‘Let’s go with the heart’: Zohran Mamdani thinks this African team will win the World Cup

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani walked confidently across the City Hall lawn on Thursday, sat down, and admitted that he had not had time to do much research into who he thought was going to win this summer’s World Cup.

On the face of it, this should come as no surprise. Mamdani oversees the municipal government of the United States’ largest city – one facing record-high rents and continued fears over ICE, and which faced a budget crunch among myriad other issues upon his election to office.

However, Mamdani is also an avid soccer fan – a rarity in American politics, made especially so by his strong, repeated engagement with the sport as both a matter of public policy and cultural force. He attended Eid al-Adha prayers in the Bronx wearing an Arsenal-branded kurta. He has campaigned against Fifa’s dynamic pricing policy, while also hosting a watch party at a municipal court for the Africa Cup of Nations final.

Mamdani’s connection to African football will get even stronger now. Playing the Guardian’s World Cup Bracketology game, Mamdani offered his prediction of how he sees the tournament playing out: he sees Morocco beating France in the final.

Just before making his selections, I asked Mamdani if he would be making picks with his heart (what he wants to see in the tournament) or his head (what he thinks is likely). The result ended up being a bit of both. Some selections were easy. Several others drew pained deliberations from Mamdani, including the final, where he finally settled on Morocco as the winner. An extremely unlikely result according to most, but “the heart wants what it wants,” he said.

Should it play out that way, it would be a first-ever World Cup win – and first appearance in the final – for any African country. It culminates a World Cup prediction that has no shortage of surprises, including Haiti advancing to the round of 32, Brazil falling to Japan at that same stage, and the US making a quarter-final run before falling to England.

Four years ago in Qatar, Morocco became the first African team to reach the World Cup semi-finals. Mamdani, then a New York state assemblyman representing a district in Queens, joined his constituents in Astoria after Morocco beat Portugal in the quarter-finals. He posted videos from celebrations on Steinway Street, a hub for the city’s north African communities.

The Atlas Lions enter this summer’s tournament seventh in Fifa’s rankings with ambitions high to better their Qatar result and the squad to do it.

Mamdani could very well attend Morocco’s opener: they begin Group C play against Brazil on 13 June at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Last month, he announced plans to make $50 tickets available for city residents to attend seven of the eight matches at the stadium. Those tickets – in blocks of about 150 per game for a total of 1,000 – are being distributed by random draw.

The mayor announced that ticket program at an event in May alongside USMNT players Tim Weah and Mark McKenzie, both of whom are native New Yorkers. Mamdani is bullish on the Americans’ World Cup chances: he selected them to finish first in Group D and defeat Canada and Belgium in the knockouts before a quarter-final against England.

At a press conference in March about the city’s transportation plans ahead of the World Cup, the mayor had demurred on his pick to win it all, but was quick to point out which team it wouldn’t be. “It’s not going to be Portugal,” he told reporters with a laugh. In his Guardian bracket, Mamdani has Portugal losing to England in the Round of 32.

Mamdani, who was born in Uganda, has spoken about how a trip to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa influenced his soccer fandom. He was at Soccer City in Johannesburg supporting Ghana when they played Uruguay in the quarter-finals and said he cried in the stadium after Luis Suárez’s infamous handball swung the result.

This year, he believes Ghana will advance to the knockouts as the third-place team in Group I and fall to Colombia in the Round of 32.