Back in 1994, the first time that the United States hosted the World Cup, my brother was determined to get tickets. And to his credit, he did. Neither of us had credit cards yet back then, if you can believe it. So it was my mom who technically purchased them, although I guess he paid her back at some point. But he got tickets to the quarterfinal. Also, tickets to a warm-up game, which was between Greece and Colombia. the quarterfinal ended up being between Bulgaria and Germany, and it proved to be one of the most memorable games of the tournament. The atmosphere for both the warmup and the quarterfinal was electric and quite memorable.
Four years later, my brother was living in Paris. And similarly, he was determined to obtain World Cup tickets. Somehow, he managed to get two tickets to the semifinal. When he offered for me to go with him, I gladly accepted and basically made a whole trip to France of it. At that point, I had not been to France in nine years, which meant my high school years. Early in my high school years, as I was just fourteen at the time. Hard to believe, but that was the reality. So while nine years now does not feel all that long ago, back then it felt like an eternity. So obviously I was happy to finally go back to France, and especially glad that it would include a World Cup game, especially since the semifinal wound up being between Croatia and the host country, France. Like the 1994 quarterfinal, this wound up being one of the most memorable games of the 1998 tournament, and saw France win to qualify for the World Cup final for the first time ever. That was probably the biggest and most memorable single sports event that I ever attended. Four days later, France made history by beating Brazil to win their first ever World Cup title.
After that was a long time with nothing, at least in terms of the World Cup. I had imagined possibly going to other countries while they hosted the World Cup. Germany in 2006 might have been doable. I had always wanted to go to South Africa, and was tempted for the 2010 World Cup. In the end, however, none of those even came close to panning out, and were the product more of daydreaming than anything else.
Then suddenly, the United States was set to get to host the World Cup again. Some games would be in Canada, and some in Mexico. Once again, it seemed possible that I might travel to see some World Cup games, this time again on the North American continent. That thought lasted until I saw those incredibly inflated prices, which were pretty ridiculous.
There were only a handful of games which made me even pause for thought about the plausibility of obtaining tickets. Mexico was out of reach, and while going to Toronto would not be out of the question, the prices for all of those games pretty much put such thoughts or hopes to bed. There were games far away which were fairly affordable, but going to Atlanta or Miami just for a game seemed a bit much.
And then I saw this game between Curaçao and Côte d'Ivoire to be played in Philadelphia. It was Group E and would be Match 55 for Thursday, June 25, 2026 at 4:00 pm. That would not require some major trip to a faraway destination. My schedule accommodated it, as I would be off from work that night. And the tickets were fairly reasonable. Hell, they were positively cheap by way of comparison to almost all of the other tickets to other games. Part of the reason is that Philadelphia events, I have noticed, are almost always significantly cheaper than other nearby locations, particularly New York City. Also, these are two relatively small countries without huge followings, so it would not draw some of the bigger names in the sports. For example, I look for tickets to see France, but they were prohibitively expensive. Literally, they were asking something like three to four times the price for decent seats to this game, and those were for nosebleeds.
So I decided to settle on this game. At least I would get to go to one more World Cup game and experience it. Found tickets that were decent, in the lower section, and were, rather surprisingly, among the cheapest tickets available for the game. So I went ahead with it.
This was through a ticket resell site, StubHub. I have gotten some tickets from them before and do not remember having any really bad experiences. Somehow, though, this time felt different. Right away, it said that the tickets might be there by June 20th, which was strange. At the time of the purchase, that was still weeks and weeks away.
Why such a long wait?
Then as the weeks went by, and the date got closer, I began to get a bad feeling. Sure enough, June 20th came and no tickets. Not long after, a message from StubHub. The seller was unable to fulfill his end of the transaction. It seemed that I might not go to this game after all.
But StubHub insisted that they would try to find comparable tickets. And low and behold, they did. It took a day or so, but they did. In fact, the tickets were better and closer than the original order. When I looked later, it seemed that the new tickets were significantly more expensive, but StubHub had apparently paid the difference. It was no extra cost to me. So kudos to StubHub. In this regard, I had and have no complaints. They were consummate professionals.
Still, the tickets had to be delivered from the seller. By now, the event itself was a couple of days away. The transfer from seller to buyer (me in this case) went through and they finally came. Yet, there was another problem: it showed the information for the ticket, but said that the ticket itself would not be made available until the day of the event.
Wow. I had been to events where they are tight with security to prevent scalping, but this seemed far more than I had experienced before.
So I waited. By then, the day was close, so it was not a long wait. I worked overnight, and tried the tickets at some point in the wee hours. Nothing. Tried again when I got off work and got back home, maybe around seven in the morning. Still nothing. I was starting to grow nervous.
After my nap, I was ready. With these tickets, and for this event, I wanted to leave very early, which I did. It was maybe just after eleven in the morning, and once again, the tickets were not showing. Now I was annoyed, but what could I do? It was already later than I wanted to depart for Philadelphia. So lacking certainty that it would work, I went.
One of the advantages with the Philadelphia games over New York, which still was technically closer to me, is that it was far cheaper not just in ticket prices, but also actually getting to the game. Not only were the ticket prices inflated to ridiculous levels, but the price for parking and public transportation for the games were also hiked up. One advantage in Philly was that there were several options available to get to the game, and I was fairly sure that they could not simply raise the price of each. So while parking was absurdly high, I was quite sure that parking in the city would not be unusually expensive, nor taking the subway, in my case. Sure enough, all of it was regular price. At the end of the day, I had spent less than $36 on both parking and subway. Compare that to $150 for parking at the stadium, or the $250 parking at the Meadowlands, or even the over $100 that trains to MetLife Stadium were for the games played there.
Ridiculous. Frankly, also disgusting. Clear and obvious price gouging.
Anyway, yeah, I got to Philadelphia early. And while leaving later than expected had thrown a monkey wrench to my plans to go early to explore the city a little bit, I still had plenty of time to actually get to the game. So I went on my way.
After arriving, I snapped a few pictures of the outside of the stadium. Then while walking the distance between NRG Station and the stadium, I checked the tickets, and they were finally there.
No problems the rest of the way. Got there early, and just relaxed, having finally made it.
As for the game, it went the way that I expected. Curaçao is the smallest nation ever to qualify for the World Cup. Meanwhile, Côte d'Ivoire had been playing well and looked to be strong favorites.. And they played like it, earning a solid 2-0 win to advance to the knockout stage.
Yet, it was more than just a game. The World Cup is an amazing experience. One which I am fortunate to have had on three different occasions now (arguably four).
A fun day overall.
Below are some of the pictures which I took of my World Cup 2026 experience:
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