Soccer: the beautiful game. In the last two weeks, the World Cup settled over the East End like a butter pat on an English muffin, filling every nook and cranny. Stressed-out referees, solely responsible for maintaining order amid complete emotion and chaos, tatted-up players (not Morocco!), and grass (yes, grass, not turf!) have become a fixture on screens from Southampton to Montauk.
It was on the television in Dr. Erin McGintee’s waiting room when the United States beat Iran on Nov. 29, and on an iPhone in the back of a landscape truck earlier that morning when Ecuador lost to Senegal.
Jamie Mott, the librarian at Pierson High School, said kids were having little watch parties in the school library on their laptops at the end of the school day. However, it was widely rumored that they were also watching surreptitiously on their iPhones during the school day. Some teachers chose to lose this particular battle, watching the games during academic support periods.
The game was on at Cilantro’s in Sag Harbor when Joel Fisher went to pick up takeout on Nov. 24.
At Goldberg’s Bagels in Sag Harbor, employees donned jerseys and watched on two televisions. At East Hampton Laundry in Amagansett, a single screen in a back room with tables for folding laundry beamed the game, outshining the nearby vending machine and video games.
In East Hampton’s Village Hall, Marcos Baladron, the village administrator, took to streaming the audio of the Spain-Morocco game, on Tuesday.
“I’m a diehard Barcelona fan, like my late father. My grandfather was a Real Madrid fan. The only thing we agreed upon was Spain,” he said. When Morocco pulled off the upset, he said he’d renounce his Spanish passport.
Unsuspecting consumers who thought they were smart to subscribe to Peacock TV for the month, found games were televised only in Spanish, problematic for our still monolingual American culture. This may have pushed some who might otherwise have settled into their couches out into the local hot spots.
Fathers, perhaps sensing a Great Moment of Communal Gathering, started text chains full of options where the games could be watched. Like soccer deadheads, they discussed traveling from venue to venue. It mattered not which teams were playing. The opportunity to “get out of the house” in what had become some socially acceptable matter, for a special event, was too great.
Kidd Squid, the new brewery in Sag Harbor, set out chairs in rows and converted its menu space (in 4k, 10 feet diagonally) into perhaps the largest screen in the Hamptons. A crowd of 30 locals, ranging in age from 12 to an older couple in their 70s, crammed in on Nov. 29, for the United States-Iran match.
“The World Cup is truly the only event of its kind, short of the Olympics, I guess,” said Rory McEvoy, a co-owner. “In 2018, the United States wasn’t involved. During the pandemic, I had made a note that if Covid was over we would throw a big watch party out east, though I also made a note to start a brewery. Grainne and I were very happy to be able to merge the two dreams.”
The usual suspects, Rowdy Hall in East Hampton, the Corner Bar in Sag Harbor, and the Shagwong Tavern in Montauk, were all showing games. Driving through East Hampton Village, Christmas trees and garland-wrapped lampposts spoke of the season, despite the focus on Qatar, baking in 100-degree heat. (Don’t worry about the players. The arenas where they’re playing are air-conditioned.)
Best Pizza, on the Napeague stretch, had perhaps the most regalia, with a large World Cup flag flapping in the ever-present wind.
However, when a couple of old college friends arrived to watch Brazil play Cameroon on Friday at 2 p.m., they were told the bar wouldn’t be open until 3 p.m., after the game was halfway through.
Down the road at the Point in Montauk, nine screens, full of green, showed the game, but the handful of midday patrons seemed unmoved. The game was muted, and country music played, a strange soundtrack to the World Cup. A newly placed Christmas tree marked the center of a triangle the sides of which connected the bar, a dining area, and the bathroom. Not exactly a place of honor.
Outside, they were stringing lights.
Down at The Shagwong, T-Rex was on the stereo, the baseball cap and flannel crowd were out in force, and, since games are shown simultaneously to add to the suspense, both games were on display; two screens devoted to Switzerland versus Serbia, and two to Brazil-Cameroon. Half of the 15 drinkers were absorbed. Other patrons, like a man who told nearby friends, “When the highways get too full, they let you drive on the shoulder,” seemed less so.
As guests slowly left the dining room after finishing their lunch they’d glance at the screens above the bar. “Zero-zero Brazil,” a man said to no one, momentarily transfixed.
Twenty-five fans filled the side room of the American Hotel on Saturday to watch the United States get eliminated by the Netherlands. The waitstaff seemed genuinely surprised at the crowd. The large-screen television was camouflaged by a gold frame, helping it to blend, though unconvincingly, with the oil paintings of large-masted whaling boats in stormy waters.
“I guess we’re going to Murph’s,” shouted a disgusted patron when Netherlands scored their game-winning goal at the very end of the first half. The crowd thinned by half, and perhaps that’s where they went, replaced by a man wearing a Washington Capitals jersey.
Enrico Granata, a lawyer and soccer fan who splits time between the city and Montauk but grew up in Italy, grumbled, “It’s very typically American for them to leave.” Not having Italy to root for — “It’s a national tragedy that Italy didn’t qualify,” he said — he stayed until the very end, and was able to enjoy the United States goal at the 76-minute mark, causing the room to erupt, and reawakening the sleepy waitstaff.
The quarterfinals begin tomorrow and continue Saturday when England takes on France.
Kidd Squid plans on a big crowd.
“England is still in, and Kidd Squid is unofficially backing the Lions,” said Mr. McEvoy.
The playoff for third place will be played on Dec. 17 at 10 a.m.; the final will be played on Dec. 18 at 10 a.m., just in time to give way fully to Christmas.