Located in northwest Washington state, this small city is home to a walkable historic downtown. It also acts as the gateway to a quiet rural island.

SEATTLE — Cristian Roldan’s cleats have left footprints all over Seattle for more than a decade. They are stamped into the grass at the University of Washington, where he arrived as a teenager from Southern California and immediately transformed the Huskies into a Pac-12 champion.

We are tracking crowds, weather, traffic, and kickoff times as Seattle is tasked with absorbing hundreds of thousands of fans on Friday for multiple large-scale events, including the highly-anticipated USA vs AUS FIFA World Cup match.

Seattle may sound like a fun place to retire, but it is pretty expensive. However, there are plenty of other beautiful Washington towns that cost less.

It may not be on the same level as a U.S. win over Australia’s national men’s soccer team—created in 1922. But Seattle’s Chinatown-International District (CID) broke a Guinness World Record on June 18 when 830 people simultaneously ate dim sum on a closed stretch of South King Street, beating a mark of 764 set in Sydney, Australia, in 2019.

Last October’s World Cup warmup match between the Americans and Australians was anything but friendly. Friday’s rematch will go down on the world’s biggest stage.