SEATTLE – The US Men’s National Team’s elimination in the round of 16 at the FIFA World Cup has been met with disappointment by American fans, and absolutely no one else on the planet.
“This is a real letdown,” lamented Steve Anderson of Detroit. “After some very trying years, the country was finally united in their excitement. I mean, the United States winning a World Cup would be a dream come true! In this country, anyway, everywhere else it would’ve been their worst nightmare”.
The American side’s elimination came as a result of a 4-1 drubbing at the hands of Belgium, and following a controversial decision by FIFA brass to postpone the suspension of star striker Folarin Balogun amid suggestions of interference by the Trump administration.
“Oh thank GOD!” exclaimed England fan Katherine Oldham. “Every four years, I find myself saying the same two prayers, ‘Please, Lord, let the English win’, followed immediately by ‘Please, Lord, don’t let the Americans win’. But this time I went from simply wanting them to lose to wanting them to be so embarrassed that they convert every patch of grass in the country into a pickleball court”.
She elaborated, “Look, I don’t hate Americans, I just don’t want them to ruin the one thing the rest of the planet has left! Can you imagine the aftermath if they were to win? The commercials, the movies, the fact that even more annoying celebrities will pretend they love football?! It would be worse than the ‘Miracle on Ice’! Imagine a lame-assed Disney movie but, instead of Kurt Russell, there’d be a speech by Sydney Sweeney!”.
“Seriously, I mean it, I don’t hate you, but I also think you can be pretty damned obnoxious when you win, and I’m BRITISH”.
For his part, President Donald J. Trump criticised what he believed to be an unjust result. “FIFA, they’ve been very mean to us, very mean. I did what I could, I called them, I called Mr. Infantino, I called him. I said ‘Gianni that red card was very mean’ and he said ‘I know Mr. President it was very mean’, and I said ‘What I want is, I want that red card suspended’. Isn’t that a great word, ‘suspended’? The red card came with a suspension and I said I want that suspension suspended, and he said ‘Yes, Mr. President, we’ll suspend it’. He’s a good man Mr. Infantino. You know he gave me the FIFA Peace Prize, he said ‘Mr. President I want to give you the FIFA Peace Prize’, and he did, he gave me a trophy, a beautiful trophy the FIFA Peace Prize”.
The president continued, “But, they had to play Belgium, and you know Belgium they play unfairly, very unfairly. I told the team ‘Watch out for Belgium, they play very unfairly’. And you know I was right, they played very unfairly. They scored some goals they shouldn’t have scored. America scored a goal, and we barely got to celebrate, Belgium scored immediately after and they celebrated, it was very rude, I said to Melania ‘How could they score while we were still celebrating?’ but they did, they stopped our celebrations and they celebrated instead, very unfair”.
“And you know I spoke to the FBI and they said Belgium, they were doing a lot of bad things, very bad. They were keeping secrets. The FBI said they were speaking in French on the field, and I said ‘Why were they speaking French, and not Belgian? They must be keeping secrets’ and they were, the FBI said ‘Mr. President they were speaking French on the pitch’, and I said ‘What do you mean pitch, I thought that was baseball?'”.
After the match, a large crowd of despondent American fans was seen filing out Seattle’s Lumen field, many of them muttering refrains like “Lukaku could’ve been nicer about it”, “I guess we can go back to not caring about soccer”, and “Eddie Vedder has a kid?”.
Anderson, however, is choosing to look on the bright side. “At least the players managed to make us proud without completely wrecking all that goodwill immediately afterward,” he said. “Kash Patel must not like soccer”.
At press time, everyone in Iran just came.
