After scoring a pair of overpriced tickets in the World Cup lottery this year, I realized that the match would take place the day after my godson turned 9.
Like so many other children growing up in Miami during the city’s Lionel Messi era, he is an ardent soccer fan. So his parents and I hatched a plan to surprise him on his birthday with the tickets: He’d join me to watch Uruguay play Cape Verde. Only then did I realize that I, too, had been 9 when I went to my first World Cup game, 32 years ago.
The coincidence delighted me, because I remember so much about that day. It was July 3, 1994, at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. Romania beat Argentina, 3-2. I knew almost every player, having feverishly completed a World Cup sticker album.
I remember the swarms of people and the blazing heat and the shorts I wore. I remember the Argentina fans in the stands next to us, listening to an Argentine narration of the match on the radio. And five goals! At a World Cup! What a thrill.
My godson, Nishant Siddharthan, would remember, too, I knew. And so would the other 9-, 10- and 11-year-olds getting to experience the world’s biggest sporting event in person.
“The game was so stunning, I can’t even talk,” Nishant told me after Cape Verde improbably tied with the much higher-ranked Uruguay team in a 2-2 nail-biter. “Everybody went crazy. No Uruguayan is talking right now. Look at these guys!”
Last month, before the match between Scotland and Brazil at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., I set out to interview some other boys and girls around Nishant’s age who were also attending their first World Cup.
What I found when I shared my own childhood World Cup story was that it was their parents and grandparents who got a little sentimental. They relived their own tournament memories — and were happy to contemplate their children always remembering the experience.
Mila Collavino, 10, of Ontario, Canada, could hardly contain her exuberance, saying she had waited impatiently for “like two months” for match day to arrive.
“I want to watch Neymar and Vini Jr.,” she said, referring to star strikers on Brazil’s team. “I also play striker.”
Her parents, Stephanie and Mike Collavino, said the family was also rooting for Canada. But Mila, who can rattle off entire team rosters, had chosen Brazil as another of her favorites. Her father was ecstatic to share his love for the sport with her and her younger brother.
“As soon as I had kids,” said Mr. Collavino, 38, “it was a lifelong dream for me to bring them to the World Cup.”
Nicolás Castrillón, 9, of Medellín, Colombia, had already seen Belgium and Egypt draw 1-1 in Seattle. He and his father, Sebastián Castrillón, 39, also had tickets to watch Colombia play Portugal in Miami Gardens.
“I’ve loved watching the players on the field,” Nicolás, who plays right winger on a team at home, said in Spanish.
He wore a South Africa jersey but topped it off with a Colombia hat and flag. “We’re in a World Cup pool,” he noted. (The winner will collect about $300, his father said.) He predicted Brazil would defeat Scotland 4-1; the actual result was 3-0.
“He knows more about football than I do,” Mr. Castrillón said in Spanish. “Even though I love football!”
Anna McDonald, 11, had taken a picture in front of the stadium and sent it to a WhatsApp chat group back home in Glasgow, Scotland.
“I told my whole class” about coming to the match, she said. “It was like, ‘Wow!’”
“Anna is in the Tartan Army,” her father, Andrew McDonald, said proudly, referring to Scotland’s legions of traveling, contagiously rowdy fans.
He had gone to World Cups in Brazil in 2014 and in South Africa in 2010 that Scotland did not play in. Being able to bring his daughter to see their national team compete, he said, was “once-in-a-lifetime stuff.”
Santiago Ramírez, 9, of Mexico City, was eager to see a match in person after watching parts of the tournament on television. “I can’t wait to see Neymar,” he said. “I like how he dribbles.”
Santiago was with his grandmother, Guadalupe Izquierdo, 66, who was attending her third World Cup, after going to matches in the 1970 and 1986 tournaments in Mexico.
“It’s very emotional, to bring him here,” she said in Spanish.
Lockie Wilson, 9, of Livingston, Scotland, a budding central midfielder, said shyly that he was “pretty excited, watching the team play in the World Cup.”
He was with his grandfather, Rick Wilson, 60, and his father, Richard Wilson, 38, who noted that Scotland had not qualified for a World Cup since 1998.
“I was 10 last time,” he said, “and I remember Scotland playing against Brazil.”
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