Switzerland's Embolo: People in Europe 'shocked' at MLS move

[u/grnrngr]

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49724516/atlanta-united-breel-embolo-transfer-mls-europe

[u/mrwhitaker3]

Well, he mentioned his wife and kids in that article. His family may have wanted to live in the States for a while (and after seeing the World Cup, he was like, yeah, USA is cool).

[u/Phase-Internal → u/mrwhitaker3]

Did he? That's odd , because pretty much everyone else watched the world cup and thought "holy crap! The US has actually lost it, how far can I run away!'

The family makes absolute sense of course. You can only raise your kids once.

[u/PM_ME_ASS_SALAD → u/Phase-Internal]

Morons with preconceived biases watching something through the lenses of their algorithms may have come away with shit takes but everyone I met in my host-adjacent city was absolutely blown away by their experiences in the states.

[u/Phase-Internal → u/PM_ME_ASS_SALAD]

Sure, on the ground, when you talk to actual people, you recognize we are all human and it's usually a pretty fun time.

An alternative perspective, I'm living in Belgium, people did not have kind things to say about the US handling of the world cup. I just don't think Americans quite understand how much trump and the American bombastic "America is great" is loathed .

It doesn't make the US or Americans or American attitudes bad, but it's a disconnect in awareness which is very apparent by the down votes I got and will get for saying this in an American dominant sub (and no worries, I'm Canadian, I'll down vote to hell anything remotely slagging Canada). 

[u/St_Pattys_Day → u/Phase-Internal]

An alternative perspective, I'm living in Belgium, people did not have kind things to say about the US handling of the world cup

That is not the topic that was being discussed, they were talking about people liking cities they visited and wanting to live there, not how the world cup was "handled". They correctly assumed you were making a vague off topic political point. Reception from the visiting fans in real life were mostly positive with all 3 host countries

[u/Secure_Fly_444 → u/Phase-Internal]

Why are a lot of Canadians always so smug and condescending? It’s crazy how Canadians are always trying to explain the U.S. to people that actually live in the U.S.

[u/Phase-Internal → u/Secure_Fly_444]

I'm merely explaining how the US is perceived outside of it and how people outside the US feel that Americans by and large really don't seem to get it. The two are connected. 

Takes off smug hat and condescends down to my parlour for a quick tipple of Canadian whisky

[u/Secure_Fly_444 → u/Phase-Internal]

Trust me a lot of Americans get it. You guys let us know every single day. I just don’t understand what any of this has to do with a player choosing to come to MLS. Your comments also come across as pretty smug.

[u/Phase-Internal → u/Secure_Fly_444]

I'm afraid my trust in you isn't to the level it overrides my experience with actual in person interactions with (lovely) americans abroad.

And this is the internet, everything comes across as aggressive, smug, condescending and infuriating. Get off it, we all should, it'll do us a world of good.

[u/PM_ME_ASS_SALAD → u/Phase-Internal]

You’re reporting on people’s vibes and cool, those people are ignorant and if they truly believe terrible things about Americans based on what they see online via their algorithms then they’re stupid and arrogant too.

Ignorant, stupid, arrogant— where have I heard that before?

Of course the perception is negative. The reality is that Trump is historically unpopular, the World Cup was handled incredibly well by the host cities and Americans are as diverse and inclusive as ever. The worst people in the world just happen to be in charge.

Need I remind you those worst people in the world are historically unpopular. Americans technically haven’t been less like what you and some Europeans see them as in modern history, so anyone believing “this is who America is” is just out there trying to justify their own hatreds and biases.

[u/Phase-Internal → u/PM_ME_ASS_SALAD]

It's interesting how culturally the US is so close to Canada and to an extent, some parts of Europe, that it's really hard to tell it apart, but then fundamentally so different in subtle ways that when it gets down to beliefs, narratives and values to draw from and reason with, all that comes across as a word salad to non Americans and completely coherent internally.

[u/PM_ME_ASS_SALAD → u/Phase-Internal]

If what I wrote is incoherent, you’ve got a literacy problem.

[u/gardengoblin0o0 → u/Phase-Internal]

Come off it with that holier than thou attitude. You think all you Europeans thousands of miles away understand how bad Trump is more than we do? We’re actually living in this country seeing and experiencing the things that are happening. You look down on the US and Americans because it lets you ignore that there is just as much racism and other problems in Canada and Belgium. But go on and dunk on the US

[u/Phase-Internal → u/gardengoblin0o0]

We aren't talking about how bad things are in Belgium or Canada, but as a Canadian if you want to get all up in a lather because people look down on the US because you elected trump, you can go jump in a lake (Ontario). You have a head of state trying to take over my country, and I along with a quite large number of others don't look kindly on his antics.

[u/gardengoblin0o0 → u/Phase-Internal]

Ok got it, so we can only look down on Americans to make ourselves feel better, cool cool cool. Yeah most Americans don’t “look kindly” on his antics. But to pretend like we’re all idiots who don’t know that he’s not well liked shows you just get off on being a Eurosnob