With Team USA and England fighting for their World Cup lives at the same time today, city bars planned to relegate British fans to back rooms and basements and give American supporters priority.
The cross-pond rivals play in separate 10 a.m. games — USA vs. Algeria and England vs. Slovenia — with wins guaranteeing each will move on to the next round.
At soccer mecca Nevada Smiths on Third Avenue, which expects to reach capacity and shut its doors 90 minutes before the games, the top floor will play the audio of the USA game and the downstairs the England game.
“It will be a circus in here,” Jack Keane, the bar’s director said. “We will have extra security, and we won’t be serving any glassware.”
Keane expects 350 fans upstairs and another 150 below. “If we had room for 5,000 people, we’d probably still have to turn people away,” he said.
As one of the bar’s doormen put it, “You won’t see any English people at work [today].”
USA fan Drew Pitcher, 31, said he and many of his friends plan to skip work to watch the game.
“This game is all I have been thinking about for five days,” he said. “We have a chance to move on. England is overconfident, overpaid and annoying.”
Neither England nor USA has to win their games in South Africa to advance — they could do so with a tie depending on the score in the other game.
The US team will be cheered on by former President Bill Clinton, who is in Africa on a humanitarian mission to Tanzania and Malawi.
At Play Beautiful, a pop-up World Cup viewing venue in SoHo, England fans will be tucked into a separate room in the back.
“We have a bunch of England fans who have reserved spots, and we are showing that game in the back area,” manager Zach Rubin said.
Rathbones, an Upper East Side bar, was equally divided the day USA played England to a draw, and manager Chris Binger expects today to be no different.
“Officially we are an English bar — but my heart is with America,” he said, noting he’ll give audio to the USA game.
After a questionable call cost Team USA a win against Slovenia, today’s game has become a must-win, Binger said.
“We were hoodwinked by a referee who hates America, and it would be a tragedy if the US didn’t advance to the second round,” he said. “The future of American soccer rests on advancing to the second round.”
Additional reporting by Colin Mixson and Lachlan Cartwright