SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Scranton\u2019s Courthouse Square turned into a World Cup fan zone this weekend, drawing crowds for food, games and a watch party as crowds watched the various scheduled world cup games.<\/p>\n
Scranton is one of three World Cup fan zone cities in Pennsylvania, and fans showed up despite sketchy weather, repping their teams and taking part in activities and events around the square.<\/p>\n
\u201cSoccer\u2019s something big to us Brazilians, and to have this fan zone is such an amazing thing like to enjoy and it\u2019s great. It\u2019s great,\u201d said Anderson Silva, a Team Brazil fan.<\/p>\n
For organizers, who planned the events and activities around the square for months, it was a clean sheet shutout.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like Soccer, it\u2019s a team effort,” said Terry Deitz, vice president and general manager of Rock 107 and an event planner You know, so everybody came out. Nothing but positive, positive comments about how the square looks, everybody having a great time, a true family atmosphere. You know, we couldn\u2019t ask for anything better than the cooperation between the city, the county, and all the entities it\u2019s been amazing.”<\/p>\n
Attendees of all ages, and all fandoms, said the fan zone offered lots to do and was a great way for the community to come together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love this. I love this watch party. There\u2019s so much stuff to do here,\u201d said 13-year-old Quinn Namlick who had just finished playing an inflatable shootout game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is amazing,” said long time soccer lover Kevin Weber. “I never expected to actually have like a soccer presence or world cup presence in Scranton or Pennsylvania or America to begin with.”<\/p>\n
Christian Quintana, a Scranton native who came with his friends to cheer on Mexico said, “I really think it\u2019s awesome and amazing how it\u2019s bringing the community together.”<\/p>\n
Beyond World Cup mania, it was a celebration of the sport, Scranton, and the country\u2019s 250th birthday. <\/p>\n
The world cup has been a worldwide cultural moment to celebrate sport and country \u2013 and after all \u2013 what’s more American than watching a sporting event outside with complete strangers, turned family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Scranton\u2019s Courthouse Square turned into a World Cup fan zone this weekend, drawing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-236380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236380","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=236380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}