What happened?

Oh, it was just a magical night.

[cheering] They really didn't get here until about 1:00 in the morning.

[cheering] There were probably 200 Algerian fans there.

We had drums, live music, chanting, fireworks, flags waving, and I'm sure the team was surprised to see the outpouring that they got at 1:00 AM.

What do you make of the contrast between those two things?

I think part of why our story was so powerful is because of that very contrast.

My husband and I talk about it, that a community welcomes visitors should not be a headline, but it kind of shows where we are in this day and age.

They had Team Algeria fever.

I was going the opposite direction of people going to a watch party, and every single person had on an Algerian, you know, whether they were holding a flag or had a hat or had a jersey or had a green shirt, um, everybody was just all in and, uh, it was, it was like a home game.

[crowd cheering]

I don't know if that sounds accurate to what you're experiencing.

I think that's right.

I think we're seeing ourselves through the eyes of these visitors who maybe didn't expect to be welcomed as they are.

It's just a recentering, a really good look at who we are, and I'm incredibly grateful for what this experience has taught us, to sort of slow down and look back about what this means and what it means to be on this planet together.

Really?

We had, yeah, Arabic, um, films and cultural discussions.

Um, we already have about five halal restaurants in town.

We just went full in, all in for the Greens.

For Algerians back in Africa, though, it's been difficult to get here.

They had a very lengthy visa process, and they were assessed a bond, a very expensive bond.

So it was very difficult for Algerians to travel here from Algeria, I think has been driving a lot of this fandom.