march<\/a>ed with horses adorned in lavish materials, amulets and leather, accompanied by tour buses and pickup trucks. Fayzullaev also tapped into the local Uzbek community in Houston to recreate a festive atmosphere reminiscent of pregame celebrations\u00a0in Tashkent or Namangan.\u00a0<\/p>\n“I think it’s pretty amazing. It’s a small community here, but seeing just masses here, it’s so beautiful to see and experience that and see one another again,” Pablo said while in arms with his father. “It’s been awesome because I haven’t been back home in 19, so this is a little taste of home.”<\/p>\n
That taste of home included a long line for catering provided by the tourism committee, which was serving a traditional rice meal called prov. Widely considered the national dish of Uzbekistan, it featured rice, lamb meat, onions, carrots, tomatoes, fresh garlic and a heavy seasoning of cumin and coriander, all cooked in oil or lard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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“This is something mom or dad would make like once a week,” said Umar, a native of Samarkand and a resident of New York City who traveled to Houston for the match.\u00a0“This is really good food. You can always eat it. Every day if you want to.”<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
An Uzbek fan wears a traditional Tubeteika while watching Uzbekistan face Portugal at the FIFA World Cup in Houston.<\/p>\n
TIMUR ISMOILOV\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The event felt like a homecoming of sorts for many, especially Houstonians from Uzbekistan, who are excited to see their culture on full display\u00a0while simply longing for a chance to get back home one day.<\/p>\n
“It’s such a good feeling because there aren’t too many of us here,” said Oisha, a college student in Houston who lives in Sugar Land. “Yesterday when so many Uzbek people came, I didn’t want the night to end, but it’s really exciting, and I’m really happy.”<\/p>\n
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Regardless of how Uzbekistan fares against Portugal and in the rest of the tournament, it’s clear that the cultural exchange of the game has left a mark on many with ties to the country and those who were unfamiliar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Today, there is no Ronaldo. Today, there’s only Uzbekistan,” said Fayzullaev. “Today is perfect.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Uzbekistan supporters wear Tubeteikas and Chapans ahead of their country’s match versus Portugal at the FIFA World Cup.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2466,1703,16469,87172,1704,89282,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-347359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-chronculture","tag-chronfood","tag-chronsports","tag-chronsportsbiz","tag-chronstaff","tag-chronworldcup","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347359","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=347359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}