The night of October 10, 2017 was supposed to be the coronation. In downtown Phoenix, Tilted Kilt was “packed to the brim,” as Jamara Saah says. From across the Valley, American soccer fans had descended on pubs to watch the US men’s national team win their eighth straight FIFA World Cup qualification.
Now, Saah is the president of the Phoenix chapter of the American Outlaws, the prominent American football supporters group. Then, he was just a superfan. Four days earlier, he had traveled to Orlando to watch the USA beat Panama, 4-0, along with Ryan Shirah, who was president of AO Phoenix at the time.
“Everybody’s busy, ready to go, we’re going to the World Cup,” Shirah said. “All we have to do is connect Trinidad and Tobago.”
The memory of what happened next will forever remain in the psyche of American soccer. Somehow, the US lost. The move to the 2018 World Cup — an American right for nearly three decades — was never going to come.
In Trinidad, images of players lying on the pitch, their jerseys stretched over their faces, became canon. In Phoenix, the scene repeated itself. “I saw a lot of people wiping away tears,” recalls Jacob Phillabaum, a longtime AO Phoenix member.
“A lot of people equate it to the death of a loved one,” Shirah said. “I don’t know if it was that extreme for me, but it was certainly beyond any other gut-wrenching disappointment.”
For the past five years, this memory has served to inspire passion projects for America’s biggest soccer fans. Saah became the AO chapter president. Phillabaum took a leading role. Shirah took it to the extreme, traveling to World Cup qualifiers everywhere from Canada to Panama. Over the past decade, he has now capped the national team in 11 countries.
Now, Saah and Shirah are among a raucous group of fans who will travel to Qatar to support the USA at the World Cup. In their place, Phillabaum will host watch parties at Walter Station Brewery, where AO is expecting overflow crowds.
One day last week, as he watched the U.S. unveil its roster for the tournament, Phillabaum predicted what the brewery would look like on Monday, when the U.S. opens its tour against Wales.
“It’s going to be full,” Phillabaum said. “And that hair-piercing moment, there’s going to be a lot more.”
Meanwhile, in Qatar, both Saah and Shirah will fulfill a dream hit by the failures of the national team a cycle ago. Both had planned to travel to Russia in 2018. Instead, neither has ever seen the men’s team play in the World Cup. “It’s been eight years,” Saah said.
Openly, they both admit they would prefer the World Cup to be held elsewhere because of human rights abuses in the Gulf state. As reported by The Guardian last year, 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since hosting the World Cup in 2010. While less than 1% of those – 38 deaths – have been attributed to stadium construction, almost all infrastructure projects in the country have been linked to the World Cup.
None of this is lost on traveling Americans.
“The human rights violations, the workers’ rights, the kafala system that was in place — those things really put a bad taste (in your mouth),” Shirah said.
Both, however, have found some solace in the reported improvements brought about by increased global attention. Most notably, the country decided in 2016 to abolish the kafala system, which required companies to sponsor migrant workers and control their exit visas. It’s a practice that human rights organizations have criticized as tantamount to slavery.
“It doesn’t mean it’s happening by the book, but just the fact that the government (made it) illegal, that’s a step in the right direction,” Saah said. “It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight, so they’re taking a step in the right direction. Does that mean, once the World Cup is done and gone, they won’t be back where they were? I do not know. But that’s where my morals came into play.”
One fan who spoke to The Republic added: “I can only imagine how madly more excited I would be if it wasn’t Qatar. If FIFA wasn’t corrupt and Qatar had the best bid and didn’t have all the abuse of immigrants and people and all that.”
That fan asked to speak on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the Qatari government.
“That’s the problem, the fact that we’re afraid,” said the fan. “That’s it. Why are we afraid to speak our minds? That’s the problem. That’s it in a nutshell.”
There are other challenges unique to this World Cup. For one, the timing of November — as opposed to the typical early summer slot — made it more difficult to take time off. Teachers and families with school-age children cannot go at all. And because fans of 32 teams will be packed into a place smaller than Connecticut, accommodations had to be booked through the Qatari government, with the exception of overpriced luxury hotels.
“Either we’re going to be on top of each other and it’s going to be exciting to hang out and party with other fans from all over the world or it’s going to be Fyre Fest,” Shirah said.
Regardless, the mindset is, as Shirah says, “We’re going for the team, not for Qatar.”
For every American superfan, the team means something a little different. For Phillabaum, it’s a community after college. For Shirah, it’s the spectacle of drumming and singing with fellow fans, scratching his itch for “positive patriotism.” For Saah, it’s even more than that. After moving to the US from Liberia as a 12-year-old, it became a way to connect with his new home.
On this tour, that connection has been established thanks to Tim Weah, one of America’s brightest young stars. Weah grew up in New York, but he is the son of Liberian President George Weah, who is widely regarded as the greatest African player of all time. As a child in Liberia, Saah grew up idolizing the elder Weah.
Naturally, he sees himself in the younger Weah.
“It’s America’s team, but we all have a different cultural identity,” Saah said. “And we all still identify with this team.”
As the host of last week’s roster reveal show went through the squad, she announced each player’s hometown, echoing over the Walter Station speakers. Many, of course, grew up in the US, but illustrating Saah’s point, others were born in England or the Netherlands. Even more are second-generation immigrants, qualified to represent countries such as Colombia and Ghana.
Come next week, everyone will be wearing red, white and blue. And in their corner will be the most dedicated supporters, living the dream they lost five years ago.
Theo Mackie covers Arizona high school sports and the Arizona Diamondbacks. He can be reached by email at [email protected] and on Twitter @theo_mackie.
