One of the TVs installed in the restaurant of the Renaissance hotel, in Phoenix (USA), was even tuned in to the game between Portugal and Switzerland, but practically no one was looking at it.
While the Portuguese scored one of the biggest defeats of the World Cup in Qatar (6-1) in the round of 16, the fans were more interested in other devices in the environment, which showed reruns of MMA fights, golf debates and game presentations of the day in the NBA, the North American basketball league.
Host of the next World Cup, in 2026, shared with Mexico and Canada, the US still seems to be far from joining football, or soccer, at least in Arizona, where the Sheet heard locals and saw nothing allusive to the world. But there are signs of breathing elsewhere.
It is true that the scenario has improved since the country hosted a World Cup for the first time, in 1994, but the obstacles to the growth of the modality include a better soccer selection in Cups and the MLS (Major League Soccer), the main soccer league. country football.
Since then, the best performance of the local team in a Cup was reaching the quarterfinals in 2002, when it lost to Germany (1-0), which would lose the final to Brazil. In 1930, in the first world championship, he reached the semifinals.
“We don’t have a strong team, I don’t even know how it got past the stage,” said analyst William Martinez, explaining the residents’ indifference to the championship.
In the streets, people ignored the Cup. Another ten people approached by the report limited themselves to saying that they were not following the championship and nothing alluding to the competition was seen anywhere.
And this in a state that is on the border with Mexico and that has influence from the neighboring country, which loves football, in its cuisine, for example.
From 1990 to 2014, the USA was in every World Cup, but the absence in 2018 was a blow to the country’s football pretensions.
City that is home to the Suns, a traditional NBA team, Phoenix was more concerned with the team’s confrontation with the Boston Celtics —both then led their conferences in the competition— and with President Joe Biden’s visit to the facilities of a factory under construction in the north from the city.
An investment of US$ 40 billion in the production of semiconductors was announced, one of the main bottlenecks in the industrial sector in the world today, but Biden received criticism from republicans, oppositionists, for going to Arizona for the first time, on the border with Mexico, and not visit the border region.
“I even like [de futebol], but we socialize more with friends watching basketball or the NFL. That’s how I grew up”, said Paul Ross, another who said he felt nothing after his team’s elimination from the Cup.
The US team finished the first phase in second place in group B, with five points, behind only England, with seven. In three games, the team won one and drew two. He only scored two goals, but only conceded one.
In the round of 16, he succumbed to the Netherlands, losing 3-1 on the 3rd, and said goodbye to the Cup.
If there was a commotion somewhere, it didn’t make it to driver Daniel James’ house. “The USA being eliminated is normal, strange is seeing big teams like Germany out.”
In another restaurant, a similar scenario: none of the five TVs were showing news of the competition in the Middle East. One of them was on a podcast about golf.
On a flight between Phoenix and Miami, last Friday (9), few passengers showed reactions to the game between Brazil and Croatia, whose extension began as soon as the plane took off from Sky Harbor, the airport of the largest city in Arizona. To be more precise, maybe just the journalist and two other Brazilians on board, also journalists.
Phoenix was not one of the 11 cities chosen to host games in the next World Cup, which may help explain the lack of interest in the sport, but Miami was, in a bid to attract mainly Latino fans.
The stores with TVs in the departures area of ​​Miami International Airport were full of fans watching the confrontation between Argentina and the Netherlands, on the same day, valid for the quarterfinals of the Cup.
2026 World Cup venues
USA
- Atlanta
- Boston
- Dallas
- Houston
- kansas city
- Los Angeles
- miami
- New York / New Jersey
- Philadelphia
- san francisco
- seattle
Mexico
- Mexico City
- guadalajara
- Monterrey
Canada
Store employees mingled with the fans, mainly Argentineans, but there were other South Americans, including Brazilians.
“Without you [Brasil]the path has become easier,” Argentine Claudio Vazquez told the journalist.
A trader in Minas Gerais, João Corrêa wore a Brazilian national team shirt a few hours after the elimination on penalties against Croatia and said that, despite the defeat, he was satisfied with the team’s performance.
“The hard part now is to bear it,” he said, pointing his finger at two passengers waiting to board a flight wearing shirts from Argentina. “I think it’s their turn, but if not, they’ve already done better than us in recent World Cups. That sends a message to us.”
The USA will have 11 of the 16 host cities for the next Cup: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Kansas City, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami and New York.
The first World Cup hosted in the country, in 1994, somehow helped “soccer”, which today has leagues that attract players like the Welshman Gareth Bale, who played in the Cup. In total, 25 were called up in the initial lists of the national teams that play in the country, distributed in 11 other countries (Ecuador, Argentina, Mexico, Poland, Australia, Costa Rica, Canada, Switzerland, Cameroon and Uruguay, in addition to the USA).
The next one, perhaps, will serve to boost the modality, which until now skates on and off the pitch.
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