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The US and German UN delegations are trash-talking about soccer on twitter

By Zack Beauchamp
Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers ideology and challenges to democracy, both at home and abroad. Before coming to Vox in 2014, he edited TP Ideas, a section of Think Progress devoted to the ideas shaping our political world.

As you may be aware, the US and Germany are as of this writing playing a World Cup match that will decide who advances to the next round of competition. You may not know that the countries' diplomats are fighting about it — on Twitter.

The German UN mission started it two days ago, taunting US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power about whether she knew the rules:

Power one-upped them, wagering some beers on a US victory. Germany took the bet:

So on the day of Thursday's game, and throughout it, the German delegation, the American delegation, and Ambassador Power have been jabbing each other:

This is all obviously great fun. It's also pretty impressive to see, in a month that also saw the 60th anniversary of D-Day and the 100th anniversary of the assassination that kicked off World War I, that nationalist rivalry between the US and Germany has been reduced to a few friendly jokes and a beer bet. Times have really changed.

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