{"id":1326,"date":"2026-06-21T12:43:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T12:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=1326"},"modified":"2026-06-21T12:43:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T12:43:27","slug":"when-in-new-jersey-for-the-world-cup-do-as-the-locals-do-go-to-a-mall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=1326","title":{"rendered":"When in New Jersey for the World Cup, do as the locals do. (Go to a mall.)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. \u2014 Benjamin Klevge, a soccer fan from Pamiers, France, had the front-facing camera open on his phone and a wide smile on his face. He crouched down, struggling to fit the Statue of Liberty into the frame.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=1324\">Trump, Claiming Vandalism, Says Reflecting Pool Will Be Drained<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t the actual Statue of Liberty, though. It was a 60-foot replica, encrusted with more than 1 million green jelly beans, towering above the entrance to a three-story candy store.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>And Klevge wasn\u2019t in New York. He wasn\u2019t even outdoors. He was roaming the gaping halls of the American Dream, a three-million-square-foot megamall in East Rutherford, N.J. He took more pictures in front of an indoor water park a few steps away as a Backstreet Boys song from the previous century played over the loudspeakers.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cC\u2019est magnifique,\u201d he said, before switching to English. \u201cIt\u2019s beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Fans who attended the opening match of this World Cup this month in Mexico City could wander a warren of neighborhood streets alive with music and the smell of grilled meat on their way to the iconic Estadio Azteca.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Other citadels of soccer \u2014 whether Maracan\u00e3 Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, which hosted the 1950 and 2014 finals, or Madrid\u2019s Santiago Bernab\u00e9u, where the final was played in 1982 \u2014 are similarly embedded in dense, urban landscapes, helping to animate the heartbeats of their respective cities.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Then there\u2019s MetLife Stadium \u2014 or \u201cNew York New Jersey Stadium,\u201d as World Cup officials have poetically rebranded it for the summer \u2014 which will host eight matches in this tournament, including the final.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>For fans accustomed to ballparks with more of the local flavor outside, it has become a punchline. They deride it as a remote island in a sea of asphalt, an inaccessible behemoth surrounded by swampland and a tangle of highway. And for the most part they\u2019re right.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>But there\u2019s another island out there.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>On Tuesday, before a match between France and Senegal, Klevge and thousands of others fans flooded the American Dream mall, which is connected to the stadium by an elevated footpath, and tried to make the best of an odd situation.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cExit?\u201d Klevge asked a reporter after taking his selfies and apologizing for his limited English. He tapped two fingers on his lips. \u201cFor smoking?\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Erected in 2021, the American Dream is the second-largest shopping mall in the country. It has hundreds of stores, several dozen eateries and a host of attractions not commonly found indoors: a go-kart track, a water park, a ski slope and five roller coasters.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>This month, the air-conditioned cathedral to commerce represents the only public gathering space \u2014 besides the generic official \u201cfan zones\u201d immediately outside the stadium \u2014 accessible to the 82,500-capacity stadium by foot.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s kind of confusing. We\u2019re just in a mall,\u201d said Dawda Daye, 30, a Senegalese fan from Houston, who arrived there by taxi with his wife. \u201cBut it\u2019s convenient, and everyone seems to be enjoying it and having fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Indeed, fans of both teams on Tuesday \u2014 just like the crowds supporting Brazil and Morocco over the weekend \u2014 seemed open to embracing the weirdness of the setting. The resulting rowdy energy was similar to the atmosphere at any major soccer match around the world \u2014 just entirely different.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Three hours before kickoff, four men in French jerseys juggled a plush soccer ball, purchased moments earlier from an Ikea kiosk, outside a Verizon store.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=1322\">150 years, 2 world wars, 32 mayors, and 28 presidents later, a store still thrives in a bankrupt city<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>A Senegalese drum troupe rapped out a mesmerizing beat for a swaying group of soccer fans marching near the cash register of a Mrs. Field\u2019s cookie stand.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>The sunlit space normally containing the mall\u2019s NHL regulation-size ice rink had been converted into a sort of simulation of a beer garden, filled with picnic tables where scores of fans clapped and sang. Above them towered a screen roughly the size of the penalty area on a soccer field that displayed a video feed of the very same picnic zone they were in \u2014 meaning the fans were cheering real-time images of themselves cheering.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cIn the U.S., everything is bigger,\u201d said Benoit Berthier, 39, a Frenchman working in Montreal, who was eating a pastry at a cafe a few steps away. \u201cBut what they did inside is good. If you have one thing you know how to do in America, it\u2019s entertain.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>In a food court connected to H Mart, the Korean American grocery chain, two men wearing the jersey of Rayan Cherki, a young French star, blew into vuvuzelas as they squeezed between groups munching on traditional Korean snacks.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>On the third floor \u2014 there are five levels to the American Dream \u2014 a trio of Frenchman puzzled over a digital map of the shopping center, tapping on the screen to find a place to eat.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cThis kind of mall is unusual for French people,\u201d said G\u00e9rald Gr\u00e9goire, 52, one of the fans. \u201cWhat\u2019s most surprising is the size of the parking lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>During American football season, when the New York Jets and the New York Giants share MetLife Stadium, the parking lots there can hold close to 30,000 cars, a perfect setting for that quintessentially American sports tableau: tailgating.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>A handful of World Cup stadiums \u2014 like Lincoln Financial Field, where opposing fans played drinking games together before a match \u2014 are allowing tailgating this summer. MetLife is not one of them.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe heard there was no tailgating, so we said, \u2018OK, we\u2019re not going to the stadium, we\u2019re going to the mall,\u2019 \u201d said Carlos Orbe, 35, who was visiting from Tampa, Fla., with his fianc\u00e9e, Julia Szenberg.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Undeterred, the two grabbed a case of hard seltzers, took a cab to the American Dream and found some space between a row of parked cards in the mall\u2019s indoor parking complex.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>They stood in a circle with a dozen or so other fans, sipping their drinks and periodically kicking a soccer ball that bounced their way. Asked about the people in the juggling circle, Szenberg, 36, who was born in Paris, shrugged.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t know them,\u201d she said. \u201cBut now they\u2019re our family. This is the real American dream, happening in the mall parking garage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate-movers-usa.com\/?p=1320\">Tears for Fears, rotary phones, flares: Philly\u2019s Bicentennial babies are turning 50 as America turns 250<\/a><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><i>This article originally appeared in <\/i><i>The New York Times<\/i><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fans can\u2019t tailgate outside of MetLife Stadium before World Cup games like they can in Philadelphia, but the second-biggest mall in the United States is a short walk away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-jersey","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>When in New Jersey for the World Cup, do as the locals do. 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