Did the World Cup deliver?<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThe fact that the city was able to just keep up, that was really awesome to see,\u201d Carranza said. \u201cEverybody was buzzing about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2026 FIFA World Cup kicked off June 11 \u2014 nearly seven weeks ago \u2014 in Mexico City with Houston\u2019s first match coming three days later on June 14. Six more matches followed, including two games featuring global superstar Cristiano Ronaldo and a fantastic knockout stage match between Brazil and Japan.<\/p>\n
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But the matches were only part of the equation in Houston. Restaurants, parks and organizations held watch parties across the region. Metro ran increased service. EaDo, thanks to FIFA Fan Fest, Shell Energy Stadium and its collection of sports bars, became a hub for fans.<\/p>\n
Brittany McDonald, a 28-year-old attorney who lives in the neighborhood, attended World Cup fan experiences in Europe during the 2018 World Cup. Houston\u2019s festivities were very similar to those, she noted, just more American.<\/p>\n
She expected traffic to be really bad in the EaDo throughout the tournament but that wasn’t her experience. In fact, she said it has been convenient having so much activity near her home.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don’t expect having this kind of experience in your backyard,\u201d McDonald said.<\/p>\n
Diego Zegarra waited in line for around three hours Sunday for one last FIFA Fan Fest day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The festival was one of only a few around the country that had been scheduled to be open every matchday of the tournament, although Houston\u2019s World Cup host committee canceled or partially canceled a few days due to weather.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zegarra, 34, said what will stick with him the most from the World Cup is watching people come to Houston and getting a new perspective about what the U.S. is about.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was always a happy environment,\u201d Zegarra said. \u201cSeeing people from all over the world, all cultures, all following one single passion was pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the overall messages from fans were positive, there were some complaints.<\/p>\n
Qais Shaban attended matches at Reliant Stadium, AT&T Stadium in Arlington and SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif.. He said the Houston experience was the worst of the three, saying the process of leaving Reliant Stadium was a \u201cnightmare\u201d compared to the other two stadiums. He also wished Fan Fest had been placed in a different location with less traffic.<\/p>\n
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But even with those critiques, Shaban, 29, still gave Houston\u2019s World Cup experience an eight out of 10.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fans make it a better experience,\u201d Shaban said. \u201cThere’s always something fun going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luis Montoya found himself in a unique position to evaluate the Houston World Cup experience. The 35-year-old moved to the area about a month ago, right in the middle of World Cup fervor, to work on a six-month project.<\/p>\n
It had been a fun month, highlighted by the Mexico matches that brought thousands of fans out to EaDo and other venues across Houston.<\/p>\n
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When asked if his remaining time in the city will be able to live up to his first month in Houston, Montoya was honest.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, probably not,\u201d Montaya said. \u201cDefinitely no.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fans walk around the FIFA Fan Festival as Canada takes on Bosnia and Herzegovina during the FIFA World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-380647","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\/380647","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=380647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}