Marlins embrace World Cup fever in Miami, celebrate soccer roots

This story was excerpted from Christina De Nicola’s Marlins Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

PITTSBURGH – World Cup fever is taking over Miami, and the Marlins joined the fun while traveling on Thursday to Pittsburgh for their weekend series at PNC Park.

To coincide with the first day of the global tournament’s competition, Miami’s entire traveling party showed up for the flight wearing soccer (or football, depending on where in the world you’re from) jerseys. The Marlins’ wardrobe represented about a quarter of the countries competing -- and even the fictional club of AFC Richmond from “Ted Lasso.”

Reliever Michael Petersen, who was born in Middlesex, United Kingdom but grew up in the Bay Area, wore Harry Kane’s England home jersey. The Three Lions have been champions just once, in 1966, and often talk about the trophy “coming” home. The modern game traces back to 1800s England.

Petersen never played football because he didn’t have the foot-eye coordination, but he would watch the World Cup and some Arsenal and Manchester United Premier League matches over the years while visiting his cousins overseas.

“I was literally just listening to a podcast this morning about it, and what got me was they were talking about who they thought was going to win, and they're like, ‘England can do it,’” Petersen said. “But I'm like, ‘Every year. Every year.’ And every year something just heartbreaking [happens].”

England is one of the four countries competing in the World Cup that members of the Marlins’ active roster were born in, along with the United States, Canada and Panama.

Many of the Marlins are casual fans at best when it comes to “The Beautiful Game,” though most were locked in on USA’s victory over Paraguay in Friday night’s postgame clubhouse. Soccer means quite a bit more to Leo Jiménez. It was the first sport he played as a kid growing up in Panama.

Jiménez, one of six Panamanians to appear in the big leagues this season, had a family friend’s sister track down a national team jersey and bring it to him in Miami in time for the road trip.

Panama, which didn’t qualify for the last World Cup four years ago in Qatar, did so this time around when Jiménez was back home this offseason. He and his family celebrated with everyone in the streets until 5 a.m.

“It was something that I was really considering before I jumped into baseball,” Jiménez said. “There was one point [at 10 years old] that I had to choose between soccer and baseball, and I just basically liked baseball more. So I just went the baseball way, and I think it ended up working out pretty well.”

Many of Jiménez’s teammates don’t know about his background in the sport, so Javier Sanoja’s name came up the most when guessing which Marlin would make the best footballer.

“He's fast, agile, so I can see him being nasty if he used to play,” said right-hander Ryan Gusto, who bought himself and Anthony Bender USA jerseys.

Sanoja, a World Baseball Classic hero for Venezuela this past March, successfully juggled a miniature soccer ball earlier in the week and also exchanged jerseys with Curaçao midfielder Leandro Bacuna prior to Wednesday’s game at loanDepot park.

Curaçao, which is participating in its first World Cup, took in Miami’s victory over Arizona from a suite. Bacuna also fired off a ceremonial first pitch to head coach Dick Advocaat. Rather than wear a jersey of Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, his favorite players, Sanoja donned the personalized one he received from the Blue Wave.

“I felt very special just having that support from Curaçao, and they gave me the shirt, so I want to show this support,” Sanoja said via interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. “Being part of a World Cup I think is incredible, because you have the weight of responsibilities to represent a country. I know that, and just doing that, I want to support them.

“I'm very thankful for them taking their time to go and watch the game and supporting the Marlins, because I know that once you're in a World Cup like that, you're fully focused on the tournament. So, doing that was pretty cool.”