12 June
The match up that was drawing comparisons to 1776, 1812, and 1950. To have this matchup, one with the country of my family and the country that made the biggest impact on my development as a person. Even though it was nearly 8 years to the day that I was skipping school to sneak off to watch England – Argentina at the 2002 World Cup, I remember that time vividly. That was the first World Cup game I watched in my soccer ‘enlightenment’ phase. Before that I had little concept of the world’s game, and even though I watched the ’98 final in Paris and the Euro 2000 final before that, they were simply events to be watched, not obsessed about. My time in England turned me into the person I am, soccer-wise and more. But in the following years I had reaffirmed my attachment to US Soccer, most significantly through my work as a USSF referee. And it was this match up that had consumed the media and the two publics of these countries with the ‘special relationship’.
The African File 