Getting decked out in your team’s paraphanalia may not seem so extreme, but to me dressing like this or this to attend a match on foreign turf is an extreme act of faith. It’s really a very high stakes wager with far more potential downside than upside. If your team wins, the fact that you’re dressed up adds a little bit to the excitement of the win. If they lose, you look and feel like a total tool and, especially in unfriendly territory, you become an easy, prominent target for taunting and, in the case of Americans overseas, possibly for anti-war protests (kidding (kind of)).

I speak from experience. A few years back I went to a Ravens vs. Broncos Monday Night Football game at Ravens Stadium here in Baltimore wearing a Broncos jersey. I was sure the Broncos were going to win. It was early in the season, but, as always, Denver was predicted to have a good year and the Ravens were predicted to have a bad year. It was going to be so sweet wearing that jersey with pride as my Broncos demolished the Ravens. But, of course, things didn’t go as expected. The second quarter was a disaster. The defense commited two or three personal fouls in the stretch of two or three minutes and had a complete breakdown. Todd Heap made two or three insane catches that he had no business making. And, worst of all, in the final seconds of the quarter Jason Elam attempted a field goal from something like 58 or 60 yards that came up short, so short that Chris McAllister was able to field it seven yards deep in the end zone and attempt a run back. And run back he did. With the help of a devastating Ray Lewis block, he scored what was at the time the longest touchdown in NFL history. The score at half time was something like Ravens 31, Broncos 3.

At the moment of that Chris McAllister touchdown I was wishing my Broncos jersey would spontaneously combust. I still had love for my team, but every half drunk Baltimorean within ten yards of me turned their attention to me and just couldn’t resist rubbing it in. When I looked straight ahead and ignored them, they’d put their hand in front of my face to get my attention so they could mock me some more. I dealt with it in good humor. I laughed it off. And, looking back, it’s kind of a fond memory. But at that moment my Broncos jersey felt like a curse. After the game (no, the Broncos didn’t pull off the comeback), every jerk in sight had to make a comment. On the way to the parking lot a dude on top of a walkway under which I was walking said, in a voice full, not of good-natured mocking, but of utter contempt, “Loser.”

So today as hope for the U.S. soccer team was fading, slowly but surely, when the camera cut to a guy draped in an American flag wearing a stupid eagle beak over his nose, or to the countless dorks in those silly Uncle Sam hats, I felt their pain. I could see in their face the heavy burden that that damned paraphanalia had become. I felt like a tool along with them and I dreaded for their sakes that shameful walk out of the stadium, during which they would surely be mocked mercilessly. In my paranoid imagination I can just hear the sarcastic comments they’re getting: “Hey, Yankee, nice war you got there,” or, “Mission accomplished!” or, “You capitalist pigs are finally paying for your crimes.” It’s even more galling if I imagine these comments coming in a French or German accent. Even if the American fans don’t encounter the stereotypical anti-American Europeans of my imagination, every smile and celebratory cheer from a Ghanaian will carry with it an implicit, contemptful, “Loser.”

Even so, If I was in Germany I would wear the damned hat. If I ever go to another Broncos game in hostile territory, I’m wearing my Terell Davis jersey. Because what kind of fan are you if you can’t show a little faith?