By Gabe Rosenberg, KCUR
One of the most anticipated games of the World Cup, returning champions Argentina defeated Algeria 3-0 with a Lionel Messi hat trick. The first match held in Kansas City, it was also a hometown battle: Both teams chose the region for their base camps, accumulating many local fans along the way.
On Tuesday night, Argentina’s Lionel Messi made history as the first man to play in six World Cups, then quickly followed up by scoring the first, second and third goals of the night.
With his hat trick — a first for him in the World Cup — Messi also tied the record for all-time tournament goal-scorer.
And he did it all in Kansas City, Missouri, leading Argentina to a 3-0 victory over Algeria at Arrowhead Stadium.
“Messi is from another planet, I can tell you right now, he does not do things normally,” said Oscar Quiroga, who came up to Kansas City from Oklahoma City to watch the game. “We’ve seen big players play and they haven’t showed up yet, so Messi when he steps in the field, is another player, and Argentina is another team.”
The match marked Kansas City’s debut as a World Cup host, with Arrowhead living up to its reputation as the loudest stadium in sports.
Tuesday’s game was the first of six to be held in town, as Kansas City moves into the global spotlight as the smallest of all 16 North American host cities.
While fans of both countries tailgated together in the stadium parking lot before the game, the perfect weather also drew tens of thousands of soccer fans to the FIFA Fan Festival at the National WWI Museum and Memorial.
The free festival has been serving as the city’s largest World Cup watch party — and there were many, many such parties, taking over bars, restaurants, live music venues and more.
Here’s what KCUR’s reporters and editors saw and heard around Kansas City during the evening’s festivities.
Hometown pride
Both Argentina and Algeria are hometown teams of sorts — their national squads have been staying just about an hour away from each other in the Kansas City region.
But inside the stadium, at the festival and around the city, blue-and-white Argentina devotees far outnumbered the green-and-white Algerian fans.
Argentina, the top-ranked team in the world, chose for its base camp the Origin Hotel on the Berkley Riverfront and Sporting Kansas City’s facilities across the state line in Kansas City, Kansas.
The night before the match, Argentina fans held banderazos across the Kansas City metro, from Mill Creek Park in the Plaza down to the Crossroads.
Algeria, which is ranked 27th, has been training at the University of Kansas’ Rock Chalk Park and staying at a nearby DoubleTree hotel in Lawrence, Kansas.
As Lawrence residents welcomed the Algerian soccer community with open arms, the surprising but heartwarming cultural connection has become one of this World Cup’s major storylines.
A massive watch party took over Massachusetts Street in downtown Lawrence on Tuesday night. Liberty Hall was packed to the brim, with the Lawrence-based New Horizons Band performing the Algerian national anthem in both English and Arabic — which they learned specifically for this event.
“This is actually magical,” said Canton Schenk at the Liberty Hall watch party.
“In America, in the past few years, it feels like accepting cultures aside our own isn’t something that we’re used to, so having Lawrence be such an accepting place for the World Cup and Algeria specifically, it’s a really wonderful feeling and it gives me a lot of hope for America and for the future.”
Transit troubles
Argentina’s first game was one of the tournament’s most in-demand tickets.
Getting some 70,000 fans to the stadium, however, proved one of Kansas City’s greatest challenges.
Because the city’s public transit options can’t sufficiently handle the crush of international visitors — with only a single, infrequent bus route to the stadiums, and just one line to the airport — organizers with KC2026 built a temporary transportation system for the duration of the tournament.
Bringing in more than 200 stagecoaches, Kansas City extended a web of bus routes connecting all corners of the region to the FIFA Fan Festival downtown. That system opened for business last Thursday, the first day of the festival, but got its biggest stress test ahead of the Argentina-Algeria match.
Parking around the stadium was very limited, and Kansas City officials repeatedly warned drivers against attempting to drop off passengers nearby due to road closures.
Game ticket holders could book a round-trip ride to the stadium from six different stops around the metro, with the first shuttles leaving several hours before the match. At least two of the routes sold out before gameday.
However, roads around the stadium quickly clogged up, with standstill traffic of up to an hour — especially on I-70. KC2026 temporarily suspended its regional transit options due to the delays, and it’s not clear when service would resume.
“There will be things to see, things might take a little longer,” Pam Kramer, CEO of KC2026, said at a news conference Monday. “The systems are different and the process is different, so we want to make sure everybody’s in their seat for the match.”
Soon after the game ended, another accident halted cars from leaving the stadium area.
Before the madness
Argentine soccer fans lined up hours early Tuesday to fill the Fan Festival, pouring out of the streetcar and stretching far down the street ahead of the afternoon opening.
Argentina-born Sandra Hoyos was visiting Kansas City for the first time from California, where she lives.
“It’s so exciting to see everybody, you know, coming to support our team,” Hoyos said. “The people in Kansas City is so nice. I love the city, looks so clean.”
Pedicab driver Benito Stone has spent a lot of time this past week dropping people off at the Fan Festival. He’s with the company E-Z Pedicabs, a Kansas City business that started with just two decorated cabs and expanded to eight for the World Cup.
“So when I saw that Argentina was coming to our hometown, I was stoked about it, because they’re such sweet people, and they want to have a fun time,” Stone said. “It’s been really cool to hang out with them, listen to music, and give them rides.”
In Lenexa, Kansas, the bakery Algerian Delights served as a meeting point for Algerian fans — many of whom drove from surrounding states to see their team.
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said a man named Arezki, who had driven overnight from Denver with a group of 10. “Who knows when the World Cup will be in the United States again, with Algeria qualifying? We couldn’t miss it.”
What matches are next
Argentina will head to Dallas Stadium for a June 22 game against Austria, while Algeria will play Jordan the same day at the San Francisco Bay Area Stadium.
In Kansas City, the 28th-ranked Ecuador will go up against 83rd-ranked Curaçao, the smallest nation to qualify for the World Cup.
Both teams are coming off a loss: Curaçao got crushed by Germany on Sunday, 7-1, after scoring a history-making first World Cup goal, while Côte d’Ivoire upset Ecuador 1-0.
The Ecuador-Curaçao game is at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 20, at Kansas City Stadium.
More photos from the day
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