It had been 28 years since his country qualified for the World Cup, and Scotland native Sandy Spalding was determined to see his team in action. But when his effort to get tickets through the FIFA lottery was unsuccessful, he figured he was out of luck.

Until Christmas, when he opened a box from his wife, Meg, containing a Scotland national team jersey — and under the shirt, a piece of paper with tickets for Scotland’s group stage match with Haiti at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on Saturday.

“I was delighted,” said Spalding, a Sabattus resident. “I mean, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”

His wife didn’t tell him how much she paid. Spalding didn’t ask.

“I have no idea,” he said, laughing, “probably best I don’t.”

Spalding is one of many Mainers making their way across the country to attend World Cup games — and braving potentially nightmarish travel logistics and outlandish prices to get there.

While traffic promises to choke the roads, hotel rooms are scarce and ticket prices set by FIFA — the international soccer governing body that runs the World Cup — are surging well into the hundreds, even thousands, of dollars, soccer fans in the state are still eager to see the world’s biggest sports event up close.

Brock Kwiatkowsky, of Bath, has been to every World Cup since the last one the United States hosted in 1994. He goes to support the U.S. national team, and his path this year will take him to Los Angeles to see the Americans play Paraguay on Friday, Seattle for the match with Australia on June 19, and finally back to Los Angeles for a match with Turkey on June 25.

“It’s so rare,” he said. “The stakes are so high, and your hopes are so high. And you get to meet fans from all over the world. … It’s the pinnacle of competition. It’s just fun.”

‘IT’S HARD TO WRAP MY HEAD AROUND’

After attending the World Cup in 1994, Kwiatkowsky and friend Sean Kennedy decided to return when it was held in France in 1998. It became a tradition, and the two made their way to the tournament’s next stops: Japan and South Korea in 2002, Germany in 2006, South Africa in 2010, Brazil in 2014, Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022.

When the United States has had its most dramatic moments, Kwiatkowsky has been there. When Landon Donovan scored the late goal against Algeria to send the Americans to the round of 16 in 2010, he and Kennedy “were still jumping and dancing around that stadium for two hours until, finally, security kicked us out.”

If the United States advances this time, he’ll be on hand to see it. His plan is to fly to Los Angeles with his wife, Denise, and see the first game, drive up the Pacific Coast Highway and stop in Sonoma’s wine country along the way, and meet up with a friend for the game in Seattle before heading back south for the final game.

“By now, (work knows) that when the World Cup rolls around, I’m probably looking for a week and a half, two weeks off,” Kwiatkowsky said. “I save up for it.”

Other Mainers are happy to stay closer to home and see other teams. Jonah Nathanson, a junior midfielder for the Cheverus boys soccer team, will be seeing the England-Ghana group stage match June 23 and a quarterfinal match July 9, both at Gillette.

After finding out that the United States (along with Canada and Mexico) would be hosting, Nathanson went to work asking his parents for tickets.

“For the past two or three years I’ve been hinting at it, bringing it up at least every once in a while,” he said. “I said this can be my one present, this can be my one thing for Christmas and my birthday.”

He and his family were already going to the England-Ghana game, but the quarterfinal tickets were that birthday present.

“It’s hard to wrap my head around that I’ll be going to the World Cup,” he said. “(I’m eager) to see these such incredible players and teams play … but I think, almost equally, the culture and power of soccer in this way. There’s nothing bigger than the World Cup.”

Yarmouth’s Ranjiv Advani is going to two games as well, the result of being selected in the FIFA lottery for tickets. He’ll attend England-Ghana and then Norway-France two days later with his wife and two sons, both of whom play soccer.

Advani said he had to wait about two to three months to find out if he was selected in the lottery. The wait was worth it.

“You never know when it’s going to come around to the United States again. … To have the opportunity to go to a World Cup game a couple of hours from home, it seemed like an opportunity we couldn’t miss,” Advani said. “(My sons) were super psyched. … I don’t even think we know what we’re getting into yet, but I’m sure it’s going to be a blast.”

THE HIGH COST OF ENTRY

Tyler Moore, of Portland, will also be attending two games at Gillette — the Norway-Iraq match on June 16 and the England-Ghana showdown a week later.

He’s wanted to go to the World Cup since watching for the first time in 2006, and knew he had to try to go when he heard it was coming to the United States.

“(Ever since) eight or 10 years ago, I’ve sort of had this circled,” he said.

Moore acknowledged that his enthusiasm, however, has been dampened by FIFA’s controversial ticket handling. High prices have marred the leadup to the tournament, due to FIFA using dynamic pricing for the first time and adjusting ticket costs for demand, according to ESPN.

This has caused ticket costs to approach and exceed $1,000, and tickets for the final, which according to USA Today peaked at $1,600 in 2022, were listed at $10,990 in April. ESPN reported that the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey subpoenaed FIFA as part of an investigation into its ticket practices.

Moore said he paid $410 for his Iraq-Norway ticket, and $660 to see England-Ghana. He called the ticket buying process “very painful.”

“It seems like they’ve really calculated a way to get every last dollar,” Moore said. “You try to think of (FIFA) as this good entity that’s hosting this event for the fans. But it has felt like it’s an event for the money, and the fans are the way they’re extracting that money.”

Moore also said FIFA’s practice of only making a limited amount of tickets available at a time put him and other avid soccer fans in a bind.

“I was definitely in a spot where they could do some sleazy stuff and I would go along with it, because it’s like ‘Oh, well, you know, it’s the World Cup,'” he said. “When else am I going to get the chance to go? … It’s definitely killed some of the magic of what I thought the World Cup would be like.”

Kwiatkowsky said he paid $1,600 for his three tickets, with one of them being discounted to $60 due to his membership in the U.S. Sammers Supporters fan club. Advani declined to say how much his tickets cost, and Nathanson and Spalding, who got their tickets as gifts, said they haven’t wanted to ask the price.

Nor has Freeport’s Olivia Wenner, who will be going with her father to see Norway play France, and then go back to Gillette for a round-of-32 game. Her father bought the tickets, and Wenner said she’s not sure how much he had to pay. She hears the stories, though, of how much people are spending.

“It absolutely bothers me, and I think it’s just the devil you have to live with if you want to go to sporting events like this,” she said. “It’s sad, but I’ve made up my mind, I don’t want to buy any FIFA merch or support FIFA any more than we (have).

“At its core, sports should be accessible to everyone.”

She said the prices, though, haven’t hurt her spirits. She and her father went to the Women’s World Cup in Canada in 2015, and were excited to return to the international experience.

“It’s that feeling of being surrounded by people who all like the same thing,” she said. “It’s kind of this different energy, and it’s great. You hear the national anthem, but it feels a little bit different because it’s on that national level.”