The FIFA World Cup is, by any measure, the world's biggest sporting event. But if you've been anywhere near a bar, a subway car, or a public square in New York over the past few weeks, you already know it's something else too; it’s a reminder, vivid and joyful, of just how many places this city holds inside it. However, this wave of celebration is not just a New York story. From Boston to Dallas and beyond, the World Cup has turned cities across the country into gathering places where people bring their flags, traditions, languages, and memories with them. Scotland’s “Tartan Army” filled Boston with kilts, bagpipes, and full-throated renditions of "Flower of Scotland" before spreading their good vibes to Miami. Norwegian supporters brought their "Viking Row" to the Times Square subway train, singing as they mimed rowing an imaginary longship through Midtown. Brazilian fans have carried drums, flags, and seas of yellow and green through the streets. After England's opening match in Dallas, thousands of supporters stayed in the stadium long after the final whistle to sing "Wonderwall" together — players included. And woven through it all are the immigrant communities already here. Brazilian cafés filling with yellow jerseys. Mexican restaurants erupting after a goal. Moroccan families spilling into public squares. American-born kids watching alongside parents and grandparents who carried their football loyalties with them from another country, another life, as well as official Fan Zones. It's loud and funny and sometimes deeply moving and what's striking is how naturally it all unfolds. Not as a statement about anything. Just people being exactly who they are.
When people talk about immigration, they tend to talk about systems: visas, borders, policies, paperwork. What the World Cup puts on display is everything else; highlighting the songs, the languages, the memories, the humor, the customs that travel with people and take root wherever they land. A person can live in New York for twenty years while remaining profoundly connected to Brazil, Nigeria, Morocco, or Scotland. The tournament makes that dual belonging visible in the most uncomplicated way possible: a flag in a window, a jersey on the subway, a chant echoing off a building. For immigrants and their children, it can feel surprisingly personal. It raises questions that go well beyond football: which country do you support? Where is home? What does it mean to belong when your life stretches across countries, languages, and generations? The answers, it turns out, are rarely either/or and the players themselves make that case better than any argument could.
Kylian Mbappé was born in Paris. His father emigrated from Cameroon; his mother is of Algerian Kabyle heritage. He is, by any definition, French and also a product of the broader African diaspora that has shaped modern France. After France's 2018 World Cup victory, much was made of the squad's multicultural composition: Paul Pogba's parents came from Guinea, N'Golo Kanté's from Mali. The team that lifted the trophy looked, in many ways, like France as it actually exists — not as an abstraction, but as a country of many origins. That success played out against the backdrop of ongoing political debates about race and identity. The tension never fully resolved. But on the field, the picture was clear.
Notably, not every story has a positive ending. Mesut Özil was born in Gelsenkirchen, Germany to Turkish immigrant parents and became a cornerstone of Germany's 2014 World Cup-winning team. In 2018, after intense criticism over a photograph with Turkish President Erdoğan, he retired from the national team. His farewell was quiet and precise: "I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose." It prompted an international conversation about conditional belonging and highlighted the idea that acceptance, for some, is contingent on success. It's a distinction that many children of immigrants recognize immediately, even if they've never seen it put quite so plainly.
The current US Men’s National Soccer Team (“USMNT”) squad tells a different kind of story, though no less layered. In fact, a quarter of the 2026 USMNT was born outside of the US. Malik Tillman was born in Nureumburg, Germany, to an American father and German mother. He grew up playing for many German youth national teams and as a dual national chose to play for the US. Folarin Balogun was born in Brooklyn to Nigerian parents who were temporarily living in the US. An American under the 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship, a right that is being currently reviewed by the Supreme Court. Sergiño Dest was born in the Netherlands to a Dutch mother and an American father of Surinamese descent, eligible to represent more than one country before committing to the US. Their careers don't map neatly onto a single national identity. They are the product of several countries, several cultures, several generations of movement — and they play, together, for this one.
Over in the England squad, Bukayo Saka was born in London to Nigerian parents; Marc Guehi was born in the Ivory Coast, and moved to London with his family at the age of one, at six he was picked up by Chelsea's academy. Their place on the national team isn't a departure from British identity. It's an expression of it.
The most galvanizing story of the 2022 World Cup may have been Morocco's run to the semifinal as the first African nation to reach that stage. Many members of that squad were born or raised in Europe, players who could have represented the countries where they grew up but chose Morocco instead, drawn back by family, heritage, and something harder to name. After each victory, celebrations erupted not only in Morocco but across Europe, North America, and beyond. The team played in one country and an entire diaspora felt it; the image of sons whose success was built on foundations their parents laid by leaving, by sacrificing, by staying connected across the distance.
None of this means football resolves anything. When England lost the Euro 2020 final on penalties, three Black players — Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford, and Jadon Sancho — missed their kicks and were met, within hours, with a torrent of racial abuse online. The same fans who had cheered them suddenly found it easy to forget everything they had contributed. Özil had seen the same pattern a few years earlier, in Germany. But sport still does something that politics rarely manages, it makes individual stories visible at scale, puts faces and names to an abstraction. When an immigrant's child scores a goal for the national team, immigration stops being a political talking point, just for a moment, and becomes what it has always been: a human story.
There is also something a little pointed about the United States co-hosting the world's largest celebration of global movement while maintaining one of the more complicated visa systems for actually entering the country. Players, journalists, referees, and fans have all had to navigate it to get here. The country has always benefited from international talent and exchange. The paperwork hasn't always kept pace with that reality. But the World Cup doesn't ask anyone to choose. It takes for granted that you can love more than one place, carry more than one story, and still fully and genuinely belong wherever you may be.