Five days before the ball rolls in the United States for the World Cup, the city of New York hosted a lively duel between Palmeiras and Juventus last Sunday (7). It was in Randall’s Island park, where Guatemalan migrants faced each other wearing Brazilian and Italian team shirts.
The match did not show great technical quality, but the score was decided by a beautiful shot. In the final move, Nolberto, who was wearing Juventus’ number 8 shirt, was three steps away from the penalty area and finished. The ball exploded off the crossbar, hit the goalkeeper’s back and ended up in the net: 1-0.
The scorer barely had time to celebrate. It was 9 am, and field 74 of the park was reserved for a children’s game. The responsible adults didn’t even wait for the clash between the Guatemalans to end before, without ceremony, carrying the portable goalposts used for children’s recreation onto the lawn.
This is what many migrants living in New York do to play football. Without access to the official schedule of municipal parks — which requires registration in the system and payment of a fee that varies from US$24 to US$56 (R$123 to R$288) per hour—, they put on their boots at alternative times.
It is not uncommon for matches to start around 6am, with the day still light, when athletes arrive with their bikes. In the case of Palmeiras x Juventus on Sunday, one of Nolberto’s teammates had to leave during halftime to work as a delivery boy. The rest left when the field was occupied by those who had reserved it.
Suspicious, they avoided giving interviews. Those who played in the uniform of the club from the west of São Paulo, asked about the reason for their choice, simply said they liked Brazil. The most excited winners agreed to pose for a victory photo, with the island of Manhattan in the background.
Randall’s Island park is not the only one in New York with soccer fields, but it is well known by players who lived there. From August 2023 to February 2025, in the midst of a migration crisis that overwhelmed the city’s reception system, an emergency shelter with capacity for 3,000 people operated on site.
The tents were erected next to the Icahn Stadium, where the Netherlands team beat Uzbekistan in a friendly preparatory match for the World Cup held last Monday (8). The stadium was built on the site of the Downing Stadium, the stage for Pelé’s debut with the New York Cosmos, 51 years ago, and demolished in 2002.
Today, other Brazilians play football on the island. This is the case of advertiser Marcus Castro, 42 years old, who has lived in the New York metropolitan area for 12 years. Used to defending Cruzeirinho do Tatuapé in lowland football in São Paulo, he initially had difficulty finding a team in the USA.
The first experience was very different from the one he had in the dirt fields located behind the Carrão metro station. One of his specialties was taking a corner kick over the head of a talented midfielder from the top. Because the team that the São Paulo native found had men and women mixed together and prohibited strong kicks and aerial balls.
Dissatisfied with what he called “gymkhana”, he was finally called up to something more similar to the football he was used to. A co-worker of his wife asked her: “Isn’t your husband Brazilian? Does he play well? But does he really play well?” Castro passed a kind of test and has been defending NY Shamrock for over a decade.
Founded in 1960 by Irish migrants and based in the Queens neighborhood, the club is still mostly made up of athletes from Ireland. In the case of the 40+ team, they are reinforced by Marquinhos — as Castro was called in his Cruzeirinho days and also as his current teammates refer to him — and some Jamaicans.
Shamrock competes in a league with an extremely New York name, the Cosmopolitan Soccer League. In the CSL, they face clubs like Polonez SC, which has Polish athletes, SC Gjoa, full of Norwegians, Al-Asad, with many Saudis, Panatha USA, made up of Greeks, and NY Galicia, whose lineup has Spanish and Portuguese players.
“It’s very ethnic, almost like a World Cup. One week we play against a Greek team, the next week we play against a Scandinavian team, then it’s against a Latin team… It’s very interesting, you always end up hearing different languages while you’re playing”, said the Brazilian.
Regardless of the language, there is a common feeling.
“The thing that connects the most is the love of football. They are people who work from Monday to Friday, from Monday to Saturday, sometimes they go to the game straight from work on Sunday. It is the love of football and a sense of community that unites us”, said Marquinhos, in a phrase that also applies to the Guatemalans of Palmeiras and Juventus.
In the end, the smile of Sunday’s top scorer, Nolberto, is the same as that of Eric, Pedro, Ferdi, Sadia and Negão, scorers of the goals in Cruzeirinho’s most recent victory, 7-1 over Lyon on the now synthetic Carrão pitch. And it’s not very different from that shown by Mexican Julián Andrés Quiñones, responsible for the first ball in the net at the 2026 World Cup.
“Man, it’s football”, summarized Marquinhos. “Here, there, in the floodplain, at the World Cup, it’s football. And we love it.”
