{"id":361254,"date":"2026-07-04T19:25:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T19:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/361254\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T19:25:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T19:25:24","slug":"houston-we-have-a-special-soccer-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/361254\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston, we have a special Soccer City"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON \u2013 Years from now, Houstonians will talk about their favorite memories of the 2026 World Cup<\/a>, especially the seven-game schedule at Houston Stadium<\/a>. From the time Germany kicked off against Cura\u00e7ao on June 4 through to Morocco\u2019s Azzedine Ounahi\u2019s brace on the Fourth of July, the Bayou City was treated to the best of the Beautiful Game. <\/p>\n

Equally important, Houston showed the world that the Bayou City indeed is one of North America\u2019s most passionate, knowledgeable and appreciative soccer cities. Few who danced and chanted their way from Rice University to NRG Park behind the Netherlands\u2019 Oranje Bus<\/a> two weeks ago will ever forget that fan walk.<\/p>\n

The roar of Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s <\/a>\u201cSiuuuuuuuu\u201d will echo in the minds of the fans who saw the Portugal legend play twice at Houston Stadium. It seems so long ago that Germany and tiny Cura\u00e7ao played the first World Cup match ever held in Houston on June 14, but indeed lots of soccer greatness has been seen in the Bayou City since that game.<\/p>\n

Azzedine Ounahi lights Morocco\u2019s fireworks<\/p>\n

Mighty Brazil advanced to the Round of 16 with a victory over Japan here. And on a glorious Fourth of July, Ounahi delivered a brace to help Morocco beat Canada 3-0 before a sellout crowd of 68,777 to advance to the Last 8 of the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Morocco\u2019s victory marked the end of Houston Stadium\u2019s seven-game World Cup schedule, which included appearances by World Cup heavyweights Brazil, Germany and the Netherlands and minnows such as Cape Verde and Cura\u00e7ao.<\/p>\n

Cape Verde, the feel-good story of the 2026 World Cup, made history in Houston by becoming the smallest nation to ever qualify to the knockout stage when the Blue Sharks tied Saudi Arabia to earn their shot at defending champion Argentina.<\/p>\n

The Blue Sharks won the soccer world\u2019s hearts in Miami during a thrilling 3-2 loss to Argentina on July 3, validating what Houston fans saw a week earlier. Houston extended warm welcomes from June 14 to July 4 to regular fans or influencers such as Freddy<\/a> of Germany or Ronaldo superfan IShowSpeed. Even international and national soccer media got a treat at Houston Stadium.<\/p>\n

More from Our Esquina<\/p>\n

James Rodriguez catches World Cup fever from wife Marbella<\/a><\/p>\n

Suite life \u2013 Benny Agosto ready for World Cup in Houston<\/a><\/p>\n

Oranje Bus fan walk brings Houston, Netherlands together<\/a><\/p>\n

Houston Stadium was one of only two of the World Cup\u2019s 16 match venues in Canada, Mexico and the United States to provide complimentary meals to the media. Atlanta Stadium was the other.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After finding out that FIFA wasn\u2019t providing complimentary pregame meals to the media, Houston First Corporation president Michael Heckman worked with FIFA to provide the meals, garnering Houston positive media from Dallas to Japan, Brazil and around the world over the final five matches at Houston Stadium.<\/p>\n

Houston is accustomed to playing host to major sporting events, including the World Series, Super Bowl, MLB All-Star Game, NCAA Final Four and international soccer matches. Since Mexico played the United States at Reliant Stadium in 2003, the home of the Houston Texans and Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has played host to sellout or near sellout crowds for major international soccer matches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sellouts gallore<\/p>\n

All but one of the seven World Cup matches at Houston Stadium were declared sellouts. A short drive away in Houston\u2019s East End, the official FIFA World Cup Fan Festival has constantly filled to capacity.<\/p>\n

Shell Energy Stadium, the home of the Houston Dynamo FC and Houston Dash, also has drawn crowds in excess of 20,000 fans for watch parties for Mexican national team World Cup games. Sunday night should be no different.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It took a while Saturday afternoon, but Morocco delivered beautiful soccer in the second half to awaken the crowd and prompt, \u201cOle, ole, ole! Ole! Ole!\u201d chants after Ounahi\u2019s second goal of the match in the 82nd match.<\/p>\n

With a beautiful Cruyff Turn inside the right side of the 18-yard box, Brahim Diaz created the space he needed to deliver the ball to Ounahi. It was the perfect play to capture Houston\u2019s portion of the 2026 World Cup, beautiful soccer worthy of one of America\u2019s great soccer cities. <\/p>\n

\"Padilla<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2013 Years from now, Houstonians will talk about their favorite memories of the 2026 World Cup, especially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[128284,18790,128285,69969,56,58,57,107698,10694,120146,3692],"class_list":["post-361254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-azzedine-ounahi","tag-canada","tag-crisitiano-ronaldo","tag-germany","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-morocco","tag-portugal","tag-the-netherlands","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361254","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=361254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}