The World Cup is finally upon us, and I’m ready to head into the city, to go bars and watch Team US- oh wait… that’s right, I blocked that part out. The USA Men’s National Team didn’t qualify for this year’s World Cup in Russia (you can find the irony in that later). But I’m still an enormous soccer fan, as I’m sure millions of disappointed and frustrated Americans are, and I still want to watch the World Cup, but who do I root for? Well, here’s a few ideas to help you to decide:

The Underdog
A good team to root for can be the underdog, the one nobody expects to make it very far in the tournament, but still has the potential to win games. My personal underdog pick would have to be Iceland. They don’t have any world famous players like Messi, Ronaldo, Salah, Pogba, or Müller, and one of their assistant coaches is a part time dentist for crying out loud. However, the entire world saw that they did in the Euro’s very recently, and I think they have potential to raise some eyebrows this World Cup.

Your “Heritage”
We all do this. The, “I’m part German, part Irish, part Swedish…” part golden retriever, it doesn’t matter. However, if you’re actually aware of your family’s heritage, there’s a good way to decide who to root for. For example, a part of my lineage traces back to Germany, along with my last name being German, therefor it would make sense for me to root for Germany. I lucked out that Germany’s national team is absolutely filthy.

The Country That Has Your Favorite Player
If the first two categories don’t feel like something you can get on board with, there’s another option. If you have a favorite player of all time like Messi or Ronaldo, root for Argentina or Portugal respectively. That’s an easy fix, and probably should’ve been the first option I put out.

The Classic Bandwagon
For the friend or significant other that has no idea what’s going on or doesn’t want to feel left out, this is the option for you. You don’t need to really start rooting for a team until later into the tournament, but once you have a grip on which team is doing really well, just start rooting for them, and then tell your friends or significant other that this is the country you’ve been pulling for the whole time.

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