{"id":344565,"date":"2026-06-21T06:44:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T06:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/344565\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T06:44:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T06:44:41","slug":"20000-fifa-fans-march-to-houston-stadium-for-netherlands-sweden-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/344565\/","title":{"rendered":"20,000 FIFA fans march to Houston stadium for Netherlands-Sweden match"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sweden\u2019s fans numbered between 4,000 and 6,000, according to the Houston Police Department, while there were at least 15,000 at the Netherlands march, the Dutch federation estimated.<\/p>\n

Netherlands fans formed a sea of orange as they headed toward NRG Stadium, known as Houston Stadium during the World Cup,\u00a0from Rice University\u2019s campus at 8:45 a.m. to cheer on the Oranje in the Group F battle.<\/p>\n

The Oranje Fanwalk,\u00a0 <\/a>a Dutch tradition in which throngs of fans march behind the orange-painted, double-decker \u201cOranje Bus,\u201d was so large that it stalled traffic at\u00a0Greenbriar Drive and Braeswood Boulevard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A parallel march for Sweden\u2019s fans set off from\u00a0TMC Helix Park at 9:30 a.m. after blue- and yellow-clad fans enjoyed a breakfast of brisket and\u00a0Jagermeister. Fans chanted \u201cForward, Sweden!\u201d as they marched.<\/p>\n

With a heat advisory in place<\/a>, both teams’ fans contended with high humidity and feels-like temperatures above 85 degrees. Some pressed cold water bottles to their faces, while during the Oranje Walk, a fire truck doused marchers with water.<\/p>\n

Staff writers Peter Warren, Naina Srivastava and Kathleen Ortiz contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sweden\u2019s fans numbered between 4,000 and 6,000, according to the Houston Police Department, while there were at least…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-344565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}