
PHILADELPHIA — If you took nothing else from Chelsea’s meeting with Esperance de Tunis in the FIFA Club World Cup Tuesday night at Lincoln Financial Field, it would’ve been the clear mismatch.
No, not on the field, where the English giants roundly controlled the Tunisian club in a 3-0 victory. With it, Chelsea atoned for its loss last week to Brazilian side Flamengo, avoiding the ignominy of being a European squad that missed out on the knockout stage. Tunis ended its fourth trip to the Club World Cup with a win over LAFC in Nashville in three matches.
More stark was the disparity in the stands. On one end of Lincoln Financial Field’s crowd of 32,967 spectators, you had Chelsea fans clad largely in blue – some standing for long stretches, many availing themselves of the spacious green seats. You had abortive attempts at the wave in the first half and a beat-the-traffic rush in the 88th minute, which made the celebration of the third goal by Tyrique George deep into stoppage time an even more lackluster version of Blur’s Song 2, itself a FIFA contrivance.

At the other end of the stadium were three sections of uninterrupted yellow and red. There were whistles and drums, songs and chants nonstop. The Tunis fans put on a display early in the second half where hundreds inflated balloons in green, red, white and black in the shape of the Palestinian flag in support of that country’s ongoing conflict with Israel. Tunis fans unfurled banners reading, “Land, Freedom, Palestine” and “Free Gaza” in the second half.
It was a reminder – the latest of many provided by this tournament — that soccer fandom looks very different in different parts of the world. Neither is right or wrong; neither is real or fake. Both can coexist. And for the United States to reach its potential as a soccer-loving nation, both must exist.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who paid the Linc a visit Tuesday night, this week made the bold declaration that soccer is on the way to becoming the “No. 1 sport here in America.” And while some rightly bristled at that, it’s worth wondering what version of America Infantino was referring to.
Fans of clubs like Esperance de Tunis based in the United States are often left out of that conversation. Their loyalties haven’t always been captured by MLS or the other American soccer endeavors. But the Club World Cup has shown that they are part of the landscape – a vibrant, loud part.
“We see that the public is always with us,” French-born midfielder Mohamed Derbali said via a translator. “Esperance fans are always present when we travel. There’s a great passion around the club. They try each time to push us to the maximum.”
The Club World Cup should be an eye-opener for American soccer stakeholders. Yes, American soccer fans look like city-dwellers watching the English Premier League at a bar on Saturday morning with an $8 craft pint and suburban parents whose kids have dragged them to games. It looks like older immigrants and first-generation Americans from Europe and South America who brought the sport here with them.
But it also is people who have newly arrived to this country, the latest waves bringing fresh energy to the constantly evolving world game. It’s families in hijabs and Chelsea jerseys. It’s kids who grew up in West Africa idolizing Didier Drogba wearing the Chelsea icon’s decade-old jersey. It’s the fans of Flamengo and Wydad and Tunis who caravaned down from New York City to watch their teams.
Tuesday was the second time ES Tunis played in Philadelphia in this tournament. Despite Tuesday and their first game, which drew 25,797 fans for a meeting with Flamengo late on a Monday night, being among the lower attendances of the eventual eight games at the Linc, the atmosphere at both far outshined the numbers.
Soccer is different for fans of Esperance de Tunis. They are a civic power block, with their own ideologies and customs. The club’s main fan group, Curva Sud, is heavily influenced by Italian supporters groups (the name, Italian for “south curve,” is adopted from the section of the stadium where many fan groups are cordoned off.) Unrest in soccer stadiums has been a focus of political change, from the Balkans to Africa. During the Arab Spring protests in 2011, ES Tunis was part of the fray, with the club’s former chairman, Slim Chiboub, the son-in-law of deposed president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The causes they literally trumpet extend beyond sports, and the passion is commensurately broad and awe-inspiring.
Exposing global soccer fans to a wider swath of the game was part of the rationale for the Club World Cup. Fans in the U.S. can see clubs in Europe or parts of South America on relatively accessible television and streaming packages each week. Encountering more obscure teams can be a challenge. Viewing the devotion they inspire up close is revelatory.
“Of course, I understand that maybe here (in the U.S.) they don’t know African soccer well,” Derbali said. “We know that there’s a great passion around the teams, we know that fans are passionate in Africa. Soccer is the most-played sport there, and the most popular. So it’s a pleasure to see fans in the stands here. They are there with us, they push us, they give us force. And maybe that will create a better image of African soccer, and people will be more interested.”
The World Cup, when national teams are on the stage, tends to highlight those differences. The fact that the club realm has already seeded that ground bodes well for the pageantry next summer will bring.
Contact Matthew De George at mdegeorge@delcotimes.com