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PHOTOGRAPHY Andrew Zwarych
INTERVIEW + WORDS Fay Harvey
When the World Cup comes around every four years, Philadelphia-based photographer Andrew Zwarych has found himself on planes flying far away from home, but he isn’t usually traveling to see the games in person. In 2018, rather than heading to Russia, he voyaged to Iceland to enjoy the matches with the country’s people who hadn’t seen their nation qualify since 1974. Denmark and Belgium were next in 2022, while the respective squads contested for the cup in various stadiums across Qatar.
But this summer, the game finally came to him.
But this summer, the game finally came to him.
For 39 days, Andrew, who was born and raised in the city and works for the local tourism board, documented exactly how Philadelphia transformed alongside the many nations that came and went for the World Cup. But before it all began, there was a slight air of skepticism and pessimism surrounding expectations as the one of the oldest cities in the nation readied itself to be the nucleus for an array of visitors.
As a primarily American football city, and while Philadelphia has long-formed roots in football—toting the Philadelphia Union, the club that plays just 10 miles SW the stadium the World Cup matches in the city took place—Andrew says the average city goer still wasn’t aware of how football could specifically morph a city. Having experienced the game in 14 different countries throughout his life’s travels thus far, he knew that was set to change, and change it did once the Scottish tidal wave took over the city streets just a few days prior to the tournament beginning. And with experience of NFL Superbowl Championship parades in recent history alongside a huge sense of city pride, Philadelphians came out in droves to welcome the summer visitors who were traveling from all over, from Ecuador to Iraq.
Andrew described it all as euphoric, and his goal was to capture that city-wide emotion in his documentary wherever he went while still keeping the location as a central character.
On one day in particular, Philadelphia’s fan fest came alive when a four-match day took off on June 19, and the epicenter saw over 50,000 people, bringing people from their communities out to embrace their nation, like both Haitians and Brazilians from the Northeast Pennsylvania area, as their countries faced off just miles away.
“That was a good, hurricane-style day,” Andrew called it. “Hotels busting at the seams, jerseys galore around the city. Regardless of if you liked a team or not, everyone was like, “Oh, where are you from? I'd love to help you out, go to this spot,” everyone just really bought into this energy.”
“Like how in the Olympics photographers are always focused on ‘How do we get the symbol of the Olympics,’ that was always my thinking,” explained Andrew. “How do we get Philadelphia symbols and spots that are actually in Philadelphia, because if you take that away, you could think these Croatians are in Dubrovnik or the French are anywhere in Paris or Marseilles, or whatnot, so I always try to have those well-known Philadelphia spots.”
While he looked through his lens in these June summer days, Andrew witnessed Croatians running their tifos down Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Iraqis and French singing each other's chants on the Art Museum Steps while the Iraqis jokingly pleaded to the French to take it easy on them, and Ecuadorians putting their jersey on the Rocky statues—a big superstitious no-no, one that came before they fell to the Ivory Coast side.
The cultural exchange blossomed in the host city on both sides as Andrew witnessed newfound football fans begin to understand the impact the sport can have in uniting the world. While he knew its power, witnessing locals realize it too was special. And as the tournament switches hosts over the next decades, and may not come back to North America for World Cups to come, Andrew felt that the long days and longer nights documenting his city come to life was worth it.
“I’m just trying to experience as much as I can and soak in as much as I can. I felt like a Getty photographer traveling from place to place, but I was traveling city to city, like, I will not sleep until after the tournament until I can capture all of Philadelphia.”
When the buzz dies down and the traveling fans return home, Andrew’s one wish is that the curiosity around the region continues, and that the inevitable World Cup hangover subsides quickly.
“Philadelphia is very much a melting pot… we're a hard working city, very much a nitty gritty city, and often we're a very, I hate saying it, a skippable city, where the way we're situated is very much like, ‘Oh it's so close to get to Philly, so convenient, I'll do it next weekend,’ and then next weekend goes to a year, and then you just never get to it. By being situated between New York and DC, we kind of get overlooked,” Andrew said. “Hopefully [the tournament] helped boost our appeal on the global stage by being like, ‘Oh wait, I can go to Philly, New York, and Boston, just taking the regular train, it's only six hours, sign me up.”
“I hope it keeps going. I love this, and I just want it to continue.”