Fans arrive before the FIFA World Cup 2026 Group H match between Saudi Arabia and Uruguay at Miami Stadium on Monday.Molly Darlington/Getty Images
Fortune smiled on Francis Jacobs. He lives near Antwerp, and a friend offered him tickets to watch Belgium take on Egypt in Seattle on Monday. At a World Cup where tickets have been hard to get and harder to afford, it was an offer anyone would have found tough to turn down.
“I couldn’t let this opportunity slip,” Mr. Jacobs said as he walked to Lumen Field for the noon game, surrounded by crowds resplendent in national team jerseys. Music pulsed from bars where people drained glasses in the heat before the match. Platoons of fans marched down streets closed to road traffic, singing as they strode past manhole covers painted to look like soccer balls.
But Mr. Jacobs acknowledged that he made the trip here with some trepidation.
“I had my doubts, to be honest,” he said.
”I thought coming into the U.S., in this time and era, it would be a lot more difficult,” he added. “In the back of the mind it’s always like − what’s going on here? From a European perspective, it’s really hard to figure out.”
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When FIFA president Gianni Infantino made his first trip to the White House in 2018, he presented President Donald Trump with a personalized jersey, telling him: ”You are part of the FIFA team now.” The United States is the primary World Cup host, with more games and more stadiums than either Mexico or Canada. The final will be played in New Jersey, capping a landmark tournament.
“We will give joy and happiness to the entire world,” Mr. Infantino promised last year.
But the tournament has arrived at a moment when the world has rarely been less happy with the U.S.
Just 11 per cent of Europeans now view it as an ally, while a quarter see it as a rival or adversary, the European Council on Foreign Relations reported last week. Across the Middle East, “Washington is less popular than it has been in years,” Arab Barometer found last year. Its surveys found that fewer than a fifth of Egyptians hold favourable opinions of the U.S., while roughly half favour Iran and Russia and some two-thirds think highly of China.
Mr. Trump’s efforts to expedite deportations and restrict travel from numerous countries, many of them in Africa or with large Muslim populations, have further dimmed public opinion.
Fans watch the World Cup Group H match between Spain and Cape Verde in Atlanta, on Monday.Erik S. Lesser/The Associated Press
“It leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you see the news that someone is stopped at the border, someone has been in detention for several hours,” said Mahmoud Abo El Rokab, a soccer commentator with ON Sport Network, the largest sports channel in Egypt.
He wasn’t about to let it spoil the fun, though.
“We don’t believe the American people are bad people,” he said.
In the Middle East, “we have learned one big lesson: Politics is for politicians,” he added. “Politicians, they always play the game. Sometimes they send rockets, and the next day they shake hands.”
Better, some visiting fans said, just to ignore whatever happens outside the pitch.
”For me it’s about football, and doesn’t matter which country it’s in,” said Francis Paussen, a Belgian soccer fan. The matches could be in “Iran or something like that, it doesn’t matter to me.”
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Yet others found themselves pleasantly surprised by what they found in the U.S., where some airports have created priority immigration lanes for World Cup visitors, and cities such as Seattle have maintained security with armadas of police on bicycles, a friendlier look than the heavily armed immigration officers that have filled news footage. Volunteers who have come from around the world − one a Tunisian who lived in Ukraine before seeking safe haven and opportunity in the U.S. − offer an American story that diverges from the narratives of the Trump administration.
At a moment when U.S. foreign policy has grown more hostile, World Cup visitors have found warmth on American streets.
“I like the friendliness. I like the good vibe, you know,” said Alicia Iannacone, a popular TikTok personality from Egypt.
“Americans haven’t changed,” said Yahia El Awady, an Egyptian medical student going to school in the United Arab Emirates. “They’ve always been welcoming. Maybe even more welcoming now, because the World Cup is happening.”
Indeed, in Seattle, some of the bleakest outlooks on the U.S. were held by locals.
”I don’t think America is the greatest country on Earth any more − if we ever were,” said James Rickard, a veteran who had pasted a sticker of Mr. Trump’s face onto the bottom of a plastic pail, which he struck as a drum during a protest outside the stadium. He stood beside others who held aloft a sign that said: “STOP I.C.E. MURDER.”
But maybe, Mr. Rickard said, the highly visible arrival of visitors from dozens of other countries may have a salutary effect on his own country.
“If more Americans could see people from other countries, hear and interact with them and get to know them as humans, that would be a great thing.”