Whatever you thought the World Cup coming to North America would look like, multiply it by 10 and add bucket hats. Boston has been overrun by Norwegians, Kansas City is bracing for Algerians, and somewhere in a parking lot two countries that share an ocean and not much else are bonding over red Solo cups. This is the tournament we were promised.
Norway fans in full kit and Viking helmets flooding a Boston transit station ahead of the Norway-Iraq fixture.
The Norwegians have completely taken the city. They are riding escalators like longboats, sliding down handrails in a single-file rowing formation through TD Garden, and generally treating Boston like it owes them money. Massachusetts has historically belonged to the Tartan Army during any major international event — the Scots are already deep into their Coogan's-and-Nantucket tour — but the Viking Row showed up and immediately made it a fight for the soul of the region.
The actual Viking Row in motion: a chain of Norway supporters rowing down the escalator handrail at TD Garden.
Meanwhile, in the most wholesome sentence ever typed about a soccer tournament, Ivory Coast and Ecuador fans are tailgating together. Yellow jerseys, orange jerseys, one folding table, and a flip cup game that did more for international relations than any UN summit in the last decade. This is exactly the cross-continental fan camaraderie people were begging the tournament to deliver, and it took about 12 hours of group play to materialize in a parking garage.
Ecuador and Ivory Coast supporters running an impromptu flip cup tournament under a parking deck.
Not everyone is feeling the love though. Mauricio Pochettino, fresh off watching American fans show up for everyone except their own national team, took a shot at the entire American sports model — arguing that our leagues reward losers because there is no relegation and franchises just fire the coach and move on. He's not wrong, and he picked a hell of a week to say it out loud, with foreign supporters showing what actual stakes-based fandom looks like in real time.
The Macrodosing crew has already declared this thing should live in North America forever, and PFT Commenter went as far as calling it the best country in the world to host. After watching Norwegians row through Boston and Ecuadorians teach Ivorians the finer points of flip cup, it's hard to argue. The Tartan Army has competition, Pochettino has notes, and the rest of us are just along for the ride.