Yanet Flores just had to catch the Colombia game before her shift as a home health aide. Never mind the rain, which showed up more often than hydration breaks while she and others huddled outside Raices Colombianas restaurant in Jackson Heights. Or that the bulky security guard on duty at the packed watch party blocked her view every few minutes.
Flores is Ecuadorian, but who won the July 7 games mattered less to her than the fact that two Latin American countries, Colombia and Argentina, were still in the tournament. Even after Colombia fell to Switzerland in a penalty shootout, Argentina gave her hope that a team from the region could still win it all.
And there was another victory, one that was less subject to penalty kicks or bad calls: “There’s been a tremendous sense of unity” among Latinos watching the games, Flores said in Spanish, even when their teams didn’t reach the knockout stage or even qualify for the World Cup.
That feeling was echoed by 16-year-old Felipe Rodríguez, also watching outside Raices alongside his younger brother. He is proudly Colombian, but has seen plenty of non-Colombians cheering for the team throughout the tournament.
“It has brought people together so much because, more than just a country, in this World Cup, fans come together when their teams can’t win — take the Mexicans and the Ecuadorians, for example — and they all find a kind of refuge in the team of another South American country,” Rodríguez said in Spanish.
Assemblymember Catalina Cruz, who immigrated from Colombia as a young girl, has seen this playing out across her district in northwestern Queens. When Mexico lost its Round of 16 match against England, she said, many Mexico fans told Colombia supporters that Colombia now also needed to represent them – and win.
That sharing of allegiances “has reminded me of the heart and love that inspires the Latino community in Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and Corona to be who we are,” Cruz told Epicenter NYC.
She said the atmosphere felt different from how it did during the 2022 World Cup. “I don’t know that we had an understanding of the political surroundings that were about to overtake our country, with everything that has happened under Trump 2.0,” she said. “There was a piece missing out of the heart of our community.”
But she said that this year, the games and their new context “kind of brought back this amazing feeling of unity, of supporting each other.”
Finding inspiration in other countries’ teams
Youth sports organizations are also seeing families inspired by national teams and soccer stars outside their own heritage or nationality.
Yokasta Espaillat, executive director of nonprofit Iconic Sports Lab, said that while the Dominican Republic didn’t make the World Cup, Rubén Vargas, a winger on the Swiss team whose dad is from the island, gave Dominican Americans someone to cheer for.
This year’s tournament has been especially rich in underdogs, like Curaçao and Cabo Verde, which was barely bested by Argentina in the knockout round, thanks to FIFA’s expansion of the number of countries that could qualify. Even as she wishes that ticket prices to live matches were more accessible to more people, Espaillat said the underdog stories, and the energy of the New York metropolitan area being a host site, have united neighbors. Those stories may have had an even greater impact on people with no direct ties to a team still in contention.
While Iconic Sports Lab serves a diverse population largely based in Queens, the majority are of Central and South American descent. Many have grown up watching Lionel Messi or hearing about his accomplishments. Messi has the largest following among Iconic Sports Lab participants, including many who are not Argentine, Espaillat said. She also sees this to some degree with Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo.
Common ground among controversies
The soccer icons have united Ronaldo and Messi fans even as they debated whether the stars received special treatment or whether controversial calls favored Argentina — such as a foul in the Egypt-Argentina match that led to one of Egypt’s goals being disallowed.
Despite rivalries and conspiracy theories surrounding the tournament, the program’s athletes kept trading stories and World Cup cards featuring their favorite players.
“Watching Messi and Ronaldo, hearing their stories, seeing Cabo Verde — it’s very important to see all the different inspirational stories that come out of the World Cup,” Espaillat said. The noise around the tournament, she said, hasn’t overshadowed participants’ sense of being part of something greater.
