Watching World Cup Alone

3:47 AM. The kitchen light’s that weird yellow color it gets when you don’t change the bulb for too long. I’m standing there in boxers and a hoodie I stole from my ex two apartments ago, waiting for the water to boil. The kettle sounds way too loud. My neighbor below me is going to hate me in about six minutes.

Argentina vs France. Second half. Mbappé just scored his hat-trick and I’m screaming at a six-inch phone screen balanced on a pack of ramen.

This is what watching the World Cup alone actually looks like. Not whatever cinematic montage you’ve seen on Instagram. Not a guy in a living room full of friends, beer in hand, face paint on. Just me, my kettle, and a phone that’s been overheating since halftime.

I moved to this city in March. New job, new neighborhood, knew nobody. The World Cup started three weeks ago and I have exactly zero people to watch it with.

Let me back up.

When You Realize You’re Watching Alone

The first match I watched here was England vs Iran. I went to a sports bar near my apartment because I figured, okay, big game, lots of people, easy to make friends, right? Walked in at 7:55 PM, ordered a beer, stood near the back. The place was packed with groups. Like, four-top tables full of guys who clearly came together, laughing at inside jokes I wasn’t part of.

I stood there for ninety minutes drinking by myself. The bartender kept checking on me. Not because I looked sad — I hope — but because I kept ordering beers faster than the people around me, and he probably thought I had a problem.

I do. But it’s not the beer.

Anyway, after that I decided bars weren’t it. Too loud, too performative. I just wanted to watch the game without pretending to be social. So I went home. Told myself I’d stream it on my laptop.

That lasted two matches.

Then my laptop charger died. And I discovered that watching soccer on a phone in bed at 3am is a completely different sport than watching it on a couch with company.

The 3 AM Thing

Here’s the thing nobody warns you about when you’re watching the World Cup alone. The time difference.

Most of the games I wanted to watch — Argentina, France, England, the good ones — they all kicked off at midnight or 3 AM local time. And I have a 9 AM standup. Every day.

But did I sleep? Lol.

I watched France vs Morocco at 3 AM and got four hours of sleep before a meeting where my manager asked me why I looked “kind of out of it.” I said I’d been up late watching a movie. Technically not a lie. The 2022 Qatar documentary is definitely a movie. The documentary just happened to be live and unscripted and there were actual goals being scored.

My eyes were burning. I had two espressos. One before the meeting, one during, which I tried to drink subtly behind my notebook. Pretty sure she saw. Pretty sure she didn’t say anything because she’s been in tech long enough to recognize the look of someone who’s been destroyed by sports.

The Food Thing

Okay the food thing is its own section because it deserves it.

When you watch with friends, you eat real food. Pizza, wings, whatever. There’s a whole production. When you watch alone at 3 AM, you eat whatever doesn’t require cooking and can be eaten one-handed while you refresh the score on Twitter.

Instant noodles. Every night. Sometimes twice.

I went through fourteen packs in three weeks. I counted. There’s a stack of empty wrappers in my recycling bin right now that I’m too embarrassed to bring down to the dumpster. My kitchen smells like MSG and regret.

There was one night I tried to be fancy. Bought actual deli meat, some cheese, a baguette. Made a sandwich at 2 AM like I was a person who had their life together. Took me twenty minutes. By the time I sat down with my sandwich, Messi was already subbed off because of some muscle thing and I missed it. I just sat there chewing bread in the dark, alone, watching Argentina struggle without their guy.

Felt like a metaphor. Stopped trying to make metaphors.

The Slang Thing

You know what’s weird about watching alone? You don’t pick up the slang. The inside jokes. The things everyone at work will be talking about the next day.

Like that night when the Saudi Arabia player did that thing and everyone at the office was making the gesture. I had to google it. On my work laptop. With the search history on. I had to act casual when my coworker asked if I “saw the moment” and I just nodded like yes, I definitely knew which moment she meant.

I went home that night and watched the highlight reel four times to memorize it. So I could fake being part of the conversation the next day.

This is what watching the World Cup alone does to you. You become a highlight reel scholar. You study games you watched live like they’re homework.

The “Why Don’t You Just Find Friends” Thing

My mom called me on day four. She does this thing where she asks “so what are you doing” but she really means “please tell me you’re not alone right now.”

I told her I was watching the World Cup. She said “with friends?” and there was this pause. Like she knew.

I said “yeah, with friends, just got off a call with them actually.” Then I muted the call and watched the entire second half of Portugal vs Ghana with my phone on silent, holding my mom’s voice in my ear like background noise. She’d go “mmm” every few minutes and I’d go “yeah exactly” at random.

She probably knew. Moms always know. But she let me have it.

My friend from college texted me a few days later: “bro where are you watching the games” and I said “at a friend’s place” and then I said “well actually I’m alone but it’s chill” and he said “why don’t you come over” and I said “it’s fine I have snacks” and he didn’t push.

He pushed the next day though. Said “dude you’re clearly not okay.” Which is a sentence no one has ever said to me before about sports. But here we are.

I didn’t go. I told him I’d already seen the game. He said “the game was last night and you clearly didn’t sleep.” He knew.

I ended up going to his place for the final. The Argentina vs France one. Took the train forty minutes, brought a six-pack, watched the game on his actual TV with his actual couch and his actual roommate who yelled at the screen for the entire second half.

It was amazing. I cried when Messi finally won. Publicly. In front of two people I’d met twice.

But here’s the thing. The next morning, on the train home, with the worst hangover of my life, I texted him: “thanks for having me” and he said “dude you can always come” and I said “yeah I know” but I didn’t know. I still don’t know if I know. That’s a different problem.

The Day After The Final

The final was December 18th. I woke up on the 19th and my apartment was exactly the same as it had been for the entire tournament. Stacks of empty noodle cups. A phone with a cracked case from where I’d thrown it onto the pillow when Mbappé scored the second goal. A charger cord stretched from my bed to the outlet that’s too far away.

I cleaned for an hour. Then I didn’t know what to do.

There’s this weird empty feeling that hits after a big tournament ends if you watched it alone. Like — what now? What do I watch at 3 AM? What’s my excuse for not sleeping? Why am I awake?

I scrolled Twitter for two hours that day. Watched highlights. Read analysis pieces. Watched a guy on YouTube break down Messi’s final game for thirty-five minutes. None of it filled the gap.

I think this is what people mean when they say “the magic is gone.” Not the World Cup magic. The “being part of something” magic. The “everyone’s watching the same thing at the same time” magic. The “you can talk to anyone at work tomorrow” magic.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Probably am. I’m always overthinking it.

The Thing Nobody Says

Here’s the thing nobody actually says about watching the World Cup alone. It’s not even about the games. The games are fine. Soccer is soccer whether you watch it with eight people or with nobody.

It’s about the feeling of being unplugged from a thing everyone else is plugged into. The “are you watching the game?” “did you see that goal?” conversations that you’re not part of. The group chats that ping all night. The inside jokes that form without you.

When you watch alone, you watch a sport. When you watch with people, you’re part of a moment. And when the moment is the World Cup — the biggest sporting event on the planet, watched by literally billions of people — being outside of it feels heavier than it should.

I know this sounds dramatic. I’m aware. I’m in my late twenties, I have a job, I pay rent, I have friends (somewhere, theoretically). I shouldn’t be feeling this way about soccer. But here we are.

I cried watching the highlights of the closing ceremony alone in my apartment on December 18th at 4 AM. I don’t really know why. I just sat there and watched confetti fall on a stadium full of people who were together, and I cried, and then I went to bed.

What Now

I don’t know.

Maybe I’ll try harder next time. Find a bar. Make sports friends. Join some kind of supporters club where people meet up for games. I keep saying I’ll do this. I never do it. There’s always a reason — it’s too far, the bar’s too loud, I have work early, I’m tired, whatever.

Or maybe I’ll just do the same thing again. Watch alone. Eat fourteen packs of instant noodles. Yell at a phone screen. Cry at the closing ceremony.

Honestly both options feel kind of exhausting.

But the World Cup only comes around every four years. So maybe — maybe — next time I’ll have figured it out. Maybe I’ll have built something. Maybe I’ll be one of those people who has a standing invite to someone’s couch, who doesn’t have to google the inside jokes, who doesn’t lie to their mom about being “with friends.”

Or maybe I’ll just buy a bigger TV. So the six-inch phone screen thing isn’t as depressing.

Yeah. Probably the TV thing. That’s more realistic.

Okay I’m going to bed. It’s 6:30 AM and I have a meeting in three hours and I haven’t slept. This article is over. Go watch something with someone. Or don’t. Whatever.

I’m gonna go wash the noodle cups.

Tags: [“World Cup Solo Viewing”, “FIFA 2022”, “Late Night Watching”, “Free”, “Living Alone”