LONDON — A few weeks before last November’s presidential election in the United States, Matthew Barzun, the country’s ambassador to Britain at the time, hosted a party.
When all of his guests had arrived, Barzun clinked a glass and asked for silence. A confidant of the man who had appointed him, President Barack Obama, he said he knew that — whoever won the election — this would be one of his last chances to host such an evening.
So, he said, he wanted to use it to celebrate something that he, and particularly his children, cherished: the special relationship between the United States and English soccer.