Want proof that the U.S. is now “a soccer nation” that truly treats the sport like the rest of the world does?

It’s the wholesale, unapologetic media homerism.

Forget the social media engagement, the packed stadiums (except for that first game) or the jingoistic “USA! USA!” watch parties. We’ve seen that before.

What’s new is how this World Cup feels like the culmination of a long-term shift in expectations of how teams, particularly national teams, should be covered. Open rooting for the home team used to be frowned on in the U.S.

Now it’s expected.

The big tell: manager Mauricio Pochettino’s comments after the U.S., playing a lineup comprised mostly of backups, lost a meaningless game to Turkey in the final group stage match. The press corps dutifully asked about the team’s failings in the late 3-2 loss—it was an official World Cup game, after all, despite the lack of stakes—and reporters were harshly rebuffed by the coach.

He called one reporter’s question “weird” and said he was “confused” by the journalists’ “vibes.”

“No one congratulated us for finishing first in a very difficult group,” he said.

Using the press as a foil is a coaching tactic as old as sports media, or even Bill Belichick. And Pochettino walked back the remarks a few days later.

But the online responses showed how much the playing field has changed, not just in regard to how a team should be portrayed, but how it should be interrogated. Social media and comment-section reactions from fans were often along the lines of, “Yeah, those were stupid questions,” rather than, “Jeez, how thin-skinned is this guy?”

But Pochettino was just doing a normal global soccer thing, where cheering in the press box is allowed, and expected, by the powers that be. The coach was seeing things through a different lens—and it appears the fan masses, even in the U.S., like those optics. At least until the squad is eliminated.

(One question still hangs over the tournament, though: Is Pochettino’s celebrity doppelganger Russell “Maximus” Crowe? Or actually Bruno “Young Clemenza” Kirby?)

Fox’s coverage is certainly onboard with the new paradigm, as sideline reporter Jenny Taft’s first words after the U.S. victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday were to congratulate the coach.

This homerism isn’t entirely a bad thing, and is, in a way, refreshing. The modern American soccer audience still has an annoying quality in its DNA, described unforgettably in a 1993 column in The New York Times by Robert Lipsyte. “The sporting equivalents of uppity vegetarians, wine-tasters, cineastes, dog snobs, will be telling us that soccer is a world language we simply must learn,” Lipsyte wrote, leaving a mark.

Now that more Americans speak that second language, many of the harder-core fans have ratcheted up their attitudes into Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy territory, where everything about the U.S. team and U.S. Soccer and U.S. (homegrown) players sucks, especially compared to … [insert team/player/nation here]. And don’t get them started on MLS.

That cynicism can quickly become myopic, and kill merited joy over some things about the game right here in this country that are really kind of OK.

The Fox coverage, embarrassing as it can be, is an antidote to that, telling fans not to get ahead of themselves, but that it’s fine to have fun watching this crazy-quilt mashup of a national team, even if it wasn’t spawned by a flawless French-, Argentine- or Spanish-style development system.

One way they’ve done that is by incorporating a tres-Euro commentary model, calling exclusively on former players to deliver thoughts about the squad. It’s a typical thing in soccer countries to bring out the old hands to give “back in my day” comps, and it can be tiresome, but also interesting when you have the right personalities doing it.

And the current generation of ex-Yank players behind the mic has largely been up to the task. Stu Holden’s in-game commentary has been trenchant and largely traditional in his analyst role, while Landon Donovan seems to be coming into his own as a studio guy, and Clint Dempsey remains a revelation.

All three have on-field cred. The trio were starters in the Premier League at one time, with Holden making the Guardian newspaper’s Best XI while at Bolton before injuries hampered his career, and Dempsey scoring more than 50 EPL goals. At the World Cup, both Dempsey and Donovan had star spells for the U.S. national team.

But the latter two had somewhat enigmatic public personalities as players; Donovan could come off as defensive and Dempsey at times seemed angry and morose. Yet both were fierce competitors, and Dempsey’s temper tantrums on the field were legendary because of their comedic elements, with the notorious “Red Card Wedding,” where he swiped the ref’s book and tore it up in front of him, serving as a late-career coup de grace.

The personality was there all along.

None of the three were shy about enjoying the U.S. success on Fox Wednesday, with Dempsey and Donovan exhibiting a teammate-like chemistry on air. Dempsey chided Donovan for a clip showing him wearing a hat that covered his much-remarked-on toupee, while Donovan leaned in, telling viewers that he was so nervous during the final stages of the U.S. match, where they were playing down a man after Falorin Balogun’s red card, that even his “fake hair was falling out.”

Donovan also made a graceful pass to fellow analyst and former U.S. Women’s National Team star Carli Lloyd, acknowledging that none of the former male players had won a World Cup, and asking her if the current team’s run had a similar feel to her two victorious trips to the title. For the record, Lloyd said it did.

Nobody wants to get in the way of the bandwagon. At least not yet.

And apparently, that’s how real soccer nations do this.