The general experience of watching the U.S. Men’s National Team at the World Cup, over the past 30 years, has been the experience of cheering for a team that appears to be playing on a field that is always tilted, ever so slightly, uphill.

I expect this is how Paraguay fans felt last night.

Especially in the first half, it was if the USA had an extra man on the field, possibly one who had the same player ratings as Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson might have had. Every time Paraguay tried to break the pressure, there was a USA player there. Every time a USA player took on a defender, he beat him. Every time a USA player tried a line-breaking pass, it was on the money.

I’ve watched the USA play a lot of different teams, in CONCACAF, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen the USA look quite like that. Not against Grenada, or St. Vincent and the Grenadines; not even in games the USA ended up winning 6-0.

And certainly not against a team that ended up tied with Brazil and Colombia and Uruguay in CONMEBOL qualification.

I think it’s fair to say, this morning, that there has never been more excitement about a USMNT performance. They have beaten better teams, even at the World Cup, but those victories always landed in the “somewhat improbable” category. Never in my memory, at a major tournament, have they had a victory that had to be put on the “comprehensive beatdown” list.

Like Mexico the day before, the USA already has one foot in the knockout rounds. I guarantee you there are now those that are scouting potential knockout-round matchups (Belgium in the round of 16 in Seattle, anyone?)

Because I am bad at scheduling, I was on a plane when the match kicked off, meaning I got to attempt to watch the game via some of the balkiest Wi-Fi it’s possible to experience in 2026. I can’t remember what we had before we had standard definition TV, but that was the approximate quality; it was a throwback.

Plus, the flight attendants made me put away my laptop for landing, something that has never once bothered me before yesterday.

The result was that I saw the first USA goal on the plane, but pretty much the rest of the game via recording at my cousin’s house (who will be receiving sainthood, for not only letting me stay with him and picking me up from the airport, but tape-delaying the game and watching it with me.)

I was on Alaska Airlines, which (at least on this flight) does not have seat-back entertainment screens, and so I couldn’t look through the cabin to see if Americans had been united by their love of soccer. I was the only one I saw pumping a fist after the first goal, but that could have been the Wi-Fi.

It was halftime when we landed. Every TV in the airport was tuned to the game, for sure, but there were no gatherings of people that appeared to be watching the game (and the commercials meant that nobody spoiled the score for me). I saw a few ads that referenced the World Cup, and I did hear one soccer-themed PA announcement (possibly from Jordan Morris?) welcoming visitors to Sea-Tac.

Plus, the bollard at the pickup lane you see in the photo above was soccer-themed. So I would say that Seattle is ready for the World Cup.

Some of the pillars for the monorail have flags on them, too; this may qualify as going all-out.

I don’t know what I expected, I guess; the Space Needle is not decorated to look like the Jules Rimet trophy, at least not yet. But so far, the experience of being At The World Cup is pretty familiar, in the sense that it’s pretty much just Being In Seattle.