At the moment it’s easy to feel as though the world is slowly disintegrating. The steady proliferation of the Alt. Right into our media and society, and the steady normalisation of racist, sexist, and homophobic views makes for a rather depressing view of the future. America’s most recent controversy, separating children from their parents at the Mexico/America border, proves that we are certainly not far from rock bottom, whilst England’s current Brexit predicament shows that some Brits are equally insensitive to the plight of migrants and refugees.
Giulia's happy to see England's World Cup victories to-date bring so much joy to the nation
So what is there to feel positive about? Well at first glance not a lot, but upon further inspection, it seems that the World Cup is bringing the nation together, and with it comes the suggestion that we can rally together and support the common good. After a seemingly lacklustre game against Belgium, and an extremely tense Knockout match vs. Colombia, England are now playing in The World Cup Quarter-Finals! Never were more beautiful words spoken! Not only is this a victory for sport, it is also a victory for multi-culturalism.
Eric Dier grew up in Portugal, Raheem Sterling was born in Jamaica and Dele Alli’s father is from Nigeria. In fact, 11 of the 23 players are not white. This is a huge step forward in terms of acceptance and approval. In times where our future as a country and a nation is uncertain, who knew that football could bring us together and provide an image of the country that we actually can be proud of. As a proud Italian, and now honorary Brit, it saddens me to think that some people in the country wouldn’t celebrate the diversity of our country – and yet this football team gives me hope that this view is the minority.
As England’s manager Gareth Southgate said: “We’re a team without diversity and our youth that represents modern England”, and we couldn’t agree more. England play Sweden tomorrow (July 7, 2018) in what is set to be an extremely tense match. We’re all hoping for a win (of course), but regardless of the result I think we can all agree that this tournament has shown the beautiful diversity of England, and given us something to be truly proud of.