MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Juan Nicolas wants this time to be different.
The Bogotá, Colombia, native saw the scary scene two years ago during the Copa America final as thousands of ticketless fans breached the security gates at Hard Rock Stadium to watch Colombia face Argentina.
Colombia's soccer team will play Portugal on Saturday in a World Cup group stage match, returning to the stadium for the first time since that incident — this time with heightened security and multiple checkpoints.
“Now that we’re here, I feel a little pressure just to show myself better and like to show a better country to the world," said Nicolas, who said he was not at the match in 2024. "Colombia is new now. Colombia has new stuff to give to the world. We’re a different country, so now we have to show that.”
The crowd trouble began hours before the July 2024 match. Supporters — many of them wearing Colombia’s yellow and red colors — rushed the gates at the home stadium of the NFL's Miami Dolphins, leaving fans terrified and bloodied as security struggled to contain the rush.
Screams could be heard in the background of many videos circling social media, and posts showed some fans trying to climb through air vents to gain entry.
Questions were sparked on how to handle two more years of major soccer tournaments in the United States — the Club World Cup last year and this year's World Cup.
There was increased security last summer at the Club World Cup matches held in Miami, which served as a preview of the ticket-screening measures to expect on Saturday.
Fans must pass through three separate checkpoints that enclose the entire campus before getting close to the stadium, and parking passes are checked well before entry. Steel fencing is also set up around the perimeter.
“It’s been a layered approach that people have to go through,” said Andrew Giuliani, executive director of President Donald Trump’s World Cup task force, which is overseeing the tournament's multiagency security effort.
“We’re going to make sure that everybody is on their guard ready to go that day in particular,” Giuliani added, “just making sure that there are no issues. ... We’re leaning in on the 27th to make sure we can talk about the action that happened (on the pitch)."
Giuliani said there will be a “strong federal presence” both around the stadium and city on Saturday, declining to answer if that includes more than a typical match day. There have been three World Cup group matches in Miami so far. Each has seen a heavy police presence.
“I think we like showing up for our team, and some people take it a little bit too far," said Lucas Gaviria, a native of Manizales, Colombia, who attends Florida Atlantic University. “That has to do with our culture. We care about it too much, we have a ‘any means necessary’ type of thinking. ‘I need to see this game, even though I know I don’t have the money for it.’”
Saturday's match has been in high demand, both because of South Florida's large Colombian community and the draw of Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo. Tickets on the resale site StubHub were listed from around $3,000 to more than $5,000.
“If you don’t have tickets, you shouldn’t be on site here,” Giuliani said in January, when he and other members of the task force visited the stadium during the College Football Playoff national championship. “It’s not like an American football game where there’s tailgating. This is very different. We want to make sure the security resources are here for those ticketed fans. If you’re not ticketed, you have fan festivals. You have other events in the Miami area where you can go and enjoy and be safe.”
Hard Rock Stadium — Miami Stadium is its name during the World Cup because of FIFA’s policies about sponsorship — has not commented because of its ongoing involvement in multiple lawsuits related to the Copa America final.
Those lawsuits, which list multiple defendants, claim — among other things — that the stadium and soccer officials didn’t have enough security present to handle such a crowd, lacked proper numbers of Spanish-speaking personnel working at the event and didn’t protect legitimate ticket holders “from foreseeable criminal activity.”
Ahead of Saturday's match, Colombia supporters said they hope that moment doesn't define them.
"There are a lot of great things that Colombia stands for," said Nadia Rodriguez, a Bogota, Colombia, native living in Miami. “Great coffee, beautiful landscapes, amazing songs, the soccer team. The darkness is in the past.”
AP Sports Writer Tim Reynolds contributed to this report.
Zach Pascuzzi is a student in the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.
See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here
FILE - A security agent assists a fan who was waiting to enter the stadium prior to the Copa America final soccer match between Argentina and Colombia, in Miami Gardens, Fla., July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
FILE - Fans wait to enter the stadium prior to the Copa America final soccer match between Argentina and Colombia in Miami Gardens, Fla., July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
Utah restricted fireworks and declared a state of emergency Friday ahead of July Fourth celebrations as the United States' largest wildfire expanded its reach across more tinder-dry forest as crews rush to fight new blazes in the arid state.
The National Weather Service issued a rare “Particularly Dangerous Situation” warning as dry, windy conditions provided fuel for more fires across the western U.S.
The Cottonwood Fire in a sparsely populated area of southern Utah started Monday. It ballooned to more than 112 square miles (290 square kilometers) by Friday, burning unchecked as strong winds grounded air support, forestry officials said. One of six large wildfires burning in Utah, it severely damaged the Eagle Point ski resort in Beaver County, forcing mandatory evacuations.
“We have the 35 miles-per-hour (56 km/h) sustained winds that they predicted, and we definitely have the 45 miles-per-hour (72 km/h) gusts,” said Alyssa Mason, a spokesperson assigned to the fire. “So there has been a great increase in the fire activity. We are seeing extreme fire behavior out there with some crown runs and definitely some spotting.”
The smoke has been pushing to the east and northeast, meaning air quality at popular vacation spots like Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks — located far south of the flames — hasn’t been significantly affected beyond some haze in the Bryce area. Still, visitors to Bryce have posted videos on social media showing the giant plume in the distance.
The smoke could be seen for hundreds of miles, all the way to Colorado, as authorities put roughly 1,300 residents in the towns of Marysvale, Junction and Circleville on notice that they should be prepared to leave if conditions worsen and the fire pushes further. In Marysvale, ash fell from the sky and thick smoke blocked the sun on Friday, making the sky dark as night.
State forester Jamie Barnes had said Thursday that it's like nothing seen in recent memory. She said fires are spreading farther and faster “under conditions that defy historical expectations.”
Bruce Brown, 76, accompanied the sheriff on Thursday to find that his cabin and others in the area were gone. He found a burned out moonscape with power poles tipped over along the canyon.
Alyssa Olsen, 27, said her family’s cabin also burned. It was the last place they gathered for family photos with her grandmother before she died of cancer. Her brother was planning to get married there in two months.
“That stuff you can’t just build back,” Olsen said.
Gov. Spencer Cox set the temporary fireworks restrictions through July 5 as the nation prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, saying “this year is different.”
The weather service in Salt Lake City, for the first time in the office's history, issued a “ Particularly Dangerous Situation ” warning for five Utah counties, including the area of the Cottonwood Fire. The rare alert was first used to warn of tornado conditions. A red flag warning also was issued for most of the state.
“Prepare now for rapid fire growth,” it said.
A similar “dangerous situation” warning had been issued for the 2025 Palisades Fire in Los Angeles. A federal judge declared a mistrial Friday in the arson case against Jonathan Rinderknecht, the man accused of sparking that fire. The jury said it couldn't agree on a verdict.
While the Cottonwood Fire's cause was unknown, Cox’s order noted that humans have been the cause of most fires in the state so far this year.
The governor’s order gives Barnes power to restrict or prohibit fireworks displays in Utah’s cities and towns, instead of leaving those decisions to the communities.
With extreme fire conditions persisting, Rocky Mountain Power issued a public safety power shut-off watch/warning for areas of central, southern and eastern Utah through the weekend.
Crews also were battling the Iron Fire southwest of Salt Lake City. The flames on Thursday forced the temporary evacuation of Eureka, population 1,000.
Red flag warnings, which mean conditions such as low humidity, warm temperatures and strong winds can create an extreme wildfire risk, were in effect Friday and stretched from Idaho to southern Arizona and New Mexico.
The warnings extended into Saturday, with forecasters predicting winds of 25 to 35 miles an hour (40 km/h to 56 km/h) and very low humidity levels. The worst conditions were expected from northern Arizona into central and southern Utah.
Much of Utah already is experiencing severe to extreme drought, while parts of Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico are experiencing severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Tim Brown, a research professor and director of the Western Regional Climate Center, said the potential for extreme fire behavior will remain as long as it's hot, dry and windy.
“I would not be surprised to see a lot of restrictions come out as we get closer to the July Fourth weekend,” he said. “People really need to be aware of their surroundings if they’re going to be out in the forested campground areas and grassland areas.”
Even in Florida, where there have been multiple brush fires, authorities are urging people to skip the personal fireworks and instead leave the pyrotechnics to professionals putting on carefully planned shows.
In Utah, federal land managers have closed public lands near the Cottonwood Fire as a precaution, and in New Mexico, forest officials closed campgrounds and trails near a wildfire burning in the Jemez Mountains.
Nationally, nearly 3 million acres have burned since the start of the year, pushing the U.S. ahead of the 10-year average. The National Interagency Fire Center said firefighters are making progress on containing fires from Alaska to Florida.
Associated Press reporter Sudhin Thanawala contributed to this story.
This story has been corrected; the state forester's first name is spelled Jamie, not Jaime.
Smoke rises from the Cottonwood Fire near Beaver, Uta, on Friday, June 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil)
A plume of smoke rises from the Cottonwood Fire, Friday, June 26, 2026, near Beaver, Utah. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil)
A plume of smoke rises from the Cottonwood Fire, Friday, June 26, 2026, near Beaver, Utah. (AP Photo/Ty ONeil)
This undated image provided by the U.S. Forest Service Friday, June 26, 2026, shows firefighters responding to the Cottonwood Fire on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, above Birch Lake, near Beaver, Utah. (Mike McMillan/U.S. Forest Service via AP)
