They were the breakout fans of the 2018 World Cup. We expected the powerhouse Argentinians and upstart Colombians. We expected the Icelanders, who sent an estimated 12% of their population to France in 2016.



But nobody quite saw the wave of Peruvians coming until it crashed into Russia, an invasion 36 years in the making that seemed to jam every second person in Moscow into a red-sashed uniform yelling “Vamos Peru!”

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When it all came tumbling down on Thursday in a bitter 1-0 defeat by France, it was an emotional goodbye that left some diehards wondering whether the support was so large it might have unnerved their own side.

“Some people sold their houses to be here man,” said Eduardo, a native of Lima who lives in London. “You would be nervous too.”

The fact that Peru’s defeat seemed inevitable did not make it any less painful for the faithful. When the final whistle blew here, six men in matching Peru zip-ups and Adidas track pants began sobbing in the stairwell, slumping on each other in sloppy hugs of consolation. One man threw his beer from four storeys up and belted out obscenities as he descended from the seats. A father wiped tears from his daughter’s cheeks, smearing the white-and-red facepaint she had applied before the game.

“She just told me we shouldn’t have come,” said Rafael Jiménez nodding at his daughter María, who turned away shyly, stuffing her head into her father’s trouser leg. “And I said that this is history, you might never see this again so we had to be here. Sometimes football is like this,” he sighed.

It was the cold, some said, shivering under a light drizzle in this Urals city, the furthest east in the tournament and one of the most difficult to reach by transport.

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Thousands of seats were left empty when France faced off against Australia last week but the Peruvians had no trouble filling the stadium. A wall of red filled the temporary seats that sit outside of the Ekaterinburg Arena, and the singing of the Peruvian national anthem was a tingle-worthy moment.

The Peruvians did not have a dance or a catchy song like Mexico’s Cielito Lindo. They were simply legion, travelling as whole families which sometimes spanned two continents, with old men speaking in Spanish to grandchildren speaking unaccented American English.

“I’m going to get so drunk and drink my sorrows away,” one young man carrying a stack of plastic cups out of the stadium said. His grandfather just laughed and clapped him on the shoulder.

There were plenty of chances for this to end differently. Christian Cueva might not have missed that penalty against Denmark, leading to a draw or perhaps win. Cross after cross might have been converted, passes made just a bit more precisely.

“We didn’t have what the other teams had: luck,” said one man who gave his name as Daniel. Then he wrapped his arms around a reporter’s back and squeezed.