The United States Men’s National Team fell to Belgium 4-1 Monday, ending their run in the World Cup bracket. Fans gathered at Fairplay in North Park to watch the match together, packing the venue to standing room only.<\/p>\n
Belgium scored 4 goals to the United States’ 1, eliminating the Americans from quarterfinal contention.<\/p>\n
Despite the loss, fans remained optimistic about the future of U.S. soccer.<\/p>\n
“It’s just, it shows how good the US soccer has come, and, you know, we’re only going to get better, so, you know, next World Cup we’ll be there,” one fan said.<\/p>\n
Others acknowledged the team’s shortcomings on the field.<\/p>\n
“I mean, we made some mistakes out there. I think we could have been a little more buttoned up,” a fan said.<\/p>\n
With the U.S. out of the running, some fans are already shifting their allegiances.<\/p>\n
“All of North America was wiped, so who are we rooting for? I think I’m gonna root for Norway,” said Lena Scrivanich, an attendee.<\/p>\n
Fairplay owner Adam Cook said the World Cup has been a boost for business, drawing fans from countries around the world throughout the tournament.<\/p>\n
“Every country has had hundreds of fans here, and our staff, the staff, is like on top of things right now,” Cook said.<\/p>\n
Fans said the multicultural atmosphere has been one of the highlights of the tournament.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s been amazing seeing everyone come together. You’ve got a mix of personalities and cultures and all the bars and everywhere in the city,” one fan said.<\/p>\n
Even fans who traveled from Finland said the experience made the trip worthwhile.<\/p>\n
“It’s amazing, I love it here. I can’t like stop smiling when I’m here,” said Liisa Alto.<\/p>\n
World Cup action continues, and Fairplay will host watch parties Tuesday for Argentina vs. Egypt and Switzerland vs. Colombia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States Men’s National Team fell to Belgium 4-1 Monday, ending their run in the World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75,1083,1181,3366,5393],"class_list":["post-388881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-soccer","tag-us","tag-usmnt","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}