccer fans that are still upset- What if the U.S. won every game? How boring would that be? Then you would not have the inevitable follow-up a few years from now. You get to have traumatic agony! You have a defeat that you strive to bounce back from. Grudge matches! Rivalries!)

For now, there is resolution. Life does not often give us that. Who wants a championship or a trophy when you can have a plot thread all neatly tied up?