The scenes over the past month have been indelible.
The flag-wearing in packed parks and chanting in sweaty bars. The orange traffic cones atop statues of George Washington and Bill Russell. The dancing in the streets despite bouts of blistering heat.
Even — remarkably — the late-night fun.
The World Cup in Greater Boston has been everything organizers and soccer fans had hoped for. Seven games at Gillette Stadium, the last of which was Thursday, made the region a hub for immense joy and inclusiveness for people across the globe. More simply, it put Boston — long known as a "sleepy" city — on the map internationally, as trite as that sounds. Just ask the Scots.
Even locals initially apprehensive about how the event would go have been pleasantly surprised.
"We're not considered a fun place. Usually people consider that we're kind of cold and not very welcoming," said Casey Leonard of East Boston. "We showed the opposite, embracing the fans."
Leonard said she's always been passionate about soccer, so watching the World Cup is nothing novel for her. What has been new is the way she and her family have celebrated the tournament locally over the past couple weeks.
They co-hosted two watch parties in their neighborhood, bringing together more than a hundred fans. Everyone snacked on pizza and chips as they watched the matches using a projector and a big white sheet.
"We did not get a permit, so we thought maybe we'd get shut down," Leonard said, laughing. "But we decided just to do it anyway. And way more people showed up than I thought would, and it was so much fun. Everybody was really excited."
Even relative newcomers to the sport couldn't avoid the contagiousness of the World Cup.
For Justin Cardarelli of Medford, FIFA video games and a few New England Revolution matches over the years have been the extent of his more recent experiences with soccer. Until now.
He and his wife, their infant daughter in tow, were among more than 100,000 people who visited the rollicking FIFA Fan Fest on Boston's City Hall Plaza.
"Having this tournament here has been great just to kind of introduce it and see how popular it is with everybody else," Cardarelli said. "Really makes you kind of understand the popularity of the sport."
The games in Foxborough themselves have been entertaining, too. Especially the scoreless draw between Ghana and England, which sent Ghanaians across Massachusetts into a state of euphoria. Gillette Stadium was also one of the few places fans have been able to see generational superstars Kylian Mbappé of France and Erling Haaland of Norway up close.
Of course, there've been the more frustrating — dare I say outlandish — aspects about the World Cup in Boston. The $1,000 tickets to watch the games at Gillette, which thankfully we no longer have to call "Boston Stadium." The pricier Commuter Rail rides from South Station, even though the train service did operate smoothly.
All the while, federal immigration detentions have risen across the state even as many immigrants hoped the World Cup would serve as a brief reprieve from the fear they've lived with for the past year and a half.
For so many locals who've made the United States their adopted home, though, the tournament has been a rare opportunity for their respective diasporas to come together in celebration.
On gamedays, Everett turned into a slice of Rio De Janeiro. Town Field in Dorchester looked more like parks in Praia, Cabo Verde. In Worcester, local Ghanaians took over Worcester Common for the England match, dancing and singing traditional hymns as they celebrated the draw against their former colonizer.
"When I come here, I get to see other Ghanaians around. It feels like home," Philip Soglo said at the Worcester watch party. "Seeing something like this is really good."
The question now is whether Massachusetts can build on all the joy and fun from the past month. Will cities and towns continue to spotlight ethnic communities that don't normally receive as much attention? Will bars be allowed to keep staying open past 2 a.m.?
Evan Hardy, a bartender at An Sibin in Cambridge, says the last few weeks show it shouldn't be a hard decision.
"It's definitely been really refreshing to see the camaraderie," he said.
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