The misery of an England fan in the US

It's a rare occasion when the US football team advance further than England at the World Cup, so the pain is keenly felt by a British transplant in New York, Dominic Green.

After four years of living in New York, I'd like to think I've assimilated into the local culture.

I ask cab drivers to pop the trunk. I visit the dentist every three months. I even high-fived a colleague in the office last week, without irony.

But as this year's World Cup approached, I felt a growing desire to watch our opening game against Italy with other English people.

People who understood the 48 years of hurt - the Hand of God, the Waddle penalty, the Beckham sending-off, the Ronaldinho free kick, the Ronaldo wink, the Rob Green fumble... the pain, the pain!

I approached an English pub about booking a room for a group of 30 expats.

In truth, the pub was as English as apple pie, and it took a week's negotiation before the owner finally accepted we wouldn't be sitting down for a three-course meal during the game, and that savouring the duck foie gras would be impossible if England defender Gary Cahill headed us into the lead in the seventh minute.

Contrasting fortunes in Brazil

We didn't need food. We didn't even need chairs. All we needed was a supply of beer, a working television and a Wayne Rooney winner in the 89th minute.

Sure enough, 30 English fans gathered in a room that night to experience, in the company of our fellow countrymen, a familiar pattern of blind optimism, depressing familiarity and even more blind optimism. And we did it all again five days later.

The morning after England lost to Uruguay, I sat my eight-year-old down for a man-to-man chat about meeting with triumph and disaster, and how to treat those imposters just the same, even though as an England fan he was unlikely ever to meet with the former.

Then I jumped in a yellow cab and whizzed him down to the West Village to watch the Italy-Costa Rica game, talking up our chances in the back of the cab by stretching Rudyard Kipling's poem to credibility-defying extremes ("If Italy beat Costa Rica... If England win our last game 4-0... If...").

Parts of New York came to a standstill for the Germany game

Meanwhile, the rest of the city was engaging with the World Cup like never before.

There is always interest, of course, thanks to the enormous bubble of passionate (mainly Hispanic) soccer fans in and around New York. Flushing Meadows turns into Hackney Marshes every weekend.

Our lovely, 50-something Guatemalan housekeeper does panini swapsies with my five-year-old son. And the game of footie I organise every Friday night on the Lower East Side is populated by a brilliantly diverse group of British, Aussie, American, Dutch, Moroccan, German and Japanese players.

And yet, and yet... There's something happening outside that bubble, too. Madison Square Park was heaving with flag-waving USA fans for the Portugal game.

Bars have been advertising the games "with sound", as if suddenly realising what they've been missing all these years. And people at work have started talking to me about football.

American people.

How infuriating, then, that football - our football - has finally become a talking point at precisely the moment the USA has progressed further than England on the world's biggest stage.

All I can do is reluctantly accept my colleagues' condolences ("Sorry for your loss") and quickly change the subject by saying what a great World Cup it's been, and soccer's been the winner, and please leave me alone, and take off that ridiculous bandana will you?

Meanwhile in London, a familiar story...

Forty-eight hours after England's last flicker of hope was extinguished, I did something I'd never even contemplated as a lifelong Watford fan: I switched allegiances for a day, by taking my family along to a local bar, to support USA against Portugal.

This time, we did it the American way. We sat down on chairs, around a table. We ate a meal during the game, with knives and forks and everything.

Sitting amongst their inexperienced but enthusiastic fans, I forgave their uncertain comments about what exactly was happening on the pitch (bless) and envied, for a moment, the simplicity and confidence of their signature chant "I believe that we will win."

No English fan would dream of imitating this, surely, without a qualifying coda - "I believe that we will win/ I don't, really/ I do! I do!/ Look, it's complicated, okay?"

When Jermaine Jones scored the USA's second goal, my whole family leapt up and celebrated like there were three lions on his shirt. I may have even whooped.

But here's the thing. I don't want the USA to go any further.

The American fans are still at the beach but the English have long departed

Costa Rica's progression to the very last stages of the World Cup would be incredibly romantic. The USA's would be deeply troublesome. They don't deserve it, not for at least another 48 years. They haven't suffered enough.

So if the USA team reaches the quarter-final, I'll start reining in my enthusiasm; the semi-final, I'll support the other team; the final, I'll be physically sick. If the USA wins the World Cup, I shall renounce my green card and leave the country.

The USA won't win the World Cup, of course. But the moment they're knocked out, you can bet my American colleagues will instantly, effortlessly and quite remarkably erase their most recent memories and shift their focus to the next big sporting event on the horizon - the baseball play-offs or the start of the American football season.

That's the difference between them and us. They're always looking for the next win (and they usually find it, too).

Meanwhile, I'm still upset about England losing on penalties to Argentina 16 summers ago.

Which reminds me, I must remember to cancel the room I've reserved for England's semi-final against Argentina on 9 July.