Bektosh Khatamov, a lawyer and founder of several private educational institutions, flew to the United States with his family to watch Uzbekistan's matches at the World Cup. His son, Isfandiyor Begmatov, became globally recognized after a video of him crying following Colombia's first goal against the White Wolves spread across social media.

“We didn't have a television at home, so I watched the 1994 World Cup final at a neighbor's house. In 1997, we got our first TV, and that's where I watched the 1998 World Cup. The final — France against Brazil, Zidane's two goals, Marcel Desailly's red card — I saw all of it on that black-and-white screen,” he says.

Football captivated the young Khatamov to the point where he began attending training sessions without his parents' knowledge. They were absolutely against it.

“Training started at 3:00 p.m. and ended at 4:30 p.m. My mother was a teacher and came home after lessons at 5:00 p.m. I always managed to get back before her and sat at home as if nothing had happened. This went on for three years. Then schoolwork got in the way, and I had to give up football. Perhaps, becoming a football player was not my destiny after all,” he says.

Today, three of Bektosh Khatamov's sons train at Bunyodkor Junior. He says he never pushed them toward football. The love for the game came naturally, through conversations about matches at home and regular trips to the stadium from an early age.

Khatamov makes a point of attending Uzbekistan's national team matches whenever possible. He was in the stands for the decisive moment in Abu Dhabi, when the team secured their place at the World Cup.

“I traveled to the away match because I truly believed Uzbekistan would make it to the World Cup. What our team has achieved is already a victory,” says Bektosh Khatamov, who previously supported the national teams of Argentina, Spain, and France.

He set himself a goal of attending the World Cup with his entire family and submitted visa applications in May 2025.

“Since it was my first time traveling to the United States, and with my family, they questioned us in detail about the purpose of our visit. At that point, I thought we would most likely be denied. They told us: 'We cannot issue you a visa at this time, but we are not issuing a refusal either — we need to verify further,' ” he recalls.

When nearly a year passed without a response, Khatamov decided to write to the consulate in April. In response, he was told that his visa had been approved.

Khatamov spent approximately $50,000 on the trip for his family of five, with around $12,000 spent on airline tickets alone.

“I couldn’t find tickets for the match against Colombia and ended up purchasing them through an acquaintance from the Olympic Committee. I paid $750 each for Category 1 seats, but we were later moved to Category 2 seats, where the Colombian supporters were sitting,” Khatamov recalls.

The openness and sincerity of the Colombian fans left a deep impression on him. Their support made his son Isfandiyar known to audiences around the world.

He filmed the moment and posted it on his Telegram and Instagram pages. By the end of the second half, the video had already reached 1.5 million views.

The clip quickly spread across Uzbek and international social media, shared by football communities and non-sports accounts alike. Football cartoonist Hamid Sahari dedicated a video to Isfandiyar, illustrating the Colombian fans' show of support and how the story inspired the Uzbekistan national team.

Reflecting on Uzbekistan's debut match at the World Cup, Bektosh Khatamov praised the performance of Abbosbek Fayzullayev but admitted he was not entirely satisfied with the defenders.

“After conceding, we probably should have played more cautiously and fallen back. I think one point would have been a good result. But the desire to score again seemed to take over. In the episode leading to the third goal, our defender was unable to fight for the ball to the end. I think the team lacked experience. Colombia, for example, first appeared at the World Cup back in 1962, and Portugal in 1966. Experience only comes with time,” he says.

Khatamov brought an Uzbekistan flag and a scarf featuring the flags of Central Asian countries to the match. Before the game against Portugal, the Football Association of Uzbekistan provided Isfandiyar and his brothers with the national team kit.

In Mexico, he spent a lot of time searching for the national team jersey. Kit from teams partnered with brands such as Adidas, Nike, and Puma, he says, is readily available in official stores. Whereas Uzbekistan national team merchandise is almost nowhere to be found.

“7Saber has produced a quality kit, but good equipment alone is not enough. You need a well-developed retail infrastructure. For example, Nike has more than 20,000 stores worldwide, which is why national team jerseys are easy to find in almost any country. Our kit has to be brought from Uzbekistan. This is largely tied to the level of economic development. I really liked the Norway national team kit, by the way. Much like the country itself, it makes a strong impression,” he says.

In Khatamov's view, as the economy grows and incomes rise, more Uzbekistani supporters will be able to afford trips to countries as expensive as the USA. With that, he believes, demand for national team merchandise will increase, and it should become more widely available.

Azamat Abdugafforov is 34 years old and originally from Fergana. He works at a pharmaceutical factory in Tashkent, where he is involved in medication manufacturing.

His interest in football began in childhood, when his father was watching a Manchester United match on TV. Cristiano Ronaldo's play caught the boy's attention. From that moment, football became his primary passion. He played with friends in the yard and at school, and today he still follows Real Madrid and Ronaldo. Among Uzbek clubs, he likes Neftchi, a football club founded in 1962 in Fergana, his hometown, one of the most widely supported clubs in Uzbekistan.

Azamat has followed the World Cup since 2006, the tournament best remembered for Zidane's headbutt on Marco Materazzi in the final. He attended his first World Cup match in 2022, traveling to Qatar with two close friends, Sherzod and Nigmatilla. The three made a promise: if Uzbekistan ever qualified for the World Cup, they would follow the team wherever it went.

That country turned out to be the USA. In February, the friends submitted their visa applications, and on June 5, they successfully passed their interviews and received entry permits. According to Abdugafforov, the trip cost at least $5,000 per person. He notes that additional expenses should be expected, as matches are held across multiple countries, requiring fans to fly between them.

“Watching football at home on TV and being at the stadium are two completely different experiences. I truly understood what it means when I arrived at the World Cup in the US. These emotions cannot be put into words. When we approached the stadium carrying the Uzbekistan flag and wearing tubeteikas, supporters from other countries came up to us, chanting 'Uzbekistan! Uzbekistan!' and asking to take photos. In those moments, you feel an immense sense of pride,” says Abdugafforov.

He believes Uzbekistan's World Cup debut was a success, regardless of the final score.

“The boys played really well, even better than many expected. Colombia is a team with considerable experience, having first qualified for the World Cup sixty years ago. Given that, the result is understandable,” says Azamat.

Abdugafforov also noted the friendliness of the Colombian supporters. Both before and after the match, he says, they were happy to talk with Uzbekistani fans and take photos together. When Spanish-speaking television journalists asked him for his prediction, Azamat consistently replied in English: “Uzbekistan will win.”

“In that moment, love for the motherland outweighed any concern about the result. I think I would have felt the same emotions at a competition in any other sport. But football is a game of millions. It carries a special atmosphere and the chance to find yourself at the center of the world's attention,” he says.

He believes the players should not let the pressure of the tournament weigh on them. It’s better to enjoy the game and gain the experience. As far as he is concerned, the team has already achieved what millions of Uzbekistanis have dreamed of for generations. The rest, he says, will follow.

Alen Mahmudov is an AI analyst, born in Tashkent. He moved to the United States in 2002 and now splits his time between two countries, six months in Colombia and six months in Brazil.

He admits he was never particularly interested in football. As a child, he played American football and took swimming lessons. He used to watch the World Cup with friends, and recalls cheering for Russia in 2018 “simply because it was the only CIS country in the tournament.”

“Back then, it never crossed our minds that eight years later we would be supporting our own team, that Uzbekistan would actually qualify for the World Cup. It felt surreal,” shares Alen.

In his family, the World Cup was never a television event until this year. There were two reasons to gather around the screen: Uzbekistan's first-ever WC match against Colombia on the pitch, and their son in the stands, attending a WC for the first time in his life.

He realized he needed to be in the stands among Uzbekistani supporters in November 2025, when the national team qualified for the WC.

“I happened to be in Tashkent at the time, watching the qualifying matches with friends, and something about that atmosphere genuinely moved me. I already knew then that I had to support the team in person. After the draw, my Colombian friends started messaging me, teasing that we would now have to face each other,” he recalls.

In the spring, Mahmudov began monitoring ticket prices. The cheapest were around $800. He was prepared to pay when an American friend, who knew that Alen was originally from Uzbekistan, gave him a ticket as a gift.

“Before flying to Mexico, my father sent national team jerseys from Tashkent, and I brought them with me. Now some of my Latin American friends are wearing Uzbekistan national team jerseys from Korzinka (a major Uzbek supermarket chain and official partner of the Football Association of Uzbekistan — ed.),” says Mahmudov.

In Mexico City, Alen stayed with an acquaintance. “I slept on the couch. But does it matter? I could sleep on the floor before a match like this,” he says.

At a fan festival held the day before the game, Alen met supporters from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. On the day of the match, he recalls, they drew constant attention on the way to the stadium. Almost everyone around them was dressed in yellow.

“I was wearing the national team jersey, a festive tubeteika, and a scarf with the Uzbek flag. People approached us, asked to take photos, and started conversations. For Mexicans and Colombians, meeting someone from Uzbekistan is rare. Perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” says Mahmudov.

Alen's seat was in the 600s section, “almost under the roof,” as he puts it. Even so, he says, the view was excellent. It was there, in the stands, that he understood what live football is really about.

“It was my first experience at a match of this scale. I had never heard that kind of energy concentrated in one place with drums, chants, and the roar of the crowd. I had been to the Maracanã before for smaller matches with friends from Brazil. We support the local club Flamengo, but this was very different,” says Mahmudov.

The standout moment of the Uzbekistan-Colombia match was Abbosbek Fayzullayev's goal in the 60th minute.

“It was an explosion of emotions. I was screaming so loudly that I couldn’t hear myself. Almost everyone around us was in yellow as Colombian fans. At that moment, they went quiet. They probably thought it might go the way of Portugal against Congo the day before, when the score leveled, and Uzbekistan could push on. After the goal, they congratulated us and cheered us on,” says Mahmudov.

He believes the team was playing for a 2-2 draw in their debut match, but was unable to convert all of their chances.

Mahmudov admits that before the tournament, he only knew two players: Abdukodir Khusanov, who plays for Manchester City, and Eldor Shomurodov, the team captain. His favorite player on the team is 22-year-old midfielder Abbosbek Fayzullayev.

“Abbos Fayzullayev scored Uzbekistan's first-ever World Cup goal. He scored it with pure quality and accepted the congratulations with such modesty. I fell for him immediately. I would have liked to see a little more emotion from him, honestly. But there was so much respect for the opponent in that restraint. When Ronaldo scores, it is a whole performance with dancing, shouting, and a ritual. This young man simply smiled. I hope he has a long career ahead of him,” says Alen.

Mahmudov watched the match against Portugal in Colombia. He admits that after the first game, there was a sense that the team could hold its own against anyone, but after conceding three goals, that hope began to fade.

“I felt for the boys. Portugal is objectively the strongest opponent they faced, ranked higher than Colombia. And who knows, Portugal might have a chance to win the whole tournament. With players like Ronaldo, they are always close to it,” he says.

If Uzbekistan does not advance from the group stage, Mahmudov intends to keep following the tournament and will support Colombia.

“I live here. I have Colombian friends. So it matters to me. Their chances may not be the greatest, but we will see. The one thing I would not want is for Argentina or France to win again. They have already won. I would like to see a team that has not lifted the trophy in the last 20 to 30 years. That would make for a truly compelling story,” he concludes.