The exhilaration of watching the World Cup outside of the US

By happenstance, I ended up watching a number of World Cup games in the city of my birth: Amman, Jordan. I’m not sure if I need to explain this but watching the World Cup in the US, my adopted country, pales in comparison with watching the games in the Middle East, where soccer (or football) is a joyful obsession.

Every minute I spent in Jordan was a reminder that the World Cup was indeed happening and going strong.

Conversations with friends in the past few days revolved mostly around the games’ latest results or involved planning to watch future games.

Every place we went to ran the games live on massive screens, and in many instances, it was hard to converse amid the roars of the spectators, who were mostly cheering for their fellow Arab nation Morroco.

In fact, as I type this, Morroco is playing Croatia, and the result so far is 1:1.

I already have plans to watch the final games with my family. We have already discussed where we will watch it and what kind of food and drinks we plan to get. It will be a memory to savor.