US fans pack Los Angeles World Cup festival before Paraguay match
US fans filled the Coliseum for a $10 World Cup festival, and the crowd size showed how much is riding on Paraguay and the team’s home-tournament moment.
Fans streamed into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum with the kind of nervous excitement usually reserved for knockout games, even though the United States still had Paraguay ahead of it. The FIFA Fan Festival in Los Angeles turned that anticipation into a public gathering place, with live match broadcasts, music, food and other fan experiences drawing thousands of local and international supporters to the city’s Olympic landmark.
The festival ran from Thursday, June 11, through Sunday, June 14, with hours that stretched from a 10 a.m. opening on Thursday to a 5 p.m. close on Sunday. Friday’s schedule ran from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., while Saturday’s hours were 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. Los Angeles organizers set tickets at $10, with free entry for children 12 and under, a price point that helped turn the event into a broad civic gathering rather than an exclusive spectacle.
The scene around the Coliseum reflected how much World Cup energy has spread beyond the stadium itself. The festival was designed as part of a wider Los Angeles celebration, with cultural programming, interactive experiences and food that mirrored the city’s diversity. Official pop-up shops and major music acts added to the weekend atmosphere, while the match broadcasts kept the focus on the tournament unfolding in real time.
That larger mood was tied to the United States men’s national team, which opened its World Cup campaign against Paraguay on Friday night at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. Some coverage described the match as the Americans’ first game of the tournament, and the setting gave the host nation a home-opening feel that intensified expectations around the squad.
The current U.S. group added another layer to that anticipation. The roster blended World Cup veterans with first-time tournament players, a combination that signaled both experience and transition. For fans packed into the festival, that mix carried the hope that this edition of the team could turn a burst of World Cup buzz into something sturdier, the kind of national relevance American soccer has spent years trying to claim.
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