Last weekend San Pedro Square hosted the largest football celebration in San Jose history. The organizers did it right this time.
It was only the first weekend of the World Cup. The rest is yet to come, but especially for the Mexico game Thursday, the USA game Friday, or all day long on Saturday for Brazil, anyone would say the whole party brought thousands and thousands, without exaggeration, to the downtown streets. It was the most joyous global party I’ve ever seen in San Jose.
Anyone football literate already knows it, but this is exactly what happens all over the planet during the World Cup. Last weekend, Qataris in traditional attire danced with people in Mexico shirts. The Swiss drank with the Scots. I saw jerseys from at least 20 different countries, even those not playing in the World Cup, like Vietnam. I saw the most Brazilian cleavage I’d seen in San Jose since 1994. And speaking of Brazilians, thousands of them stayed around San Pedro Square to watch the next two games. It was a real street party, like anywhere in Europe or South America.
For the Mexico game and the Brazil game, in each case, fans filled the entirety of San Pedro Square, from end to end, either sitting or standing up. In the adjacent parking garage, people stood on each floor, looking out through the openings, to watch the games on the gargantuan screen.
Every business on the street was filled to capacity and overflowing, with every place adjusting their outdoor seating, clearing space or scrambling to accommodate all the people, the volume of which had never before happened in San Pedro Square. Surely, every business eclipsed whatever sales records they hit during the Super Bowl, which, by the way, was just one game, not 104 games. At one point during the Brazil match, San Pedro Square Market stopped letting people in because the crowds were too overwhelming. People then waited in line for 30 minutes just to get inside the buildings.
Even after the games, thousands in different soccer jerseys remained and flooded the downtown streets. Younger locals with nothing else to do in San Jose, who might normally just come downtown at nighttime looking for fun, did so again, but wearing a soccer jersey this time. It was glorious to witness.
Now, when I watched the press conferences ahead of time, the folks from the Bay Area Host Committee seemed almost surprised to bestow San Jose with the largest official party and not San Francisco. Or maybe they didn’t think the crowds would really show up. But we’re used to such attitudes. Indeed, in previous years, feeble World Cup gatherings took place in the park, after the Downtown Association threw together embarrassing watch parties with a screen barely larger than what people have at home. It was a joke.
This time it was different. With several hundred thousand more to work with, the Earthquakes, the Bay Area Host Committee, the San Jose Sports Authority and others pulled out all the stops. People came from far and wide. It was a joy to hang around a real World Cup party in the streets, just like I’ve seen more than once in various European cities. I say this because everyone knows that during the World Cup, the street parties are often more fun than being at the actual games.
Such was the case here too. The first match at Levi’s—er, I mean “San Francisco Bay Area Stadium”—was fun, although as one of the privileged 60 or so in the press box, I was not one of the 60,000-plus who paid for the grotesquely overpriced tickets to sit in the concussive sun. Was the experience worth $2,000? Or even $1,000? I don’t think so.
As with every World Cup, there is much to disappoint besides the ticket prices. Blatant FIFA corruption. Crass commercialization. Violent MAGA racists and their immigration policies ruining the tourism industry.
Soccer is supposed to be the world’s game. A global street-level culture that unites everybody everywhere, especially the regular working people who were priced out of these games.
So that’s where I will spend most of my time over the next few weeks. See you at the parties.
