Texas World Cup two-step: pictures from our Fourth of July road trip to Houston and back

Unlike U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, we didn’t think it prudent to take a months-long vacation with our family on the taxpayer’s dime to celebrate the Fourth of July. But we did find it impossible to resist honoring the country’s 250th birthday with a good ol’ American road trip of a different sort.

We followed up Friday’s World Cup match in Arlington with a drive down Interstate 45 to Houston for Saturday’s round of 16 match featuring Morocco and Canada. The distance between Big D and H-town is among the shortest trips between 2026 host cities, so we’d be crazy not to give this Texas World Cup two-step a shot. 

Not only was it a contest to decide who advances to the quarterfinals and who goes home, but it was a matchup of Africa’s best squad – with apologies to the inspirational heroes of Cabo Verde – against Canada’s best-ever national men’s soccer team. That’s our kind of America, you know. We’re into melting pots.

Because we were playing the role of proper tourists, we absolutely stopped by Buc-ee’s on the way down. Inside the Madisonville location just off I-45, north of Houston, we spotted folks sporting Morocco jerseys as well as customers donning Canadian-themed gear. The giant gas and meat mecca isn’t just for visiting Germans, to be fair. 

Inside NRG Stadium, known during the tournament as Houston Stadium, the majority of the reportedly sold-out crowd of 68,777 in attendance were clad in red (it’s worth noting that a large portion of the corporate hospitality suite seats were empty, although likely sold). Initially the shared color made it hard to tell which way the throng leaned, but shortly after the match started it seemed as though the vocal majority was with Canada, although not by much. Unlike the Mexico and the United States teams, who won their groups, Canada has not enjoyed a true home field advantage in all of their matches thanks to their second-place finish in the group stage. 

Because of FIFA’s strict control over the overall production and fan experiences for each match, there weren’t many differences in the look of what has transpired in Arlington over the past few weeks and what we experienced in Houston. The same corporate activations from Home Depot, Doritos, Michelob Ultra, and yes, the Bank of America bracelets, could be found, for example. The line for the viral trinkets was nearly as long in Houston as they have been in Dallas, too. During the match, fans booed when the referee blew his whistle for the needless hydration breaks, just as has been happening in nearly every match this summer across North America. 

Something unique on Sunday was the lack of goals called back by offside penalty calls. If you’re even a casual soccer fan you’ve no doubt noticed that Americans on social media who are not longtime soccer fans have not stopped complaining about the times in recent weeks they’ve celebrated a goal in vain from their couch.  

NRG Stadium, opened in 2002, is older than AT&T Stadium by seven years, and it shows in that it’s less smaller and less museum-like (so it looks and feels more like a proper sports stadium and less like the Galleria). Although it’s smaller, the Houston stadium is louder than Arlington’s, which is great for World Cup energy, but not ideal for the wave apparently, as multiple attempts to get one started failed quickly, and we’ll admit, hilariously. 

As for the match itself, the Atlas Lions of Morocco were the betting favorites and indeed, the better team on paper, although the first half nearly suggested otherwise. Moroccan star striker Ismael Saibari left the match with an early injury as Canada kept the pressure on and largely controlled possession indicating this would be yet another close result. With several yellow cards issued in the first half, the match was a chippy, defensively tight affair to the point one could forgive the 0-0 score. 

The match would end with a total of eight yellows issued, with each team receiving four. The second half proved to be a different ballgame, though. Morocco’s Azzedine Ounahi began the scoring with a strike from just outside of the penalty box in the 50th minute. Later in the match, well past the second-half hydration break, Canada was able to again apply pressure in Morocco’s end, but the Atlas Lions dashed Canada’s hopes of drawing even with another gorgeous ball from Ounahi to go up 2-0 in the 82nd minute. 

A third Moroccan goal in stoppage time put a final end to the best World Cup Canada’s soccer team has ever enjoyed. For us, it meant finding our truck and heading back up north, after another stop at Buc-ees for an early dinner. Fireworks? Thanks to the tackles, pushing, shoving, scoring and national jubilation shown by Canadian, Moroccan fans, we’d seen plenty long before sundown.