After successfully hallucinating he created global peace, Donald Trump makes renaming the NFL his mission

Donald Trump was at the official FIFA World Cup draw and found himself in a position where he had to put on a charm offensive for the entire world. Trump might have placed his foot in his mouth by reigniting the soccer v. football debate — pun fully intended.

In case you’ve been living under a rock — football means something different globally from what it means in the US. The US having its second opportunity to host the international competition always meant that there would be concessions taken by both sides of the aisle. FIFA had to adapt to Trump’s erratic demeanor by giving him made-up awards, and Trump has shown he’s willing to actually consider publicly acknowledging that the US should be calling soccer, football.

According to the New York Post Trump reasoned, “But when you think about it, shouldn’t it really be called, I mean, this is football, there’s no question about that. We have to come up with another name for the NFL stuff. It really doesn’t make sense, when you think about it, it isn’t really football.”

Of all the Trump controversies over the years, this is actually one he has gotten some sort of support online. The argument in countries that heavily favor soccer, especially in the EU, is that in soccer the game is actually played using the foot and it involves kicking a ball — which justifies its name. The shape of an NFL football is, of course, round, and more flexible with which body part gets to be involved in the play.

Most Americans prefer the name football — and have conceded to calling international soccer football when they’re stateside. When you have Lionel Messi playing in your land, you might have to make a little accommodation. He’s the greatest to most fans, after all. Think of it this way: LeBron James gets to call the shots about just about anything in basketball.

Another slogan common in soccer is the English international team saying “it’s coming home” at the beginning of every World Cup campaign. The idea is that since the sport started in England, then if they finally win the sport will finally go back to where it came from. And like most global conflicts, the football v. soccer debate also started in the British Isles.

Obviously, soccer is one of the oldest organized sports and some of the biggest teams were founded in the late 18th century. It used to be called “football association,” but because of British slang of that era, “association” got shortened to “soccer.” By that time the US and the UK were making very conscious decisions to ensure they were as different from each other as possible. So the British decided to drive on the left-hand side of the road and the Americans decided to create their own version of sports — baseball instead of cricket, and football in the US was going to be a little different.

At this point it would be just as unreasonable to tell the British to stop driving on the wrong side of the road as it would be to ask Americans to rename football. But seeing how Trump brought about the world peace he says he saved, him latching to another project and just making tall claims was probably overdue.