I am a samurai. Tonight, my army won. Japan beat Tunisia, four to nothing, and I watched it in a bar full of strangers from countries that were not playing. By the second goal I had stood up so many times that the Mexican man beside me simply stood with me now, on principle, without checking why. I must be honest about something. They are called Samurai Blue. The team. So all night, every time they scored, the whole bar turned and looked at me, the actual samurai, as though I had personally sent these men onto the field. I did not correct them. A commander does not explain himself during a battle. The Tunisian was crushed. His team lost, badly, and he sat with his head down, and this is the part I think about. I had just beaten him. My army had crushed his. And yet I could not enjoy it while he was sad. So I put my arm around the man my country had just defeated, and I told him, with great seriousness, that his team had fought with honor. He did not speak Japanese. I do not speak Arabic. It did not matter. He understood that the winning samurai had chosen to sit with him in his defeat, and he wept, and then he laughed, and then he bought me a beer, which made no sense, he had lost, I should have bought HIM the beer, but you cannot argue with a man who has decided to be generous in his grief. The American, of course, had no team left in the tournament and had simply adopted Japan twenty minutes ago. By the third goal he was the loudest Japan fan in North America. He kept yelling "LET'S GO SAMURAI" directly at me. I raised my cup each time. We are blood now. He does not know my name. He thinks I coach the team. I have decided not to ruin this for him. By the end, four men who began the night as strangers stood in a circle, arms around each other, two of us happy, one of us heartbroken, one of us American, and all of us, somehow, exactly the same amount of alive. The Tunisian gave me his scarf. I gave him my respect. We will never meet again. I will keep that scarf until I die. My army won tonight. But I did not walk home thinking about the goals. I walked home thinking about the man I beat, who bought me a beer anyway. That is the one I will remember. The scoreboard forgets. The beer he bought me, I never will.