{"id":77937,"date":"2025-12-05T23:46:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T23:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/77937\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T23:46:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T23:46:09","slug":"world-cup-draw-party-brings-global-fans-to-billy-bobs-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/77937\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup Draw Party Brings Global Fans to Billy Bob\u2019s Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday night’s main draw at Billy Bob’s Texas is a fellow named Sam Barber.<\/p>\n

“A Tik Tok guy,” someone in the know growls at\u00a0me. “But it’s sold out.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, the opening act featured the world\u2019s best sports fanatics and another kind of draw.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s decked out in full-on, over-the-top Azzurri fan gear \u2014 a bright blue Italy national team jersey, jeans cuffed just so, and solid green boots that complete the Italian-flag color scheme.<\/p>\n

Around his neck, he\u2019s sporting a red-white-and-blue scarf, and the centerpiece is a gloriously loud tri-color hat stacked like a festive tower: red brim, white middle, green top, crowned with a little soccer ball for good measure.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s holding a beer that was sponsored \u2014 that is, paid for \u2014 by a fan of the Mexican National Team.<\/p>\n

In my best Italian that I do not possess, I ask him from which part of The Boot he is from.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m from Dallas,\u201d Mark Pesina says to me.<\/p>\n

Like, Dallas, Texas?<\/p>\n

\u201cYup. I grew up right down the street from St. Paul Hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was there no party over there?<\/p>\n

\u201cNot really,\u201d Pesina says. \u201cThey had something going on, I think, at small bars, but not like this. Not this.\u201d<\/p>\n

FIFA World Cup 2026 began on Friday, and this was a draw party at the World\u2019s Largest Honky Tonk. To the uninitiated, the draw is seemingly second to the game itself. Several hundred \u2014 maybe a thousand-plus \u2014 showed up to watch the drawing live.<\/p>\n

The 12 groups of four that will comprise the largest World Cup in history were revealed Friday during a draw ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump was in attendance, no doubt declaring that this World Cup \u2014 hosted by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico \u2014 will be like nothing anyone has ever seen before.<\/p>\n

The World Cup<\/a> will be played June 11-July 19. Dallas-Fort Worth is poised to enjoy a piece of the forecast $30 billion economic impact on the U.S. economy. Up to 10 million international visitors are expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A substitute was called in to cover Rene Rosales\u2019 classes in Everman, where he is a physical education teacher. Rosales took the day off just to do this. He was born in Mexico and is now a citizen of the U.S. So, too, is his friend Oscar Polanco, a native of Peru.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe migrated in the seventies and eighties,\u201d Rosales says. \u201cWe became citizens, and we love this city.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a great atmosphere,\u201d he says of the party. \u201cIt\u2019s awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

The draw, Rosales instructs, is where the most important soccer \u2014 err, futbol \u2014 pastime begins: gambling.<\/p>\n

I beg him to tell me because, well, my favorite pastime is blowing money.<\/p>\n

Two out of every group move on to bracket play. \u201cFor at least the last 10 World Cups, every host country has come out of their groups,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The way I understand it, it\u2019ll be tantamount to turning water into wine if the Americans can make it out of their Group D with Paraguay, Australia, and the winner of a playoff.<\/p>\n

Pesina\u2019s Italy crew, which has not qualified for the past two World Cups, must navigate a playoff to get in this year\u2019s. The Italians, four-time World Cup champions, face Northern Ireland in a playoff semifinal match on March 26. If they win, the Azzurri will play either Wales or Bosnia and Herzegovina in a final on March 31.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bought the tickets [for the draw party] right after I found out about it,\u201d Pesina says. \u201cI made sure I took the day off because I didn’t want to show up on TV and I had called in sick.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll find out on Saturday which teams are going where. TCU will be a host site for one of the teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big moment for Fort Worth and TCU,\u201d TCU Athletic Director Mike Buddie says. \u201cIt\u2019s a great opportunity for us to have some of our soccer athletes rub elbows with some of the most talented athletes on the planet.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime you get the opportunity to see the best people on the planet do what they do, it\u2019s really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friday night’s main draw at Billy Bob’s Texas is a fellow named Sam Barber. “A Tik Tok guy,”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[12439,437,116,118,117,92,29003],"class_list":["post-77937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-billy-bob","tag-economic-development","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-top-story","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77937","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=77937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}