Watching World Cup Alone

It’s 2:14 AM, July 15, 2026. The apartment is dark except for the blue glow from my TV. I’m sitting on the floor with my back against the couch because the couch feels too far away now. Argentina just scored. I screamed. Then I looked around. Nobody clapped. Nobody threw popcorn. Nobody hugged me. Nobody knocked over the cold noodle bowl.

That’s the thing about watching World Cup alone.

I moved to this city six months ago. New job, new apartment, new everything. My old crew back home in Chengdu still does the watch parties — they sent me a video at halftime, eight of them crammed into my buddy Wei’s living room, beer cans on the coffee table, somebody’s mom had made dumplings at 11 PM because she knew we wouldn’t eat otherwise. They were screaming at the screen. My old dog was in the corner, terrified, ears flat. It looked exactly like 2022, except I wasn’t in it.

That video did something to me I wasn’t ready for.

I closed my phone and went back to the match. France was attacking. Mbappé did that thing where he cuts inside and curls it with his left foot, and I held my breath — for what? Who was I sharing this with? My houseplants don’t care. My Xiaomi air purifier doesn’t care. The spider in the corner of the bathroom definitely doesn’t care.

I want to be honest about something. I didn’t choose to watch alone on purpose. I didn’t plan a “solo World Cup ritual” or whatever self-improvement podcast would call it. I just didn’t have anyone to watch with. The group chat from my office went quiet after week one. Turns out most of my coworkers are women who don’t care about football — and the three guys who do care have wives who control the TV remote on game nights.

The one guy who does care, Lin from accounting, moved to Shenzhen in March for a bigger salary. We texted once about the group stage. Then nothing. He’s busy. I’m busy. We’re both busy being alone in different cities.

So. Me, my laptop, a frozen pizza I forgot to eat until 1 AM, and a six-pack of Tsingtao I bought at the convenience store downstairs. The convenience store guy — I think his family name is Wang, he’s like 50, always wears a Mets cap indoors — looked at me when I bought six beers at midnight and didn’t say a word. I wanted to tell him I wasn’t an alcoholic, I was just sad. But he was already counting my change. ¥24. Cash. I handed it over and walked back into the July heat holding two plastic bags like a divorced dad in a Chinese drama.

I live on the 17th floor. The walk up is 28 floors because the elevator breaks every third Tuesday. I wasn’t going to carry six beers up 28 floors. So I bought them in two trips. Down, up, down, up. The second time, Wang gave me a free bottle of water without me asking. I almost cried at that.

This is embarrassing to admit, but I cried during the second half.

Not because Argentina won or lost. Not because of the game itself. Because at minute 73, when the camera panned to the stands in Miami, and there were 65,000 people doing the wave, and I could hear them through my crappy TCL TV speakers, I realized I was watching a memory of what watching football used to feel like. Like I was watching a recording of my own life from a parallel timeline. The version of me in the video at Wei’s place was shouting so loud you couldn’t hear the whistle. The version of me on the floor in Beijing was whispering “yes” into a room that didn’t echo back.

We used to pile into Wei’s place. His wife hated us but she always made the cold noodles. His neighbor downstairs would bang on the ceiling with a broomstick and we’d just scream louder. The neighbor eventually gave up — Wei said she moved to Dalian. Wei’s kid would fall asleep on the beanbag by halftime. We didn’t have money for stadium tickets, so the TV was our stadium. His living room was our stadium. The cold dumplings were our catering.

Now Wei’s kid is nine. Wei’s wife still hates us. The beanbag is in storage. And I’m watching the same team play from 2,000 kilometers away on a screen I bought used for ¥800 from a guy on Xianyu who claimed it was “barely used by a young lady.”

The screen has a dead pixel in the top right corner. I see it every game. I’ve started to find it comforting, which is probably a sign of something.

The match ended 2-1. Argentina through. I clapped once, alone, in my kitchen, holding a slice of cold pizza in one hand and an empty beer can in the other. The pizza had been in the oven for 22 minutes and the box said 18, so the cheese was brown and weird. I ate it anyway. I ate two slices, standing up, watching the post-match interview with my mouth full.

Then I did something stupid. I texted Wei.

“Bro, we won.”

Three dots appeared. Then: “Bro where are you? You okay? Why are you awake?”

I typed: “Yeah man. Just watching the game.”

Then I typed and deleted: “I miss you guys.” Then I typed and deleted: “Why didn’t I move back.” Then I typed and deleted: “I think I made a mistake.”

I just sent: “Yeah, watching at home. Alone lol.”

The “lol” was doing so much work in that sentence. It was doing the work of every apology I didn’t know how to type. It was doing the work of every friendship I’ve let grow cold because I’m too tired after work to maintain it. It was doing the work of a 30-year-old man who is learning, slowly, that moving cities doesn’t actually move you away from yourself.

Wei sent back: “Come home bro. We watch together next match. Wei’s wife even made dumplings today. There’s extra.”

I didn’t reply.

I sat on the floor and looked at the ceiling. The microwave clock said 3:47 AM. I thought: this is what I signed up for.

Did I sign up for it though? I keep asking myself. I keep pretending I chose this. The truth is I got the job offer in March and I took it within four days. I didn’t move here for adventure. I didn’t move here because Beijing is exciting. I moved here because I couldn’t stand watching my parents’ marriage fall apart in slow motion over dumplings every Sunday lunch. The apartment was the excuse. The job was the excuse. The “career opportunity” my mom mentioned in the family WeChat group was the excuse. Watching World Cup alone is just what happens when you run from one thing and land somewhere else, and the somewhere else is fine, and you are fine, and you will be fine, you keep saying.

But here is the thing — and I need to write this down because I won’t say it out loud, not even to Wei, not even to my sister who calls every Wednesday, not even to my therapist who I saw twice in April and haven’t called back since.

I kind of liked it.

Not the loneliness. The game. The focus. I heard every whistle. I saw every foul that the Chinese commentators on CCTV-5 didn’t mention because they were busy explaining what a “false nine” is to viewers who don’t care. I noticed when the ref made a hand signal at minute 81 that the TV crew didn’t even replay. I felt the game in a way I never feel it at Wei’s place, where I’m too busy heckling and grabbing beers and being part of the chorus.

There’s a version of me that likes being alone with football. That likes being the only one in the room when Messi takes a free kick. That likes the silence after the goal before I let myself feel it. That likes the empty apartment for ten seconds because in those ten seconds, the goal is mine, the silence is mine, and nobody is asking me to pass the remote.

But that version of me is also the one who eats frozen pizza at 2 AM and texts his friend and pretends the “lol” is enough.

Both things are true. That’s the part I can’t explain.

Okay let me try to explain it.

When you’re at a watch party, you watch the game with the group. You watch the reactions. You watch Wei’s kid sleep. You watch the beer disappear. You’re the audience of an audience. When you’re alone, you watch the game. Just the game. The grass. The shadows of the players at 7 PM Miami time. The way Mbappé ties his boots before a set piece. The way the ball curves, or doesn’t curve, by millimeters. The loneliness makes the game sharper, like your eyes adjust to a dark room. The cost is everything else.

My mom called at 9 AM the next morning. I was still asleep. She left a voicemail that just said “吃早饭了吗” — have you eaten breakfast. I listened to it twice. She doesn’t know what time the matches are. She doesn’t know Argentina is through. She doesn’t know I’m writing this at 11:47 AM on a Wednesday, hungover, with a half-eaten apple and a dead pixel staring at me from the corner of the screen.

I called her back at noon. She picked up after one ring.

“妈，我昨晚看球了” — Mom, I watched the game last night.

“你一个人？” — You alone?

“嗯。” — Yeah.

A pause. The kind of pause Chinese mothers use when they’re deciding whether to say the thing they’re going to say. I could hear my dad in the background asking who was calling. She covered the phone and said something I couldn’t catch. Probably “没事, 儿子” — nothing, it’s your son.

“那你注意身体啊, 别喝太多酒.” — Take care of yourself, don’t drink too much.

“知道了妈.” — I know, mom.

“那挂了啊, 我去做饭.” — Okay, I’m hanging up, I’m going to cook.

And that was it. Twelve seconds. That was her version of “I love you and I’m worried about you and I don’t understand why you live alone in a city 2,000 kilometers from your childhood bedroom.”

I put my phone down and looked at the six-pack. Two left. I decided to save them for the semifinal. I don’t know who I’m saving them for. I don’t know who I’ll watch the semifinal with. I don’t know if I’ll be at Wei’s place, or my place, or someone else’s place. I don’t know if the dead pixel will still be there, or if I’ll have replaced the TV, or if I’ll have moved again, or if I’ll still be in this apartment on the 17th floor with the elevator that breaks every third Tuesday.

I do know that I’ll be watching.

Alone or not alone.

That’s the part that hurts the most, and the part I can’t stop doing.