‘I just don’t feel it here in New England right now’: Immigrants say World Cup excitement is lacking – The Boston Globe

Humayun Morshed, a Medford resident who is originally from Bangladesh and a regular at the pickup games, has fond memories of the Cup. His ninth-grader son, Ariq, is a huge fan of soccer and really wants to go to a game.

But Morshed has struggled to make the prices work.

“Don’t know if we can afford it. It’s a shame,” he said. “Especially since the games will be right here in our backyard and we may not have a chance to watch.”

For many immigrants, the tournament can be a time to cheer for their countries of origin, and to celebrate the multiculturalism of the American experience. But some soccer lovers in Massachusetts say the thrill of this year’s games is overshadowed by concerns over pricey tickets, the inability of many communities to host watch parties, and US immigration policies that could dissuade throngs of fans from coming to this country to support their teams.

Massachusetts boasts immigrants from around the world, some of whom have roots in countries set to play at Foxborough. About 45,000 Haitians reside in the state, for example, and they are expected to show up, and show out, when their country plays Scotland in the first match of the tournament at Gillette on June 13. England, France, Ghana, Iraq, Morocco, and Norway are also playing in the Boston group.

Bruno Contreras, director of the nonprofit Soccer Without Borders in Massachusetts, has felt the excitement for the World Cup grow among his players and their parents as the tournament inches closer. The organization, which works to improve access to soccer for underserved youth, will have some of its members accompany players, as volunteers, during the matches.

“They’re eager, they’re planning, like, ‘Where are you going to watch the World Cup? Who are you rooting for?’ ” Contreras said.

Expensive tickets, however, have distanced the “people’s game” from its most ardent fans, he said. Late last week, the lowest-priced tickets for the Scotland-Haiti match were about $800 on Ticketmaster. That’s on top of the $80 round trip it’s costing fans to take the commuter train to the stadium on match day.

Four years ago, Rachid Chakri, a Malden-based physician assistant who is originally from Morocco, flew to Qatar, where he attended the World Cup, watching two games of his beloved Atlas Lions, the nickname for the Moroccan national team. But this time, high prices are making it tough for him to attend their game against Scotland on June 19 at Foxborough.

“The prices were not as high [in Qatar]. Transportation was free,” Chakri said. “Those are definitely some challenges and some drawbacks about this coming World Cup.”

Fans who want to congregate in public with others during the tournament have limited options. Cities and towns have struggled to secure permission from FIFA for official watch parties in their communities.

Lowell native Vaal Thawnghmung, whose family is from Myanmar, is organizing a soccer tournament at the University of Massachusetts Lowell that he says aims to replicate the spirit of the World Cup. Soccer in Lowell has a language all of its own, irrespective of people’s backgrounds, Thawnghmung said.

“We would be speaking completely different languages, but we would just understand how to play football or soccer together. And I just thought it was beautiful,” said Thawnghmung.

Meanwhile, tough immigration policies in the country threaten to undermine the global nature of the World Cup and its multicultural identity, said Contreras from Soccer Without Borders.

“These past years, immigrant communities have been targeted,” he said. “That’s definitely one element we don’t feel like we can go fully celebrating this tournament and all the cultural elements that a World Cup brings to a country.”

It’s a concern that Mohanad Mossalam, a Malden resident who coaches youth soccer, also shares. He grew up in Egypt watching the Cup with his father, a tradition he is trying to replicate with his own soccer-obsessed kids.

Being an American who can also claim roots from somewhere else offers a unique experience for immigrants like him, he said. As an Egyptian fan, he can put on the jersey of Egyptian and Liverpool legend Mohamed Salah and cheer, but also just as passionately support the United States.

“When the US is playing, I go and put my US shirt on and cheer for the US and look around, and I see people from basically all over the world cheering for the same country,” Mossalam said. “Because at the end of the day, we’re all Americans.”

He is concerned that fans who hail from outside the US may struggle to come cheer for their nations.

“Even if they do come, are they going to feel welcome here with the current climate that we have with immigration?” Mossalam said.

But even beyond those obstacles, the World Cup fervor, some say, feels lacking.

“I want to see the Senegal fans paint [their faces] in the colors of their countries. I want to hear the drums. I want to see the people chanting, whether the team is winning or losing or tying,” said Olf Mouyaka, a teacher and soccer coach in Cambridge who founded the soccer nonprofit Football Leadership Opportunity. “I’ve seen that excitement before. I just don’t feel it here in New England right now, and especially being in Boston.”

Contreras hopes that changes once the tournament gets going. One reason he loves the World Cup is the back stories that can emerge about the countries competing. In 2002, when Senegal defeated then-defending champion France, the game had a subtext beyond the pitch. France had colonized Senegal, and there was added significance to that victory, he said.

“At the end, the game has to win,” Contreras said. “We’re going to bring the celebration to the streets. We’re going to have street soccer. We’re going to have tournaments, watch parties. . . . We want to try to shape this opportunity. [It] has to be something inclusive, accessible, for all the communities, not only a few people.”

Omar Mohammed can be reached at omar.mohammed@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter (X) @shurufu.