Many of the Bay Area’s World Cup events will be anchored in the South Bay city.
On a warm Monday evening at San José State University, roughly 500 fans pressed against the chain-link fence surrounding the Spartan Soccer Complex, straining for a glimpse of Paraguay’s national soccer team running drills on the field below.
Children clutched autograph books. Parents held up phones. A few fans wore the team’s red and white stripes — La Albirroja, as the squad is known — even though most had never followed Paraguayan soccer a day in their lives.
“The whole campus is excited about having Team Paraguay here,” said Jeff Konya, athletics director at San José State. “They’re having two games up here in the Bay, so they’re kind of our adopted team locally.”…