{"id":224711,"date":"2026-06-22T03:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T03:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/224711\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T03:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T03:51:09","slug":"france-and-iraq-fans-flood-philadelphia-ahead-of-2026-mens-world-cup-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/224711\/","title":{"rendered":"France and Iraq fans flood Philadelphia ahead of 2026 Men&#8217;s World Cup showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art transformed into a sea of Iraqi flags, drums and chants Sunday as fans gathered ahead of the team&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/news\/where-to-watch-fifa-world-cup-in-philadelphia\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">World Cup<\/a> matchup vs. France.<\/p>\n<p>Despite facing one of the tournament&#8217;s highest-ranked teams, Iraqi supporters showed little concern about the challenge ahead.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;France has no chance!&#8221; fan Abdullah Yaqoob said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/news\/weather-in-philadelphia-france-vs-iraq\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">RELATED: Severe storms Monday in Philadelphia region could affect France-Iraq&#8217;s World Cup match<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Many fans said the gathering represented something much deeper than soccer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a little bit bigger than words \u2014 it&#8217;s just very overwhelming. Emotional, nostalgic,&#8221; fan May Ismail said.<\/p>\n<p>Ghazwan Kareem attended the rally on crutches after injuring his calf while playing soccer Friday night. He said he left the emergency room Saturday before making the roughly seven-hour drive from Cleveland to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even if they cut my leg, I will be here, and I will go to the field tomorrow and be with the Iraq national team,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Across the city in Chinatown, French supporters were equally confident about their team&#8217;s chances.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With respect with Iraq people, but probably we will win with a large score,&#8221; Nicolas Moulin said.<\/p>\n<p>Fellow fan Lucas Lefebvre was even more optimistic.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We will win 5-0 and we will win the World Cup,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Many French fans sported blue jerseys and commemorative berets featuring the 2026 World Cup trophy. Chants of &#8220;Allez les Bleus!&#8221; \u2014 meaning &#8220;Go the Blues!&#8221; \u2014 echoed both outside and inside Lion Sports Bar.<\/p>\n<p>As kickoff approaches, supporters from both nations are making their presence felt across Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art transformed into a sea of Iraqi flags, drums and chants&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2395,68910,69,71,70,645,2236],"class_list":["post-224711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-france","tag-iraq","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-south-philadelphia","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224711","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=224711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}