Fans flooded Seattle Center Wednesday night as Team USA took on Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the winner set to return to Seattle to take on Belgium in the Round of 16.
The Armory and the lawn under the Space Needle were packed with people, many wearing Team USA jerseys or patriotic colors. Many were not longtime soccer fans but took up an interest with the games so close to home.
“Get ready. We are on our A-game; you better be on your A-game,” Zak Chitty, a new soccer fan, warned team Bosnia. “It’s called soccer!”
Chitty was a part of the massive celebration after Team USA beat Australia and hoped to be part of an even bigger one next week.
“It’s great to see so many people coming out here and enjoying the sport,” DJ Adams, a longtime soccer fan from Florida who stopped by Seattle to see the World Cup energy, said. “I would not count out Bosnia because obviously it’s a knockout round, but I am looking forward to it. I think we’ve got a good chance, got a good pass away.”
Not everyone supported Team USA, though. In the middle of all the red, white and blue, KIRO 7 spotted a pair of Bosnia fans in blue and yellow: a woman from Bosnia and her boyfriend from Hawaii.
Jovana Paripovic said it’s been great to see her small home country become familiar to so many people in her current home.
“People are getting to understand what Bosnia is, what our country has to offer,” she said. “To see the crowd that it brought together was so special, very surreal.”