{"id":220901,"date":"2026-06-16T23:32:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T23:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/220901\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T23:32:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T23:32:35","slug":"pennsylvania-warns-world-cup-teams-not-to-fall-victim-to-rocky-statue-curse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/220901\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania warns World Cup teams not to fall victim to Rocky Statue curse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pennsylvania has a warning for any World Cup fans wanting to dress up the Rocky Statue: Don\u2019t do it or risk being cursed.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, Ecuador became the latest sports team to fall victim to what the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DZnjvBNHxNE\/?hl=en&amp;img_index=2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Visit PA Instagram account<\/a> called The Rocky Statue Curse.<\/p>\n<p>Before the game, fans from the South American nation climbed the famous steps and put a yellow jersey on the Rocky Balboa statue outside the Philadelphia Art Museum.\u00a0 The statue was built in 1982 for the third instalment of the Rocky franchise, before being donated to the city by the actor who plays the boxer, Sylvester Stallone.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for them, the same fate as suffered by many before them befell them too \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7357556\/2026\/06\/14\/yan-diomande-world-cup-ivory-coast\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">they lost<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A number of NFL fans have fallen foul of the curse, including the Minnesota Vikings in 2018, the New England Patriots before Super Bowl LII in the same year, and the San Francisco 49ers in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>All went on to watch their teams lose.<\/p>\n<p>With Philadelphia hosting five further games at the World Cup, Visit Pennsylvania has offered some words of warning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo the delegations of Brazil, Haiti, France, Iraq, Cura\u00e7ao, Croatia, and Ghana: Pennsylvania welcomes you warmly and wishes you the best of luck in your upcoming World Cup matches in Philadelphia,\u201d a post on Instagram read.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs good hosts, we\u2019d like to share some information about a well-documented phenomenon in Philly: The Rocky Statue Curse\u2122.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe regret this communication was not shared before last weekend but, here we are.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCountless football teams (as in, American Football, not F\u00fatbol \u2014 same curse, different sport) have all dressed the Rocky Statue in their colors and gone on to lose. Ecuador dressed Rocky last weekend. Coincidence? Sadly, history says no.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPhiladelphia can\u2019t wait to host you! (but Rocky does not need your kit).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lincoln Financial Field next hosts Brazil vs. Haiti on Friday and the message is clear: Don\u2019t put your team\u2019s colors on the Rocky Statue.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania has a warning for any World Cup fans wanting to dress up the Rocky Statue: Don\u2019t do&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[20405,95552,6033,95562,13971,29922,2395,55610,14714,68910,28,30,29,4538],"class_list":["post-220901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-brazil","tag-croatia","tag-culture","tag-curacao","tag-ecuador","tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","tag-france","tag-ghana","tag-haiti","tag-iraq","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-philadelphia-eagles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}