Fans paint Vancouver in colors ahead of World Cup kickoff

Vancouver filled with football fans wearing team colors on Saturday before the city's first World Cup match between Turkey and Australia. Outside pubs on Granville Street and at the fan festival grounds, supporters from both countries and Brazil created rival atmospheres, cheering and singing to drown each other out.

Henry Ricketts, an Australian living in Montreal, flew to Vancouver with friends Tristan Hurley and Thomas Wynn from Canberra. The trio said they plan to follow the Australian Socceroos to every North American game they play in the tournament. They managed to secure conditional tickets up to the quarter-finals, buying most of them in the opening lottery round. Their Vancouver match tickets cost $380 Australian, or $374 Canadian.

"There was a few all-nighters to get tickets because of the time zones, but ... worth it," Hurley said.

At the FIFA fan festival grounds earlier in the day, Brazilian fans filled the amphitheatre to watch their country take on Morocco on Saturday afternoon. When Morocco scored first, someone set off a smoke bomb and there were jeers from both crowds. RCMP officers responded quickly and stayed throughout the rest of the game to monitor the crowd.

Hassan Basar flew in from Turkey on Friday night and plans to fly out Sunday after following the team to San Francisco for their next match. He said he was surprised by Vancouver's sunny weather, having expected rain.

"I didn't think that [Vancouver] would be a really good World Cup experience, but as far as I see, it's like burning [hot] out here. So it's really good," he said. "It's so much fun."

Outside the Dublin Calling pub, hundreds of Australians gathered before kickoff, creating scenes that captured the tournament's appeal to international supporters willing to travel multiple countries to follow their teams.