A World Apart

A couple of years ago, I got an email from Marcio Takara – the regular series artist on Poison Ivy – that was not about work. In the kind of poetic accident that makes life feel scripted, it turned out he was a lifelong Botafogo fan, and had watched both Nico Lodeiro and João Paulo play for his club over the years. It seemed apt, as we were working on a series set partially in Seattle, that I was now the one showing up at the stadium to watch Nico and JP, like the passing of some symbolic baton. 

So when the Sounders and Botafogo were drawn in the same group for the Club World Cup, it felt like the continuation of a subplot in a novel — what were the odds that these two clubs, both beloved in their own regions but hardly household names internationally, would end up facing off against each other in a high-stakes tournament? It was almost too wild to be a coincidence. So it seemed like a good time to trade shirts. 

The comic book industry is a moveable feast, traveling from convention to convention over the course of the year to sign books and tease your colleagues on panels about superhero trivia. You tend to see the same faces over and over, flourishing in good years, haggard in years when the industry takes a hit, reliving the same drama of boom and bust that working artists have struggled through since at least the Renaissance. Many of the most well-known and well-attended conventions are held in the United States. In ordinary times, Marcio and I would have held on to the shirts and exchanged them at Emerald City Comic Con, held here in Seattle every spring, or at San Diego in the summer, or New York in the fall.

But we do not live in ordinary times. Many of my international colleagues have postponed or canceled work travel to the United States, afraid of being caught up in some draconian immigration dragnet and disappeared to a prison in El Salvador. So it made more sense to eat the cost of international shipping. Who knows when we’ll meet face to face.

We like to think of sports as a way to escape the constant dirge of politics, but in reality, politics tend to come looking for sports. All spring, rumors about ICE presence at sporting events have spread like cold fire. LAFC’S 3252 held a silent protest against immigration raids, the Dodgers refused entry to Homeland Security, and Angel City FC wore Immigrant City Football Club warm-up shirts. Customs and Border Patrol threatened point-blank to infiltrate the Club World Cup, anticipating a target-rich environment of international fans. What is “the world’s game” in a country hell-bent on keeping the rest of the world out?

In the week leading up to the Club World Cup, I put out an informal poll on social media: Was anybody who had planned to attend one or more of the CWC games getting cold feet due to the current political situation in the US? The responses were interesting: All but the most hardcore fans were never planning to attend the CWC in the first place, viewing the tournament as a cynical FIFA cash grab that had screwed up their clubs’ off-seasons.

However, some of these same fans had been excited about coming to the U.S. in 2026 for the World Cup and were now reconsidering. This is an anecdotal and self-selecting group, obviously, but it does put a chill on what should have been one of the most exciting periods in U.S. soccer history. 

We will probably never know what effect, if any, the state of the States has had on international attendance at the Club World Cup. There are too many confounding factors, including general contempt for the tournament itself. But the games have been lively. We’ve been treated to the firepower of the Urawa Reds fanbase, whose passion for their club was such that no gestapolike immigration policy could keep them away, apparently.

And the boys, our boys, have held their heads up against some of the best clubs on the planet. I walked into the Atlético Madrid match with low expectations, praying we could avoid the kind of 9-0 thrashing Bayern delivered to poor Auckland City. I shouldn’t have worried. Never tell this team the odds. When Albert Rusnák scored in the second half, the roar that went around Lumen was unlike anything I’ve heard since we defeated Pumas in May 2022. This was not about winning; this was about pride.

I’m writing this on the eve of the game against PSG, so it’s possible I will eat my words tomorrow, but I am proud of them, proud of us, proud of all these best-of-the-rest clubs for whom this competition actually means something. As Men in Blazers observed, Marcio's Botafogo, having defeated PSG, is now technically the best team on the planet, and I'll be checking in on my phone during halftime tomorrow, rooting for them in their match against Atletico. These are the years that test us. We, the club, we, the fans, we, the nation. We are not our history. We are what we do next.

Willow is co-creator of the Hugo Award-winning comic book series MS MARVEL, writer of the GLAAD Award-winning POISON IVY series, and has written for some of the world’s best-known superhero comics.