Como dizer "torcer por alguém ou alguma coisa" em Inglês?

Hi, everyone. Today I'd like to talk about an action we take when we want something or someone to succeed. We might want that for many reasons. Let me give you an example. Suppose your best friend has always loved a girl secretly and one day he tells you he's finally gotten up the courage to tell her about his secret feelings. You know how much he loves that girl, and you really want him to succeed at this attempt, so you say: Great! I'll be rooting for you!

But what does to root for mean? That's an american way of saying you support someone or something. Take the previous example to undertand the phrasal verb to root for. You really meant it when you expressed happiness for knowing your friend has finally been able to tell the girl about his feelings. You'll even be keeping your fingers crossed until he finally gets an answer from this much-loved girl. You're being his no. 1 supporter, and that means you're rooting for him.

But since not only do we root for people, there's a more appropriate way to say that when you reffer to things, like soccer teams for instance. As brazilians, we know better than anyone else how people in this nation are so obsessed with soccer. Most of us grew up watching people screaming at a TV screen like crazy every World Cup, and that feels pretty natural culturally speaking for us. But still maybe you're not used to saying what they're doing in English.

If you wanna say you like Chelsea, for example, you can say you root for it just like with people. You can also say you support Chelsea, or you're a Chelsea fan/supporter. It's very important however to keep in mind that if you're watching a Chelsea game for instance at the moment you're "rooting for" it, you're actually cheering on the team, not rooting for it. Notice the difference? the phrasal verb root for must be replaced for cheer on when you're watching the game. Take this other example: "The brazilian fans were cheering on the team in the World Cup." It's understood therefore in that situation that the fans were encouraging, clapping, supporting or maybe even yelling for their favorite team as the game was being played.

Glossário:
to get up the courage = arrumar coragem
to keep one's fingers crossed for someone or something = cruzar os dedos/torcer por alguém ou alguma coisa
but still = mesmo assim