A blue Labubu collectible celebrates FIFA World Cup 26™ in a colorful football kit with a golden trophy.

The World Cup is changing America’s relationship with the world’s game

I originally wrote this article for my corporate newsletter, released on July 4, America’s Independence Day, during an extraordinary World Cup. I have updated it now that the final whistle has blown.

Soccer vs Football in the US: A new audience is learning the world’s game

For a long time, the debate over soccer vs football in America felt settled before it even began. Football meant the NFL. Soccer felt like the sport waiting for its turn. Kids dreamed of becoming quarterbacks, not strikers. While much of the world stopped every four years for the FIFA World Cup, many Americans treated it like just another tournament. Lately, though, something feels different.

I grew up outside the United States, where soccer was never just a sport. It was part of everyday life. My hometown had more than a million people, and football brought everyone together. Kids played in schoolyards, parks, and empty lots. Everyone knew the local club. The funny thing is, even with all that passion, we only had one organized soccer club.

Now I live in an American city of about 250,000 people, and there are six to eight youth soccer organizations: recreational leagues, academies, and competitive club programs. Every weekend, fields fill with kids in jerseys, parents on the sidelines, and tournaments taking over local parks. It still surprises me that a city one-quarter the size of my hometown offers far more organized soccer opportunities than the place where I grew up loving the game.

You could feel the change beyond the fields, too. For years, I barely saw soccer on TV in American sports bars. The screens usually showed football, basketball, baseball, or golf. During this World Cup, cities put up giant screens in public spaces. Sports bars promoted matches, opened early for kickoff, and filled with watch parties. Soccer was not begging for attention anymore. It already had it.

How the World Changed Soccer in the US

Of course, the United States has never been one of the sport’s traditional giants. The U.S. finished third at the very first World Cup in 1930, but that was nearly a century ago. Since then, the team has reached the quarterfinals only once, in 2002. For many years, simply getting out of the group stage felt like a win.

Playing at home, the United States won Group D with victories over Paraguay and Australia, then advanced past Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first knockout round. The team looked confident, organized, and more dangerous going forward than many people expected.

The 4-1 win over Paraguay in Los Angeles felt like a statement. Folarin Balogun scored twice, and the U.S. played with the kind of confidence fans had been waiting to see on this stage.

Then came the 2-0 win over Australia in Seattle, followed by a tense 2-0 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina. Even after Balogun was sent off, the Americans kept pushing, Malik Tillman scored a beautiful free kick, and the defense finished the job. It was the United States’ first World Cup knockout victory since 2002.

The run ended against Belgium in the Round of 16. Belgium won 4-1, with Charles De Ketelaere scoring twice. Tillman briefly gave the home crowd reason to believe, but Belgium’s experience and precision showed how unforgiving this level can be.

Soccer in America feels personal

That matchup felt personal to me. I lived in Belgium during a previous World Cup and cheered hard for the Red Devils. Now I live in the United States, and this time I found myself cheering for the Stars and Stripes.

That is one of the best things about the World Cup. It connects the places we have lived, the people we have known, and the different versions of ourselves along the way. The match did not feel like choosing one country over another. It felt like watching two chapters of my life meet on the same field.

Of course, the loss was disappointing. But it did not erase what came before it. The U.S. won its group, earned a knockout victory, and gave home supporters a reason to imagine something bigger. Belgium exposed the distance that remains, but the tournament also showed how much of that distance has already been covered.

This World Cup is creating new soccer stories

Spain eventually lifted the trophy after defeating Argentina 1-0 in extra time, a fitting ending to the first 48-team World Cup. The traditional powers still set the standard, but this tournament made one thing clear: reputation alone no longer guarantees an easy path.

US Soccer Expectations Are Rising

The biggest shift may be mental. For years, American fans hoped the team could compete. Now they expect it to. Players and coaches talk about winning knockout games and challenging the big names, not simply being happy to show up. That change matters.

Germany’s early exit made that shift feel even more dramatic. This is Germany we are talking about: four-time world champions, the country everyone once assumed would find a way when the pressure became serious. Yet the old powers are no longer guaranteed anything.

That is what made this World Cup so compelling. Germany’s struggles showed how quickly a giant can lose its rhythm, while teams such as the United States and Cape Verde played with the freedom and belief that make people pay attention. The gap between “traditional power” and “emerging story” felt smaller than it used to.

Cape Verde was one of the tournament’s most inspiring surprises. With a population of only about half a million, the island nation reached the knockout stage in its World Cup debut and reminded everyone that the best stories are not always the obvious ones.

There was something beautiful in the contrast. One story was about a huge country trying to prove it belongs among soccer’s elite. The other was about a tiny nation showing that belief, discipline, and heart can carry a team further than anyone expects.

So, could the United States win a World Cup someday? Not this time. Belgium provided the answer in 2026. But the more important question is whether this tournament created the conditions for a deeper, more lasting soccer culture, and there are good reasons to feel hopeful.

The next generation is being shaped by global experience at every level.

The momentum is not limited to the national team. MLS clubs continue to bring in players shaped by Europe’s strongest leagues and other elite football environments. Lionel Messi’s move to Inter Miami brought unprecedented international attention to Major League Soccer, while accomplished players such as Marco Reus, Thomas Müller, Antoine Griezmann, and others have added recognizable names and deep experience to clubs across the country.

That exchange is happening at the youth level, too. Across the country, coaches from Europe and other football cultures are working in academies and local clubs, sharing new approaches to technique, tactics, and player development. American children are not merely watching the global game; many are learning it from people who grew up inside it.

But the exchange of talent goes both ways. European stars and coaches are bringing their experience to the United States, while American players are increasingly earning opportunities with European clubs. Folarin Balogun, for example, plays for AS Monaco and reportedly earns close to $4 million a year. His success is another sign that American soccer talent is being taken seriously on the international stage.

If you need proof of Americans’ devotion to soccer, just look at the calendar. Practice begins in August, right in the middle of the heat—and the players still show up. Then there is indoor soccer, which seems to run nonstop. The sport may be called “soccer” here, but the passion behind it is very much football.

The kids filling America’s soccer fields today are growing up with the Premier League, the Champions League, MLS, and the memory of a World Cup played at home. Soccer does not feel foreign to them. It is simply part of life.

This fall, that connection will feel even more real as the United States hosts friendlies against Chile, Peru, Mexico, and Canada on home soil. My son’s soccer teammates are already planning to attend together. He and I have started saving for the 2030 World Cup in Morocco, Spain, or Portugal. I am leaning toward Portugal. Being a soccer mom has turned out to be far more fun than I ever expected, and I never imagined that I would one day have a son dreaming of becoming a famous soccer player.

And here is the funny part about the word itself: ‘soccer’ is not really an American invention. It began in nineteenth-century England as a nickname for association football. British students shortened ‘association’ to ‘assoc’ and then added the playful ‘-er’ ending, much as they called rugby ‘rugger.’ The result was ‘soccer.’

The word crossed the Atlantic and stayed useful in the United States because another game—American football—had already claimed the shorter name. In much of the rest of the world, ‘football’ remained the natural choice. So the disagreement is less about who understands the sport and more about which kind of football became dominant in each place.

That may be the real transformation. Youth soccer is booming, public watch parties and sports bars are filling up, global players are joining North American clubs, and internationally trained coaches are shaping the next generation. The national team is no longer trying merely to qualify; it expects to compete.

Maybe it does not really matter whether Americans keep saying ‘soccer’ or eventually start saying ‘football.’ What matters is that the game is no longer sitting outside the national conversation. It is right in the middle of it.

The United States did not win the World Cup, but it may have won something that lasts longer than one tournament. It gained a larger audience, a stronger connection to the global game, and a generation of children who already feel this sport belongs to them. Maybe the real question is not what Americans call it, but what they build from here.

Related articles: More Than Medals: Women Shaping the Olympic Story