Jim Hinojosa clutched a pile of jerseys he’d packed “to meet Luka Modri” and smiled under the heat as he stood by the barricades outside Hotel AKA in Old Town Alexandria on Friday afternoon. “I fell in love with soccer since I was 8. Started playing with my dad, he took me out the field, and then I started loving it. I love the game,” he said, calling the moment “a dream” even as he admitted, “We don't know when they're gonna come back.”
A few fans braved the heat to stake out the team hotel while Team Croatia — which is staying at Hotel AKA throughout the World Cup tournament and will also train in Alexandria — prepared for its next match. Twelve-year-old Alex Bacak waited near the barricades, a local whose grandparents settled in Alexandria more than 50 years ago, and said he brought “a Luca Modri jersey and a rookie card of him from Croatia” to get signed.
The scene in the small block outside the hotel stands in sharp contrast to the scale of the tournament: the 2026 World Cup is being hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, with over 104 matches across 16 cities. For fans here, that large, multi-city spectacle has condensed into a single stretch of sidewalk and a handful of hopeful faces, a rare chance to see a World Cup squad up close in a U.S. neighborhood.
Context tightens the moment. Croatia, which reached the 2018 final and lost 4-2 to France, will take on England in Dallas on June 17 — a matchup often cast as a rematch of the 2018 semifinal. The team’s decision to base itself and train in Alexandria puts it within reach of local supporters, a draw that has produced small clusters of fans outside the hotel on an otherwise ordinary afternoon in the city.
But that proximity comes with a blunt uncertainty. Hinojosa’s comment — “We don't know when they're gonna come back” — captured the friction: Croatia is based in Alexandria for the tournament, yet fans have no clear window for access. Security, team schedules and travel plans will determine whether the handful of people who showed up Friday get a moment with players or are left calling it an experience of being near history rather than part of it.
For Bacak, the visit has a personal cast. At 12 he waited with his jersey and card because the lineage is local as well as national: his grandparents, he said, are natives of Croatia who settled in Alexandria more than 50 years ago. “I have a Luca Modri jersey and a rookie card of him from Croatia, so that's what I would want him to sign,” he said, framing the afternoon as more than fandom — a connection across generations.
The next scheduled public moment for the team is on the field: the England match in Dallas on June 17. For the fans camped outside Hotel AKA, the most consequential question is immediate and practical — will they get the few minutes they’ve waited for before the squad departs, or will the tour of U.S. cities and the demands of a 104-match tournament pull Croatia out of Alexandria before anyone can meet Luka Modri in person? The answer will determine whether Friday’s heat becomes a small, private memory or a missed chance for a community that turned out to see its team up close.
