Seattle World Cup Fever set to reach fever pitch, with watch parties offering glimpse into US-Australia energy

Will June 19, 2026 will go down as the biggest sporting event ever played in the Emerald City in terms of pure traffic and attention? At the very least, it will be up there with the 2013 NFC Championship Game. The only surefire way that it wouldn't is if the USMNT wins Group D and makes it to the Round of 16, in which case they would be playing a second round knockout in Seattle on July 6.

Given that there isn't a way for the US to play England on July 4, perhaps that would be the next best thing. It's entirely possible - it actually may be the most likely matchup, though none of these scenarios break anywhere close to the 50% chance mark - that the US hosts Belgium in Seattle, the city where the latter are training. Belgium's path to the Seattle Round of 16 game is by winning Group G and winning their Round of 32 game, which is conveniently not the same Round of 32 game that the USA plays.

Not that a first-round knockout is a gimme for any team, especially for the USMNT. In order to play in Seattle again, they still have to win their group. This probably means getting a total of four points Australia on Friday (today for most of this article's readers) and Turkey next Thursday.

But that Friday game is most important to Seattle, because that's the one that's scheduled here. The excitement in the city has already been palpable from the watch parties all across town, from big viewing locations to get-togethers of family and friends. The last time the US played against Paraguay, it was a sea of the three familiar colors all across town.

Most of the seats on the northeast end of the Seattle Center Armory had been filled by the time the big screen showed the USMNT walking out to the pitch. There may not be any games in Chicago, but like all teams this World Cup, the sides trotted out to a version of The Alan Parsons Project’s Sirius all the same. The fervor was definite as a cross-section of Seattle and America filled up the building.

“USA” broke out in the Armory soon after Weston McKennie found an in-box deflection off Paraguay’s Damián Bobadilla and the hosts went up 1-0 on the own goal. That chant broke out again when Christian Pulisic set up a beauty of a shot for Folarin Balogun in the 31st, and once more when Balogun secured his brace at the end of the first half. Gio Reyna, in as a sub, drew a final roar in the final minute with an incredible touch into the net.

Like Pier 62, the fans ranged from die-hard to more casual. I talked to one couple consisting of one lifelong fan (Penelope) and one who became a fan later in life (Sam).

Penelope is originally from Mexico, where she became enmeshed in soccer at an early age and stayed with the sport for quite some time.

"It was always part of my life, growing up. My dad's a fan, my grandma's a fan, everybody's a fan in my family," Penelope said. "After that, in school, I actually practiced as a goalie, and I even did a little bit of that in my professional life, too."

Penelope is now a US citizen and married to Sam, who she got to follow the sport more heavily in their adult years together.

I talked with several people at halftime during the game, though the tenor of the conversations took on a sense of near-finality given the score.

"[It's] awesome! They're playing so well, pressing high up the field, finishing's on point, I love it," said a fan named Ram during the break between the halves.

Mark, who was in from Virginia with his son, talked about how much change has gone in in the way people interact with the sport over the past 32 years.

Taking a minute to stop and reflect on this change can give a sense of perspective. After all, a fish doesn't know it's wet, and we are so surrounded by the assumptions of the information age that sometimes we forget how little time has passed since life was very different.

This change has not just been in technology, but in the nature of American soccer. In 1994, the tournament was a way to grow soccer in a country where it had long played third fiddle; in 2026, the USA isn't quite a premier soccer hub - the seeming effortlessness of visiting fans in reinventing the words of their chants while the hosts stick to three familiar letters will perhaps be an instructional sight for the home crowds - but the sport is genuinely popular as more than an amusement. Soccer is widespread as a passion, even if it is only a true major sport in some areas.

Seattle is one of those places, of course, as the city is home to the only MLS team to win every available trophy, all while the academy can produce La Liga-quality talent. These are both aspects of the game Mark highlighted as he talked about the game's American growth over recent decades.

"Soccer has come a really long way in this country in terms of, not only having a domestic league that, it's not one of the top five, but it's probably in the top 10 or 12 leagues in the world," Mark said. "And also just the number of young players that are going overseas to make names for themselves. I mean, you look at two of the most important players so far this half - Christian Pulisic and Chris Richards, those guys went abroad at a young age and that's where they made their craft."

Seattle's own Cristian Roldan will likely make an appearance on Friday, though in what capacity it is yet to be seen. Ram is quite confident in the Sounders' captain abilities.

"He's (Roldan) gonna be solid. He's a solid presence on the field, he's got good leadership skills, he's shown a lot of stuff at the Sounders," Ram said. "I'm sure that translates with the US national team as well."

But the Armory wasn't just home to Sounders supporters. Danielle, a mother from Missouri who was watching the game with her daughter Margot, is a Sporting KC fan. But with the club allegiances on the backburner and the national allegiance in the forefront, Danielle was very much enjoying the environment at Seattle Center.

The people in the Armory had an element of happiness with the team up three goals in the sheds way over in Los Angeles. But these vibes in this place isn't a new thing as people watch the world's game.

"I came here for the World Cup four years ago in the middle of the winter when it was snowing," Danielle said. "And it was such a good environment that we made sure we had to come back for at least one game here."

Perhaps by seeing the Emerald City one time during snow and another time during sun will give Danielle a skewed impression of the city; it's mostly rainy and overcast in these parts (though the World Cup is fortuitously scheduled in our dry season). But I digress.

Though there were many fans with a great many stories to be told, it was of course different from Pier 62. Where the pier was the location of the incredibly passionate, Seattle Center had a slightly more laid-back atmosphere. There was still, of course, intense passion and support, but there was surely a difference in level. It wasn't full to the degree that a fan would have to show up hours early, rather, it allowed for a fan to walk around Seattle Center to experience the summer day before going into the Armory building.

It offered the same sense of community and excitement and hope as the pier, of course, just in a different vessel.

Celebrating a sports team's win brings hope in and of itself, but perhaps that hope shone into our fraught and sometimes bleak real lives for a few moments during that game. The world's game has grown in America like many other things through the contributions of immigrants, a fact that hangs in uneasy-at-best tension with our current moment.

Contrast the referee Omar Artan experiencing unexplained expulsion with the legions of fans experiencing enthusiastic embrace, for example. There are of course far more people in far more dire situations than Artan as a result of awful decisions and attitudes, yet there are human stories yet more hopeful and inspiring even through that darkness.

Or maybe that's just my World Cup-addled brain putting a rosy spin on things. That is the sense, however, that one gets from these events all around Seattle and all over the continent, that the sport (and its ability to bring us together, like, physically put us all in common spaces) naturally inclines us to see the good in our neighbors. Or at least when your team is winning.

Penelope talked about the multicultural aspect of American soccer.

And indeed, the crowd had about as many different types of Americans as there were individuals among them.

What wasn't anywhere to be seen last week, however, was a Paraguay fan. I wish I had found at least one at Seattle Center and gotten their thoughts on things; even in the opening match at Pier 62, there were a few scattered South Africa fans among the Mexican green (by the way, the Mexican kits are the best among the three hosts. I don't make the rules. My favorite color is also green, so maybe I do.)

It won't be nearly as hard to find Aussies milling around the city this Friday, with the green and gold kits easily spotted at Mariners games and various bars and public areas in the week leading up to the Seattle game.

Still jubilant from a 2-0 stunner against Turkey, the Socceroos are a much different style of team than Paraguay. Built on solid defense, speedy counterattacks, and above all else, an ironclad team cohesion, they threaten to be far more able to take advantage of the giveaways or missed plays that the USMNT easily weathered against Paraguay.

But the US put in a full-team effort last Friday and they very well could do it again this Friday. One can see how things were spread out by how many different responses I got to the MOTM question; now, I asked some people at halftime and others at fulltime, but much of the deciding action had already taken place 45 minutes in.

"It's gotta be Balogun. I mean, obvious," Ram said, naming the two-time goal-scorer in the first half. Penelope also gave Balogun as her top player for the game, and given he was the FotMob MOTM, they're probably both right in the strictest sense.

Mark, as above, mentioned Pulisic and Richards, while Danielle brought up Sergiño Dest and Weston McKinney. All four of these players ended the match with FotMob ratings of seven or above.

Each World Cup matchday proper in Seattle - that is, the games when two sides are playing in Lumen Field/Seattle Stadium - will draw plenty of people from outside the city and outside the country as the infrastructure is pushed to its limits and the downtown bars fill up with patrons. Nearly all of these added people are here for the soccer first and foremost, but there are always compounding factors.

Take Mark's son Patrick, for example, whose rather unique profession as a glassblower was an extra (and decisive) draw to the city thanks to the Chihuly Garden & Glass museum.

All-in-all, the father-son duo were very pleased with their trip across the continent to the West Coast.

"I think in Seattle, and I'm not surprised, people are very open and welcoming," Mark said. "They've done a good job in terms of people pointing us in the right direction at the airport and on the light rail and riding on the bus over here."

Those logistical networks will face their biggest test this Friday, with myriad scores upon myriad scores of fans ready to see a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

And the environment at the game itself will be a little bit like the Armory in that there will be many excited USA fans, but at the same time, it will be nothing alike an easygoing watch party for a game all the way down the West Coast. What it will be like, in full, is something that will have to be experienced to be described.