IN vast swathes of the world, the first kind of toys kids get is a football. Just something to kick around and play with. In some countries, toy manufacturers sell the complete set: small goalposts on either side. It widens the horizons; a five-year old can pretend to score a goal and their parents will capture that moment for posterity. The claps will follow. It's why football remains a cultural phenomenon in almost every part of the world. Its ease of access and one of the earliest bonding exercises between a parent and a child.
In the US, the football set isn't the default gift of choice. There's the toy basketball set with a small hoop capable of being stuck on the wall. Or a small baseball bat. Or a small American football, the same ball that parents throw to their kids in the garden post school. It's why football, even at the fundamental level, has faced a kind of friction in North America.
Pele tried to change it. The 1994 World Cup tried to change it. Beckham tried to change it. Messi tried to change it. Bit by bit, some of the world's greatest footballers as well as some of the most instantly recognisable faces have chipped at the foundations to make America fall in love with the world's most popular game. But you don't change the cultural fabric overnight. It takes decades.
In a way, it's funny because some of the richest US businessmen power the biggest football league — the Premier League -- anywhere on Earth but the sport is still not among the Big Four conversations back home. The 2026 iteration of the World Cup can change that. Their mission is fairly simple.
To paraphrase what President Donald Trump may have told Gianni Infantino in private, time to make men's football great in the US (the women's team are four-time WC champions and have some of the world's best players).
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In 2023, months after Lionel Messi led Argentina to the holy grail, he signed for Inter Miami. Overnight, profile of the domestic (MLS) league changed. Ticket sales zoomed. Replica jerseys were sold out. People genuinely wanted to watch Inter Miami for Messi. Never mind that the team wasn't even five years old at the point, Americans were finally getting the chance to watch Messi in the flesh. This just kind of re-emphasised that there was a market for Messi-mania. The same kind of market that had come alive when David Beckham moved. The same kind of buzz that was generated by Pele's brief appearances for the New York Cosmos in the 70s.
But the challenge is to sustain this. Messi can turn anybody into an evangelist but true change will be when non believers keep going to football stadiums 5-10-15 years down the line.
Before the actual Messi came along, the US thought they had a world-beater. Never mind that the footballer in question was a child. Freddy Adu. Right about the time when internet was becoming a thing, Adu was one of the first footballers to go viral for his dribbling skills and stepovers. And for a few seconds, everybody including the league bought into the hype. Concessions were made as he signed a six-year contract with DC United as a 14-year-old. He flamed out. For a brief period of time, Adu had become a verb.
The next few generations came and went without raising the needle but there is something about the Pulisic generation. They are all well established stars across Europe (do not mention the phrase Golden Generation though). It has the necessary sprinkling of quality every tournament team needs to advance, jump past the first hurdle. Some artists, a few artisans and a lot of experience and all of it marshalled by an elite manager in Mauricio Pochettino who willingly said to no to offers in Europe.
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"Thank you for the incredible privilege," Carlos Cordeiro, president of US Soccer had said when the United bid won the right to host the World Cup. "Football today is the only victor." This was in 2018. Since then, the US league has grown by leaps and bounds. Just in terms of attendance, it's now one of the best attended leagues outside the big European leagues. And the USMNT also qualified in 2022, something they had failed to do for the 2018 edition.
It's in this context why they winning the bid proved to be a pivotal time. In 2017, they had suffered the ignominy of not qualifying from a very presentable group. Less than eight months later, they knew had a proper target to work towards. Forget 2018 and start building the necessary blocks for 2026. On the night when the world governing body announced the results in Russia, it didn't matter that US weren't even part of that World Cup. Everything changed overnight.
And for the last eight years, US have been working towards this moment. They have bagged an elite coach. They have fought more established countries to sign players. They have a generation capable of producing magic.
On Friday night, in the city of Hollywood and American fantasies, the first pages of the next chapter in a decades-old dream will be written.
