I did wonder, going into Wednesday’s game between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Qatar, if some of the party vibe would have worn off the World Cup.

If there was going to be a game in Seattle that lacked some luster, that gave off a grim sense of too-many-games-too-many-teams, it was going to be this one: two of the lowest-ranked teams in the tournament, a noon start on a workday with punishing sun and yet another heat advisory outside, with both teams needing to win to progress and still a chance that - should the match end in draw - neither team would move onto the knockout round.

But by the time I got to the stadium, among the throngs of blue and yellow, I was pretty sure that the vibes weren’t going to be a problem.

I don’t know how many of the Bosnian fans were international visitors and how many were Americans with some sort of tie to the country, but there were ten or twenty Bosnian fans for every Qatari fan. It took me the entire walk from the train station to the stadium to find a single Qatari jersey; thanks to an entire family wearing blue and green number-3 jerseys, I saw more Russell Wilson Seahawks jerseys than I did Qatari.

Mexican fans still wore their green shirts, giving the game a real “Mexico away in Sarajevo” vibe. The ageless Edin Džeko was the most popular Bosnia-Herzegovina jersey choice, although Appleton, Wisconsin’s own Esmir Bajraktarević was the second-place winner by far.

(I was somewhat disappointed that former Arsenal defender Sead Kolašinac, who I remember mostly from the time he fought off a bunch of would-be muggers from robbing him and Mesüt Özil, didn’t have more jersey representation.)

Qatar’s fans mostly eschewed the jersey in favor of traditional dress; their accoutrement of choice was the small Qatari flag, waved at all moments, giving me an odd sense that both Qatari sections were about to ride a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

The lines to get into the stadium were much worse, this time around, mostly because organizers had stationed two security people at the end of every security line to make sure that fans actually had tickets before approaching the metal detectors. I don’t know what happened in the Belgium-Egypt game to make this necessary - I’m imagining a crowd of Belgians, waving steak frites and Stella Artois and hooting alternately in French and Flemish, pushing their way through turnstiles and past overmatched volunteers - but it made getting into the stadium a lot harder this time around. I’m told the same was true for the USA-Australia game.

Qatar set themselves up in a bank of four and a bank of five, occasionally merging to become a bank of nine, the low block that is the default plan for every underdog team in the tournament. Their game plan seemed to be to draw Bosnia-Herzegovina into corner kicks, and then try to score off a ninety-yard counter-attack.

It quickly became apparent, though, that Qatar did not have the defending or the goalkeepeping to actually make that work. Kerim Alajbegovic finally scored 29 minutes in, after Bosnia had tested the keeper several times and Qatar had done next to nothing. Five minutes later, Džeko - via a deflection - scored again, and it was party time for the Bosnian fans. Džeko, the aging warship, his rusty hull audibly creaking and rivets popping every time he moved above a light jog, provoked roars from the crowd whenever he touched the ball. He hit the post a couple of minutes later, too. It appeared the rout might be on, much to the delight of the crowd (and Džeko, who might have run less than any other player in a World Cup game for 40 years.)

And here is the thing about Qatar’s strategy: forced to play soccer, to move into a 4-3-3 look and possess the ball and actually try to do stuff with it, they proved that Bosnia’s defense was also pretty flimsy! They could have played actual soccer the whole time! Hassan Al-Haydos scored with a couple of minutes to go to halftime, ending the party mood and replacing it with blue-and-yellow nerves throughout the stadium, like everyone had booked nonrefundable flights to San Francisco in the previous five minutes and was now beginning to regret it.

The nerves lasted most of the second half, until Ermin Mahmic finally restored the party with a third goal for Bosnia. Beer was even flung into the air, beer that cost 19 dollars for a can, making it the most luxurious and (judging by the families around me who shrank back in terror) unwanted celebration of the first two weeks of the World Cup.

Bosnia’s players looked pleased but not overjoyed to have finished third in Group B, the first of the lucky losers at this tournament. I’m told that they’re almost certain to play the USA in the next round, which will be a tall task.

The Bosnian fans, though, were thrilled. They lost their minds when “U.S.A.”, by Bosnian ska band Dubioza Kolectiv, came over the speakers. (Key lyric: “I can no longer wait / take me to United States / take me to Golden Gate / I will assimilate”. If they beat the USA in Santa Clara next week, don’t say you weren’t warned, by ska.)

As I left the stadium, I saw an Asian man, wearing a Real Madrid jersey with Croatian star Luka Modrić’s name on the back, waving a Bosnia-Herzegovina flag and high-fiving anyone in blue and yellow.

You will note that absolutely nothing about that sentence makes any sense. But then again, I’d just spent a blazing-hot Wednesday afternoon in Seattle, watching Qatar play Bosnia-Herzegovina at soccer. So honestly, can I say that my day made any less sense than his?