Yeah, there is simply more interest from Americans in a massive sporting spectacle like the World Cup. Every World Cup in the last 20 years has seen excellent traveling support from Americans and TV ratings in the US (and same applies for women's World Cups in the last 15 years).
Definitely! I was lucky enough to attend the US vs Columbia game, in 1994, at the Rose Bowl and US fans were not in the minority. You even go back to the 84 Olympics and there were big crowds for soccer. I don't believe we got the type of support from the crowd that we would like being the "home team" but the crowd was there when soccer wasn't cool. We now have big celebrities (both sport and general entertainment) that are fans and will certainly help to raise the "cool factor" and increase enthusiasm...at least for a short while. The only possible negative will be foreign fans support based upon politics. That being said, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that this WC will be a resounding success and the USMNT will have full support.
I didn’t get to see the US, but in Dallas I saw several games and US fans were everywhere in US gear. In those days, I think it was because US Soccer mounted a huge effort to organize soccer clubs into attendance. We got our tickets through our club.
Another thing to note is the progression of the US soccer culture (I know many think we do not have one): In 1984 (LA Olympics), AYSO was expanding rapidly but "serious" leagues were still in their infancy. Very few non-immigrant parents had any real knowledge of the sport. By 1994, youth soccer was becoming huge, "serious" leagues had gained a solid foothold and significant numbers of parents were beginning to have at least some knowledge gained from their experiences in AYSO and increased media attention. Put the increased media and increased interest and knowledge together with the spectacle and you have a hugely successful wc. Fast forward to 2026 and put all of it together and I think it's pretty obvious that the initial built-in interest for a world cup is exponentially greater than it was in 1994.
Too bad the current USMNT is terrible and the majority of the team doesn't appear to even want to be there. It's gonna be an embarrassing World Cup for the US.
Not sure how you can possibly have faith with all the soft prima donnas and spoiled brats on this team. If these guys acted like this in any other professional US sport, their coach would bench them and maybe even cut them from the team altogether.
Like I said....perhaps I'm stupid, naive or both. Maybe you can add in delusional too... Of course, if you can't have a little faith that maybe...just maybe we can win the next game, then why even be a fan? Of course if we can win the next one...maybe we can win the next one after that? Put that together with the fact that I don't believe guys like Adams, Pulisic, and others played below their level because they don't care enough or are not tough enough and I think that we have time to put a team together (without completely overhauling the roster) that can compete and do well. Will they? Like I said, I am a fan.
I hope that you’re right. As it concerns getting USMNT fans in the stadium for their games, I am still having trouble translating how we are going to do that.
The atmosphere will be great for the US matches. It was good to very good for all three USMNT Copa America matches, and that despite none of those games being sold out. And that was for a tournament that only soccer fans have any interest in or knew was taking place. The USMNT World Cup matches will sell out (I can’t believe there’s any doubt about that). Yes, if the US gets drawn against Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, etc then there were will large numbers of opposing fans in the stadium (maybe even a majority). But that would be the case for anywhere those teams play. If Russia had played Colombia in 2018, it might’ve been 50/50 in the stadium. And Russia is a distant land with little local Colombian population. We also need to remember that US fans will have a head start on buying tickets (especially for the group stage). Colombia fans are not buying tickets up front for ‘USA vs TBD’, since TBD doesn’t turn into Colombia at a much later point, after many of the tickets have already been sold. So at that point, you’d need US fans to decide they’d rather make some money than go to the game, and I don’t think that will be a significant number of people.
That's quickly going to sour when everyone sees how completely toothless the US is and they lose all 3 group matches.
The World Cup crowd will be much different from a normal USMNT crowd. Most people who will be in the stadium next summer are not closely following the team right now and probably haven’t watched a game since Qatar, even if they’re soccer fans and regularly watch other games. But they’ll show up for the team in a World Cup. And I know you’re exaggerating, but the US is not going to lose all three group games.
I'm not exaggerating. I'm confident in my prediction that the USA will not win a single match at the World Cup. Of course, I'll be happy if they manage to win anything at all, but I'm not holding my breath. This group is an embarrassment to the program.
I think they’ll meet realistic expectations. A lot of people thought 2022 would be a disaster but it was okay.
They’ll advance from the group, being a Pot 1 team and playing at home with 32 teams of 48 advancing. And then they’ll likely win between 0 and 2 knockout round matches, depending on which teams they get matched with. It’s a crapshoot at that point, same as ever.
We’re gonna be a Pot 1 team in a 48 team World Cup. Either you don’t know that pair of facts or you don’t know anything, and I mean not a damn thing, about soccer. Or you’re being negative for likes. One of those 3.
We'll beat Turkey or Switzerland in the next friendly, and the board will back in "we're going to win the World Cup" mode. I'm not sure there's a fanbase that's as reactive to the last set of results as the USMNT. If we lose, we're a disaster that can't beat the Faroe Islands. If we win, we're on the path to being a world power. It will be very USMNT-like to go out and beat Turkey 3-0 after losing to Panama. We're due for a result like that. Just to mess with the haters.
It’s always been hard to assess the level of the USMNT, since they only play Concacaf teams that are generally much worse than them, friendlies (which are by definition of dubious competitive value), and the World Cup once every four years. Not a large sample size to work with.
That kind of result is unlikely now that every team now knows that to beat the USA, all you have to do is provoke, foul, and frustrate them at every turn. Then don't play actual soccer and just resort to outright assault on Pulisic, while his teammates strangely stand there dumbfounded and do nothing to defend him. If the US players retaliate, they get red-carded while the same antics coming from the other team are just waved on by the officiating. At the same time, I get why the US players lack fight and grit. Who wants to have their careers potentially ended by Central Americans that seem more interested in Mixed Martial Arts than Soccer? I can imagine that one day, this will reach a point where Americans simply forego the national team and focus on their clubs to avoid jeopardizing their careers.
I think that US Soccer should really take a look at withdrawing from CONCACAF and either becoming independent or forming a smaller association with Mexico and other potential independent nations because of the danger that its competition presents to its players. The way that things are arranged now does not make much sense for the US and Mexico. It makes a lot of sense for everyone else, though.
I'm sorry. What Panama did to the USMNT at the Nations League wasn't out of the ordinary for club soccer. They weren't assaulting us at every turn. They weren't playing dirty. We just weren't good enough to break down them down. And when we had chances, we didn't take them. We committed twice as many fouls as Panama and had twice as many cards as Panama. Legitimately. Its very USMNT fan-like to say we only play CONCACAF nations that are "much worse than us"..............while struggling against them. Its very USMNT-fan like to behave as if these CONCACAF nations like the Central Americans ones are somehow "beneath us" while we struggle to beat them. We've dropped to fourth in the CONCACAF rankings index. And by the way? If we have a bad Gold Cup, Costa Rica can catch us in that index too. All the while, posters on this board behaving like we're too good for CONCACAF. There's such a lack of humility on these boards. Such a lack of self-awareness. Such a lack of respect being shown for our competitors. We're not the only ones who struggle against Panama.
I mean the idea of creating the soccer equivalent of the modern day Big Ten is fun until you have to start coming up with travel and logistical plans
US fans never give credit to CONCACAF for how much they bend themselves backwards to actually put us against the best teams in the region on a consistent basis. We play a team that isn't a top 10 team in the region maybe 1-2 times per cycle