For this proud N.J. city — and its immigrants — World Cup arrival is cause for celebration
· Yahoo Sports
Fayez Ghabour, the 69-year-old owner of E & F Food Market on Bergen Avenue in Jersey City, eyed replica jerseys that dangled from the blue awning in front of his shop shortly after 3 p.m. on Saturday.
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The jerseys were emblazoned with some of soccer’s biggest names – Ronaldo, Salah, Marmoush – and on sale for $15. Three Moroccan immigrants bought their homeland’s national team jerseys as they readied to watch their World Cup opener against Brazil eight miles away in the Meadowlands.
“I love the soccer!” Ghabour said. “I sold out all 25 Brazil shirts in five minutes. I have $5,000 order of more coming tomorrow.”
Ghabour grew up playing soccer in Egypt but migrated to America 45 years ago. He has owned his shop in this working-class neighborhood for 40 years. Most days, he awakes at 4:30 a.m. to watch soccer matches from across the world on television. He has also coached at Saint Mina Coptic Orthodox Church.
“I can’t play anymore,” he said. “If I do, I get heart attack! So I watch.”
On a day when temperatures surged nearly triple digits, the World Cup finally arrived in New Jersey. After years of planning fan fests, celebrations and safety measures, the 39-day commemoration of soccer in America that will culminate with the championship match in New Jersey began. In the state’s most diverse city, the World Cup was greeted with patriotic displays, firecrackers and broadcasters’ play-by-play calls audible over the din of food truck generators.
“We’re all going to embrace the global game,” Jersey City Mayor James Solomon said at a gathering.
It was a ceaseless day of soccer in a city where the game is played year-round, indoors and outdoors, across a collection of immigrant enclaves where lampposts bear warnings of what to do in the case of Immigration and Custom Enforcement sweeps. At 8 a.m., grownups slipped on neon pinnies for their weekly game inside Martucci Field on West Side Avenue. At Gateway Field downtown, children played organized games beneath the CSX train’s elevated tracks. At 10:05 a.m., the Jersey City Schools Superintendent sent an email to students’ parents in New Jersey’s second largest city to alert them that kids would only have a half day on Tuesday due to expected traffic congestion in the area when France faces Senegal at 3 p.m. in the Meadowlands.
Most knew they would be watching the spectacle from afar, be it in a bar or at home due to the exorbitant get-in prices at stadiums. But criticisms of dynamic ticket pricing and performative politics yielded to debates of the on-field matchup between Brazil, the five-time World Cup champions, and Morocco, which surged to the semifinals at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. When Morocco’s Ismael Saibari started the scoring in the 21st minute, their supporters celebrated on side streets as Middle Eastern elders drew from cigarettes. When Brazil star Vinícius Júnior netted an equalizer 11 minutes later, his compatriots roared back.
Timothy Choe, 30, and his girlfriend, Aniya Ahmed, went on a soccer date to Liberty State Park Saturday afternoon.Kevin Armstrong | NJ.comLoyalties were tested. At Zeppelin Hall Biergarten, Brazilian fans paraded through in canary yellow jerseys, but it was Jason Leary, a 48-year-old, who stood out. He wore a blue Brazilian shirt as he sat on a barstool and when friends greeted him, they asked whether his wife, Kaline, and 8-year-old daughter, Isabella, were with him. They were not, he explained. Instead, they were at the Brazil-Morocco game in person. Kaline’s sister, Ianne, had flown up to New Jersey from Brazil and bought four tickets. Leary planned to attend him with them until the NBA Finals reached Game 5. After waiting his entire life to see a Knicks championship, he gave up his World Cup seat to ensure that he would be in front of the projector screen at Zeppelin Hall and not rushing back on a NJ Transit train while the Knicks sought to close out their first NBA title in 53 years.
“My wife wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t missing the Knicks,” he said. “I’ve waited 40 years!”
Just over the marina, Liberty State Park had originally been deemed the main congregation point for game watches when Gov. Phil Murphy was in office. Nearly two dozen screens were going to show matches with up to 45,000 spectators watching them behind the Statue of Liberty. But logistical concerns grew as Gov. Mikie Sherrill took office, and that entire plan was scrapped in favor of fan-zone experiences throughout the state instead of one locale.
On Saturday, soccer fans still flocked to the park. Children wearing Mbappe and Messi jerseys raced across the grass by the pathway to Ellis Island. Timothy Choe, 30, bought a Team USA ball at CVS, and brought his girlfriend, Aniya Ahmmed, 26. They dribbled and kicked back and forth, closing in to challenge each other at times. Choe surveyed the scene, noting that it was probably best that the fan fest had been moved off site given the logistical hurdles because the scale was “too daunting.”
“This is the first time I touched a ball in quite some time,” he said. “The World Cup brought it out of me.”
As day finally cooled into night, Brazil and Morocco concluded their duel in a tie, 1-1. To mark the end of the match, a gaggle of boys gathered on Bergen Avenue at 8:11 p.m. and set off firecrackers. Men and women in Brazilian and Moroccan jerseys made their way back toward their apartment buildings, exchanging fist bumps as they crossed paths.
Hafid Guermad, 39, immigrated to the U.S. from Morocco when he was 21. He wore a red Morocco jersey and wore Airpods as he listened to analysis of the game. He envisioned another deep run into the World Cup.
“Just the start,” he said.
The owners of Crema, a coffee shop in the McGinley Square section of Jersey City, added a World Cup trophy to their outdoor decorations.Kevin Armstrong | NJ.comRead the original article on NJ.com. Add NJ.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here.