Pacific Northwest joins Los Angeles in an embrace

SEATTLE — Jaysen Dickinson flew to Seattle from Vermont to cross an merchandise off his prolonged bucket record.

“To see the World Cup and the U.S. play in the World Cup,” he said.

Kim Fletcher and her 17-year-old son Kelan caught a 5 a.m. flight from Sacramento last week for the same motive.

“It’s a must-do right now,” she said.

They weren’t alone. Tens of 1000’s of people poured into Seattle on Friday morning for the U.S. workforce’s group-stage recreation with Australia, turning the Emerald City into a sea of crimson, white and blue. Some had tickets, most didn’t.

But who needed a ticket? More than 66,000 people stuffed Lumen Field in Seattle’s SoDo district, but 1000’s more merely stood in the streets surrounding the stadium to soak up the power.

“It’s electric,” said Fletcher, whose son wore an American flag as a cape beneath a tri-cornered colonial hat. Another man was dressed in overalls in star-spangled colours while one couple wore large and seemingly uncomfortable bald eagle heads, topped by crimson, white and blue fabric stovepipe hats.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said one fan, whose been attending sporting occasions in town for more than seven many years.

If this World Cup has been marred by astronomical ticket costs and an opaque system for promoting them, ensuing in large swaths of vacant seats seen on telecasts from Guadalajara, Santa Clara and Miami Gardens, that hasn’t put a damper on the event in the Pacific Northwest. Los Angeles is much from the only metropolis with World Cup fever.

The noon celebration on Friday engulfed — and overwhelmed — one of the nation’s largest cities on what was supposed to be a workday.

A viewing celebration in historic Pioneer Square was packed so tightly it was arduous to transfer. Along town’s waterfront, lots of of people paid $52 to stand on a barge and watch the sport on a scoreboard-sized TV. Thousands more had scaled the steep cascading steps across the road, where they strained to watch for free.

“There were just people who wanted to be in the atmosphere. And that’s Seattle,” said Kasey Keller, a four-time World Cup goalkeeper for the U.S. from close by Olympia, Wash.

“This,” agreed MLS commissioner Don Garber “is a soccer city.”

The first recreation in Seattle, also performed on a weekday afternoon, drew a sellout crowd for Egypt-Belgium while in Vancouver, 35 miles north of the U.S. border, a 10-block stretch that knifes through the center of the central business district has been turned over to a road celebration for the length of the 39-day World Cup, snarling site visitors and rerouting buses.

Fans of Belgium wait for the start of the World Cup Group G soccer recreation between Belgium and Egypt in Seattle on June 15, 2026.

(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)

Not that many of us have been complaining.

Fans marched to last Thursday’s afternoon recreation with Qatar carrying Canadian flags draped over their shoulders and headdresses that sprouted small maple leafs. Thousands more watched on TV from bars and eating places along Granville Street, where 15-foot-tall soccer gamers and giant soccer balls stand beneath miles of crimson and white streamers.

Even a strip membership in the middle of the fan zone obtained in on the motion, draping the flags of Canada and 9 other World Cup groups above its heavy picket doorways.

“It’s beautiful to see. The whole country showed up,” goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau said. “It’s beautiful. We were all one nation tonight.”

Crepeau and his teammates said they fed off that ambiance in their victory over Qatar, giving Canada its first-ever World Cup win. Mauricio Pochettino, the Argentine-born U.S. coach, said the same factor about the Americans’ reception in Seattle.

“Even if I am not American I was emotional because the atmosphere was amazing, the fans were amazing,” he said. “The way they supported us and the way they celebrated victory, it was an amazing and perfect connection from the stands and the team.

“It makes us feel very proud because to connect with the people is what we wanted — here in Seattle, and the rest of the country.”

U.S. and Australia followers bump fists on their method to the stadium before their recreation in Seattle on June 19, 2026.

(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)

U.S. and Canadian soccer followers have come a long method since 1994, the last time North America performed host to the World Cup. Keller remembers watching a group-stage recreation with a very confused man at a bar in Florida.

“There was a guy sitting next to me rooting for the wrong team,” he said. “‘Wait a minute. Ireland’s in white?’ It took him 30 minutes to figure out which team he wanted to root for.”

That hasn’t been a downside this summer time. Three days before the U.S. recreation in Seattle some 500 followers, most carrying the blue-and-white striped jerseys of Argentina, filed onto a 322-foot cargo barge moored in Elliott Bay to watch their workforce play Algeria.

“Our city is really crushing it for the World Cup,” said Daniel Norberg, a current transplant from Amsterdam. “We’ve been really impressed.

“It’s got a great vibe.”

The ageing 53-year-old barge, which usually plies the waters of southeastern Alaska, was towed to Seattle by the RAVE Foundation, the charitable arm of Seattle’s two skilled soccer groups, the Sounders and the Reign of the NWSL.

“Elliott Bay on Seattle’s waterfront, it just felt right. Because it is so very Seattle,” said Ashley Fosberg, the muse’s govt director.

For the U.S. recreation, tens of 1000’s more packed the breathtakingly lovely shoreline. Sitting on folding chairs and under moveable awnings or standing on concrete steps and bridges, the group appeared to stretch from the water’s edge to the horizon. When the Americans took an early lead on an own aim from Australia, the group broke into a raucous cheer that gave method to chants of “USA! USA!”

A mile away, inside Lumen Field, the response to Alex Freeman’s aim at the end of the first half produced measurable earth motion, according to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. The gamers felt the shaking — and the assist.

“It’s tough to put it into words,” ahead Folarin Balogun said. “It’s extremely special. It gives us that last bit of motivation to just go out there and really go crazy.”

After the 2-0 win, a victory that despatched the U.S. through to the knockout stage and opened up the chance of a return to Seattle for the spherical of 16, the gamers took a victory lap around the sector as the followers serenaded them with John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” overwhelming the model enjoying on the stadium sound system.

Seattle, the group told the gamers, was the place where they belonged.

“It was just incredible,” said captain Tim Ream, who teared up as he gathered with his teammates afterward. “It’s one of those moments where you’re like, ‘Is this real life?’”

Deputy Sports editor Ed Guzman contributed to this report.