Mayor Mamdani, bar full of Arsenal fans watch their team fall in Champions League final

NEW YORK -- On Saturday morning in Brooklyn, it was business as usual at FancyFree, a sports bar in Fort Greene. Flags for the soccer team Arsenal flapped in the wind as cheers of “Arsenal! Arsenal!” rang through the neighborhood.

Just before the noon kickoff, fans began screaming. Not for any action on the many television screens, but for Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who strode toward a side entrance to the bar.

Inside, he was greeted by roars as he wove his way through the crowd in a blue-and-red Arsenal jersey worn over his white dress shirt and blue tie. Director Spike Lee welcomed him to their seats with an enthusiastic hug.

Fans, including the mayor, regularly flock from across the city, and beyond, to this bar to cheer on Arsenal. But on Saturday, the stakes were higher than usual: It was the Champions League final. After the Gunners claimed the Premier League title the week before, a Champions League win -- something the team had never done before -- would pile even more icing on top of the cake.

It was a game the mayor -- whose precious attention is usually divided between matters like policy proposals and budgetary concerns -- couldn’t miss.

“Arsenal! Arsenal!” the bar’s patrons bellowed. Mamdani clapped along as the Killers song “Human” began playing. He was surrounded by a security detail and sandwiched between friends, both old ones from before his time as mayor, and newer ones, such as Lee.

About seven minutes into the match, as Kai Havertz streaked down the left side of the pitch toward the goal, Mamdani got up and stood on a bench, his eyes glued to the screen. A decisive strike found the back of the net as the bar erupted.

Mamdani tilted his head back and roared, pumping his fists in celebration. He then held his face in his hands, seemingly in disbelief. Could it really be this good?

During the second half, the screens in the bar turned blue from a lack of connection. The mayor was one of several fans to immediately turn to a phone to keep up with the game.

Paris Saint-Germain, Arsenal’s opponent, scored a penalty shot in the blue-screened interim, tying the game. The broadcast returned in the game’s 67th minute, to emphatic cheers from the crowd. As the game stretched toward its 90th minute with the score still 1-1, Mamdani crossed his arms and fluttered his lips, visibly distressed.

Katie Morais, 35, grew up in northwest London -- Arsenal country. When she moved to New York City, she happened to find herself living across the street from FancyFree, the hub of a proud Brooklyn Arsenal fan base.

“The community here is like no other, especially for America,” she said. “Everyone’s welcome. The mayor is one of the crew, he comes, Spike is one of the crew, and we all just watch it together.”

By wearing his love of sports on his sleeve -- and the crest of his favorite team on his kurta -- Mamdani has not only endeared himself to his constituents, but has also managed to keep a grip on reality and identity as his life changed at meteoric speed.

“Over these past two years, no matter how chaotic life became, Arsenal remained the constant,” the mayor wrote in a first-person essay in The Athletic.

He is far from the only mayor who has felt that way.

When Rudy Giuliani was mayor, he gleefully took in New York Yankees games -- none more giddily than when the Yankees beat the New York Mets in a World Series. His fandom connected him to his past, he said at the time.

“For me, this is like reliving my childhood,” he said. “Literally and figuratively. I grew up in Brooklyn, a Yankee fan, in the early 1950s.”

David Dinkins was the mayor of New York City from 1990 to 1993, but was the unofficial “mayor of the tennis world” for much longer than that. One of his signature achievements was inking the deal for a new stadium that helped maintain New York’s right to host the U.S. Open in Queens.

Dinkins’ love of tennis -- and his drive to diversify the sport -- served as a north star as his career wound from Manhattan to Albany and back as he moved up from Assembly member to borough president to mayor. While he prepared to run for mayor, he played tennis every Saturday and Sunday at the New York Tennis Club in the Bronx.

And when mayors try to diplomatically divide allegiances or claim a team that isn’t truly theirs, the city tends to reject them. Mayor Eric Adams learned that lesson when the Yankees and the Mets both made it to the 2024 postseason.

Adams attempted to appease everyone by wearing a hat with the Mets insignia on one half and the Yankees emblem on the other. “I’m like everyday New Yorkers,” Adams argued unsuccessfully. Also inexplicably, Bill de Blasio was a Boston Red Sox fan -- and it almost cost him the mayoralty.

So far, Mamdani has largely avoided controversy while supporting New York City teams. This month, he sneaked into the nosebleed section of Madison Square Garden to take in the New York Knicks during the Eastern Conference finals. But last month, he was briefly blamed for the dismal start to the Mets season when the team lost 11 straight games after Mamdani rubbed shoulders with Mr. and Mrs. Met at Citi Field on April 9.

For Mamdani, sports are more than just a way to score political points. He was once known as “Z,” a fearless defender who helped lead his team to its own league championship. While his ascension to the mayoralty signaled a generational shift in New York City politics, his obsession with soccer marked a similar evolution in the city’s sports culture.

New York City is more of a soccer hub than ever. New York is co-hosting the World Cup final with New Jersey in July. And soccer’s popularity has grown across the five boroughs, backed by interest from millennial and Generation Z residents as well as immigrants -- the same coalition that helped fuel Mamdani’s rise to Gracie Mansion.

At FancyFree, soccer’s ability to keep Mamdani’s two feet on the ground was appreciated by some of his fellow fans, who squeezed into every last available space the bar had. Many even crowded onto the sidewalk outside, where they could stand and look through the windows to see the big screen -- and the mayor, who shot them his signature grin.

Francisco Cabrera, 39, who lives in Astoria, is a die-hard Arsenal fan, slapping walls and leaping into the air as he sang battle songs. He is also a big fan of Mamdani, whom he supported in his campaign for mayor.

“Even if I wasn’t, I would still love that he’s the same person he was before he became mayor,” he said. “That really reaffirms why I voted for him.”

As the game stretched into the second period of overtime, the mayor checked his watch and instructed a bespectacled man in a suit, seated in front of him, to push an obligation.

Penalties ensued. The mayor swayed back and forth, at times leaning on his friends. As the final Arsenal kicker sent the last penalty curving over the goal, losing the match, the mayor stood with his arms crossed, unmoved. The best was not to be. It was silent in the mayor’s corner as he sank back down to a seat, his hands on his knees, staring at the screen and wishing for a different result.

“We still got the Knicks!” someone shouted.

Andrew Keh contributed reporting.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Copyright 2026 The New York Times Company

This story was originally published May 30, 2026 at 6:18 PM.