SEATTLE — Jaysen Dickinson flew to Seattle from Vermont to cross an item off his lengthy bucket list.

"To see the World Cup and the U.S. play in the World Cup," he said.

Kim Fletcher and her 17-year-old son Kelan caught a 5 a.m. flight from Sacramento last week for the same reason.

"It's a must-do right now," she said.

They weren't alone. Tens of thousands of people poured into Seattle on Friday morning for the U.S. team's group-stage game with Australia, turning the Emerald City into a sea of red, white and blue. Some had tickets, most did not.

But who needed a ticket? More than 66,000 people filled Lumen Field in Seattle's SoDo district, but thousands more simply stood in the streets surrounding the stadium to soak up the energy.

"It's electric," said Fletcher, whose son wore an American flag as a cape beneath a tri-cornered colonial hat. Another man was dressed in overalls in star-spangled colors while one couple wore large and seemingly uncomfortable bald eagle heads, topped by red, white and blue cloth stovepipe hats.

"I've never seen anything like it," said one fan, whose been attending sporting events in the city for more than seven decades.

If this World Cup has been marred by astronomical ticket prices and an opaque system for selling them, resulting in large swaths of vacant seats visible on telecasts from Guadalajara, Santa Clara and Miami Gardens, that hasn't put a damper on the tournament in the Pacific Northwest. Los Angeles is far from the only city with World Cup fever.

The midday celebration on Friday engulfed — and overwhelmed — one of the country's largest cities on what was supposed to be a workday.

A viewing party in historic Pioneer Square was packed so tightly it was hard to move. Along the city's waterfront, hundreds of people paid $52 to stand on a barge and watch the game on a scoreboard-sized TV. Thousands more had scaled the steep cascading steps across the street, where they strained to watch for free.

"There were just people who wanted to be in the atmosphere. And that's Seattle," said Kasey Keller, a four-time World Cup goalkeeper for the U.S. from nearby Olympia, Wash.

"This," agreed MLS commissioner Don Garber "is a soccer city."

The first game in Seattle, also played on a weekday afternoon, drew a sellout crowd for Egypt-Belgium while in Vancouver, 35 miles north of the U.S. border, a 10-block stretch that knifes through the heart of the central business district has been turned over to a street party for the duration of the 39-day World Cup, snarling traffic and rerouting buses.

Not that many folks were complaining.

Fans marched to last Thursday's afternoon game with Qatar wearing Canadian flags draped over their shoulders and headdresses that sprouted small maple leafs. Thousands more watched on TV from bars and restaurants along Granville Street, where 15-foot-tall soccer players and giant soccer balls stand beneath miles of red and white streamers.

Even a strip club in the center of the fan zone got in on the action, draping the flags of Canada and nine other World Cup teams above its heavy wooden doors.

"It's beautiful to see. The whole country showed up," goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau said. "It's beautiful. We were all one nation tonight."

Crepeau and his teammates said they fed off that atmosphere in their victory over Qatar, giving Canada its first-ever World Cup win. Mauricio Pochettino, the Argentine-born U.S. coach, said the same thing about the Americans' reception in Seattle.

"Even if I am not American I was emotional because the atmosphere was amazing, the fans were amazing," he said. "The way they supported us and the way they celebrated victory, it was an amazing and perfect connection from the stands and the team.

"It makes us feel very proud because to connect with the people is what we wanted — here in Seattle, and the rest of the country."

U.S. and Canadian soccer fans have come a long way since 1994, the last time North America played host to the World Cup. Keller remembers watching a group-stage game with a very confused man at a bar in Florida.

"There was a guy sitting next to me rooting for the wrong team," he said. "'Wait a minute. Ireland's in white?' It took him 30 minutes to figure out which team he wanted to root for."

That hasn't been a problem this summer. Three days before the U.S. game in Seattle some 500 fans, most wearing the blue-and-white striped jerseys of Argentina, filed onto a 322-foot cargo barge moored in Elliott Bay to watch their team play Algeria.

"Our city is really crushing it for the World Cup," said Daniel Norberg, a recent transplant from Amsterdam. "We've been really impressed.

"It's got a great vibe."

The aging 53-year-old barge, which typically plies the waters of southeastern Alaska, was towed to Seattle by the RAVE Foundation, the charitable arm of Seattle's two professional soccer teams, the Sounders and the Reign of the NWSL.

"Elliott Bay on Seattle's waterfront, it just felt right. Because it is so very Seattle," said Ashley Fosberg, the foundation's executive director.

For the U.S. game, tens of thousands more packed the breathtakingly beautiful shoreline. Sitting on folding chairs and under portable awnings or standing on concrete steps and bridges, the crowd seemed to stretch from the water's edge to the horizon. When the Americans took an early lead on an own goal from Australia, the crowd broke into a raucous cheer that gave way to chants of "USA! USA!"

A mile away, inside Lumen Field, the reaction to Alex Freeman's goal at the end of the first half produced measurable earth movement, according to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. The players felt the shaking — and the support.

"It's tough to put it into words," forward Folarin Balogun said. "It's extremely special. It gives us that last bit of motivation to just go out there and really go crazy."

After the 2-0 win, a victory that sent the U.S. through to the knockout stage and opened up the possibility of a return to Seattle for the round of 16, the players took a victory lap around the field as the fans serenaded them with John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads," overwhelming the version playing on the stadium sound system.

Seattle, the crowd told the players, was the place where they belonged.

"It was just incredible," said captain Tim Ream, who teared up as he gathered with his teammates afterward. "It's one of those moments where you're like, 'Is this real life?' "

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Deputy Sports editor Ed Guzman contributed to this report.

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