Last week I went looking for evidence that San Francisco is, in fact, a World Cup host city.

Market Street and downtown were bedecked in hundreds of giant multicoloured flags – for LGBT Pride.

A Macy’s store window has mannequins in football jerseys: Japan, Mexico, Canada, USA. They have as much personality as four lost Waymos. It’s quite AI-ish and dystopian, which is totally on brand around here.

In Walgreens there is a small section of official World Cup souvenirs; just beside the large Pride aisle. The Infantino selection features forlorn-looking Fifa scarves and squishy balls. That’s exactly what I will buy at the World Cup, a Fifa scarf.

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Over on North Beach, the vibrant Little Italy of San Francisco, the busy streets are thronged with pizza- and pasta-munching locals. The only real hint of football fever is a giant World Cup mural in the window of the Steps of Rome restaurant. The tournament is a duller affair without the Italians – though the men in shiny suits, at least, know how to look after visiting supporters. Armies and stomachs and all that.

San Francisco is geographically the budget airline version of a host city. At 42 miles – or almost 65km – away, the Santa Clara stadium is so handy that it takes a combination of three types of public transport to get there from downtown San Francisco.

The countries of fans arriving into the ‘Bay Area World Cup hub for matches over the next few weeks are Qatar, Switzerland, Jordan, Austria, Paraguay, Turkey, Algeria and Australia. Still it is early days, and we await the arrival of supporters in lederhosen and hats decorated with toilet brushes and corks. And Paraguayan guampas.

[ World Cup 2026 schedule: Your complete guide to the fixtures and resultsOpens in new window ]

In the last few days, though, the green army has descended: throngs of Mexican jerseys have emerged into the San Francisco sunshine and are now effectively the home team. California was, after all, part of Mexico until 1848.

Down at Fisherman’s Wharf pier 39 is hosting one of San Francisco’s fanzines. Mexican families gathered in front of the big screen in the centre of the pier just before the first kick-off against South Africa. Some I spoke with told me they could not afford to go to any match, so they were going to enjoy it here in the city.

What a pity no one thought to turn the screen on for the opening game. Oh, well.

The bars are the real winners around here. Cyril Hackett is the Irish owner of the Mad Dog in the Fog pub in Haight Ashbury. He was on Fox News declaring that the World Cup was like “10 St Patrick’s Days in one”. The mayor was filmed in the Napper Tandy’s Irish bar in the Mission surrounded by cheering green shirts; more Mexicans. The Blarney Stone in Inner Sunset will be opening early, showing all the matches and serving tacos. It is all a perfect union of Los Chicos de Verde.

The last time the World Cup was held in the US, in 1994, I was lucky enough to cover it as a youngster with The Irish Press newspaper.

Even better, we were road-tripping with the superhero of print that was Con Houlihan. To say we were on a budget was to put it mildly.

As the main press corps basked in the luxury hotel, we occupied the Anthony Perkins version up the Orlando freeway, though I think we were the lucky ones. The staff of the motel greeted us daily like cousins, particularly Con, who was reserved a seat for life at the cocktail bar. He wrote about the birds and the aquatics in the local pond and the Florida weather and Hemingway and the football.

We drove up and down the freeways to training in astonishing heat playing our melting cassette tapes of the B52s and West Side Story for the Mexico match. The memories of that and the scenes in San Francisco now make the recent near qualification for a rematch so utterly frustrating.

Thirty-two years later we are still asking: will the US embrace the World Cup? They love their sport, of that there is no doubt, and the recent basketball exploits of the New York Knicks have the nation enthralled, whether they are loved or loathed.

Great, hopeless, a lost cause and joyously brilliant, perhaps the Knicks are the perfect metaphor for this crazy country.

Welcome to the biggest and maybe maddest World Cup yet.

Source: The Irish Times