{"id":283161,"date":"2026-06-14T07:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T07:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/283161\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T07:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T07:07:10","slug":"smiles-all-around-as-morocco-brazil-share-spoils-and-knicks-make-history-world-cup-2026-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/283161\/","title":{"rendered":"Smiles all around as Morocco, Brazil share spoils and Knicks make history | World Cup 2026 News"},"content":{"rendered":"

East Rutherford, New Jersey, United States \u2013 It was called the pick of the group-stage matches at World Cup 2026 \u2013 and it largely lived up to its billing.<\/p>\n

Brazil and Morocco squared off in front of a crowd of more than 80,000 passionate fans on Saturday and, with two stunning first-half goals and a frenetic end to the game, set the New York New Jersey Stadium alight.<\/p>\n

But the 1-1 draw<\/a> was only the first half of a historic night of sport in the bistate area. <\/p>\n

Once the referee\u2019s full-time whistle blew inside the stadium, local fans rushed out to ensure they did not miss Game 5 of the NBA Finals, in which the New York Knicks sealed a dramatic late victory<\/a> against the San Antonio Spurs to land their first championship since 1973.<\/p>\n

\"Football\"Attendance at the match was near capacity [Caean Couto\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

The thousands of Brazilian fans, a smaller number of Morocco supporters and tens of thousands of New York natives all blended in as sport took the front seat in both states.<\/p>\n

Earlier, nearly four hours before kickoff, the first group of football fans began arriving at the Secaucus train station in New Jersey to make their final journey to the stadium in East Rutherford.<\/p>\n

Having paid a steep and much criticised return fare of $98 for a journey to the stadium from New York or New Jersey, the supporters rushed through the station as tournament volunteers, security officials and bystanders looked on with amusement.<\/p>\n

Once outside the venue, the fans brought out their drums, tambourines and best singing voices to create a festive atmosphere.<\/p>\n

The Brazilians danced their way from the train station exit to the stadium\u2019s points of entry, often pausing on the way to pose for photos or join their Moroccan counterparts in a sing-off.<\/p>\n

Brazil supporters walked with an air of confidence, fully expecting the record five-time world champions to make a winning start to the tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not worried about our team\u2019s chances. We know they will win,\u201d Brazil fan Ricardo who goes by only one name told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\"Brazil\"Brazil\u2019s Lucas Paqueta, left, and Morocco\u2019s Noussair Mazraoui compete for the ball during the World Cup group match [Petr David Josek\/AP Photo]<\/p>\n

Some Moroccans, though, were a little less assured of a big result against the South American giants.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know a lot of fans are expecting us to sail through to the final after our team\u2019s performance in 2022, but I think this team is weaker,\u201d Tareq Bouiber said while scratching his head, referencing Morocco\u2019s performance in Qatar four years ago when it became the first African team as well as the first Arab one to reach the World Cup semifinals.<\/p>\n

As kickoff inched closer on Saturday, the party shifted inside the stadium, and the noise levels grew dramatically.<\/p>\n

The 82,000-capacity stadium transformed into a sea of yellow with pockets of red thrown in as Carlo Ancelotti\u2019s Brazil enjoyed the partisan support of loyal and occasional fans.<\/p>\n

Relentless singing and chanting in Portuguese, backed by the sound of drums, drowned out every other sound.<\/p>\n

However, it was Morocco who controlled play on the pitch and were rewarded for their possession when Ismail Saibari opened the scoring in the 21st minute with a beautiful scooped shot.<\/p>\n

The goal sent the red parts of the stadium into delirium with chants of \u201cViva Maghreb\u201d filling the air.<\/p>\n

In a bid to push their team to score an equaliser, the Brazilians upped the volume and intensity of their singing, urging the players on with an \u201cOle, ole, ole\u201d chant.<\/p>\n

It took only 11 minutes for star forward Vinicius Jr to find space inside the Moroccan box and send the ball flying into the top right corner to pull the score to 1-1.<\/p>\n

Both teams fought for possession but failed to create many attempts on goal until the added time in the second half when Morocco missed an easy chance to seal a shock win.<\/p>\n

When the match ended in a draw, Brazil\u2019s fans seemed the more disappointed of the two camps while Morocco\u2019s supporters insisted it was another sign that their team could go all the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will do one better than last time and make it to the final,\u201d Sana Bourada, who travelled from Washington, DC, to the stadium with her family, said after the match.<\/p>\n

Still, both sets of supporters walked away with smiles on their faces.<\/p>\n

Some of them, who had crossed the Hudson River for Brazil\u2019s and Morocco\u2019s opening match of the World Cup, joined one another in gearing up for the basketball finals.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s go Knicks\u201d became the common chant as fans rushed out to watch what turned out to be the winning game in the best-of-seven series.<\/p>\n

Nearly three hours later, the Knicks\u2019 94-90 win was greeted by more singing, dancing and fireworks that echoed across both states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"East Rutherford, New Jersey, United States \u2013 It was called the pick of the group-stage matches at World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[6272,311,165,96,310,2679,2680,10574],"class_list":["post-283161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-morocco","tag-basketball","tag-football","tag-morocco","tag-news","tag-sport","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada","tag-world-cup-2026"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/116747203247649374","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}