For the stunted American male, frust­rated with the changing demographics of the country and gripped by the belief that his days on top are coming to an end, there may be no form of porno­graphy more satisfying than watching a bunch of hard-drinking, pub-singing soccer fans with thick brogues beat the hell out of one another. The scene is almost always the same: Singing men in red advance upon singing men in blue. When they meet in the center of the frame, red shoves blue, fingers are pointed and then, inevitably, a green beer bottle flies across the screen and explodes on red’s head. The lines of singing men collapse into a squirming, punching mass and by the time the police trot up, usually dressed to the hilt in riot gear, both red and blue have gone scurrying away, leaving a few behind sitting on the ground in a bloody stupor.

The host city — and usually the city’s blacks and Muslims — pay the price for the ensuing rampage. In June, Russian and English hooligans fought in Marseille, France, before an opening-round match of the Euro 2016 championships. A group of English fans confronted some of the city’s Muslim citizens, chanting, “ISIS, where are you?” In February of last year, when the Champions League match between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain was held in Paris, Chelsea supporters shoved a black man off the Metro and chanted: “We’re racist! We’re racist! And that’s the way we like it!” There is nothing subtle or nuanced or even interesting about these displays of bigotry — this is the context that animates the endlessly popular fighting-soccer-hooligan videos on YouTube; this is what’s muttered in the stands between the rousing songs.