ARLINGTON, Texas — Before it could rise in the World Cup, France first had to fall.
And the fall was spectacular.
In 2010, four years after reaching the final for the second time in three World Cups, the players revolted against coach Raymond Domenech during the tournament. In response, the managing director of the country’s soccer federation resigned in disgust, and the team left South Africa winless after scoring just once in three games.
That matched France’s worst World Cup performance in 76 years. The team, outsiders agreed, had become impossible to coach.
Four years later France made the quarterfinals, beginning a streak in which it has reached the final eight in four consecutive World Cups for the first time. If France, ranked No. 1 in the world, beats Spain in the semifinals Tuesday — Bastille Day in France, a patriotic holiday that is the equivalent of the Fourth of July in the U.S. — it will advance to the final for a third straight time.
Only Brazil and Germany have done that.
France’s Kylian Mbappé (10) celebrates with teammates after scoring against Sweden.
(Yuki Iwamura / Associated Press)
The base for that success was laid a generation before the collapse in South Africa, when a series of poor performances led the French Football Federation to create a series of 16 government-subsidized academies known as Centres de Formation. The main training center opened in 1988 in Clairefontaine, about 30 miles southwest of Paris, and many players from the 1998 championship team — including Zinedine Zidane, Thierry Henry and Robert Pires — passed through its doors.
“What is true about French football is that they started building academies very early and structuring them very early,” said Rudi Garcia, who played 10 seasons in France before becoming a coach of the Belgium national team. “A lot of the good work that’s being done by French football in general is due to the academies.”
But if Clairefontaine set the foundation, Didier Deschamps, the coach who took over the “uncoachable” team in 2012, built much of what went on top.
“It’s not luck,” Henry said on Fox. “This guy is a serial winner. I can also tell you how hard it is to have a lot of alphas and make sure that only one will be the alpha.”
Deschamps was a lunch-bucket player, a hard-working defensive midfielder who excelled at winning back possession in a 16-year career that included captaining France to both a World Cup and European Championship before he retired to become a coach, guiding Monaco to the Champions League final in his first stop. If he has a super power, both as a captain and coach, it’s his ability to manage big egos and get them to buy into the team concept. He did that first as captain of the star-studded 1998 squad and has been even better at it as the coach.
“The collective spirit,” Deschamps said, “is our strength.”
France coach Didier Deschamps celebrates with William Saliba after a World Cup quarterfinal win over Morocco.
(Lars Baron / Getty Images)
“He’s got credit in the bank,” added former World Cup goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, another Fox analyst. “Who can question him? His record speaks for itself as a player and as a coach.”
About that record: Deschamps heads into Tuesday’s semifinal with 20 wins and just two losses in 25 matches as a World Cup coach. He has won more World Cup games and more knockout-stage games, 11, than any other manager. And he was unbeaten in the tournament as a player, going 6-0-1.
Add those wins together and Deschamps, 57, has been on the field or in the technical area for 26 of France’s 48 World Cup victories. Before him, France never had won a World Cup.
By Sunday, the French could be lifting the trophy for the third time in 28 years. Only Brazil has won that many titles in a shorter span. And this team could be France’s best.
All that is thanks in large part to the FFF and government investment in the Centres de Formation. France is now the greatest developer of elite soccer talent in the world. Of the 1,248 players chosen to play for the 48 teams in this World Cup, 99 — nearly 8% — were developed in France, according to Opta. At least 13 teams in this tournament had at least one French-born player, among them Spain and Cape Verde. No other country comes close.
There are several reasons for that. The Ile-de-France region, which includes Paris, is home to large communities of working-class immigrants from the country’s former colonies. Eleven of the 26 players on this French team came from these banlieues, as they are called, among them captain Kylian Mbappé, who has the most goals in the last two World Cups.
The talent pool there is so deep, France probably could have fielded a B team in this World Cup and made it to the quarterfinals. And because the competition to make the national team is great, it raises the level of play for everyone.
For those who fall short, their immigrant backgrounds allow them to play for other countries. For example Riyad Mahrez, a former African player of the year, was born in Clichy, France, but plays for Algeria, while Senegal’s Ibrahim Mbaye is from Trappes.
“It’s quite an incredible pool of talent in a relatively small area,” Hubert Fournier, technical director of the French Football Federation, told the New York Times. “There’s a high concentration of players with very well-structured clubs. And then everyone draws from this Ile-de-France pool because afterwards they go to other clubs; they don’t all stay in Ile-de-France.”
The energy and diversity of the banlieues also fuels the national team. Nine of the 11 starters in France’s win over Morocco either immigrated to France or are the children of immigrants from Madagascar, Lebanon, French Guiana and Cameroon, Guinea-Bissau and elsewhere.
And Deschamps, who grew up in modest circumstances in Basque country, is the one who has made all those disparate parts work together. If France wins its next two games, he’ll become the second man to coach two World Cup champions.
But when asked for the secret to his success after France’s quarterfinal win over Morocco, a team with six French natives, Deschamps praised the French team, one thought to be uncoachable when he took over.
“Having great, great players, excellent players. My credit goes to the players,” said Deschamps, whose team hasn’t given up a goal in its three knockout-stage wins. “But maybe I do my job well.
“The human aspect is of paramount importance. I am extremely happy on a personal level as well as seeing my players enjoy themselves.”
U.S. forward Christian Pulisic heads to the locker room at halftime during the loss to Belgium.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
More Americans are playing for bigger clubs and having more success in Europe than ever before, but that pipeline has yet to produce a true superstar. Many of the teams that have had success in this tournament have at least one player — Mbappé, Haaland, Lionel Messi, Harry Kane — who can change the game on their own.
The U.S. doesn’t have anyone who would be sure to start on any of the World Cup semifinalists and until it does, closing the gap will be difficult.
“We are USA and [we’re] competing against Belgium, Portugal,” Pochettino said last March. “I think for sure Belgium and Portugal have [players] in the top 100. We don’t.”
He is right. When the Guardian published its annual list of the world’s top players last winter, Christian Pulisic, the top American, didn’t make the top 100. And he didn’t play a full game in this tournament, missing one to injury, leaving three early and entering another as a late second-half substitute. He played just 223 minutes — 19 more than Ricardo Pepi — and finished with one assist.
Landon Donovan was arguably the closest thing to a game-changing player the U.S. had, so it’s no surprise he scored key goals in the team’s most important World Cup games in the last 32 years: one against Algeria in stoppage time in 2010 that allowed the Americans to finish atop their group for the first time since 1930, and another against Mexico in the round of 16 in 2002, sending the team to the quarterfinals for the only time.
If those are structural things that have long held U.S. Soccer back, there also were issues specific to this team, a supposed Golden Generation whose core was formed in the wake of the failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
The talent was undeniable, which led to great expectations. But what has this generation accomplished? Two round-of-16 exits in the World Cup, one Gold Cup title in the last four tournaments — the team’s worst stretch this century — a fourth-place finish in the last Nations League and a group-stage departure in the last Copa América.
Impressive wins over Paraguay and Australia to start the World Cup gave the Golden Generation a bit of a shine and suggested progress. But when the Americans met a top-10 team in Belgium, the matchup proved a mismatch.
“We want to have higher hopes,” Pulisic said. “We want to be able to go and compete with some of the best in the world. We just still have that next step to climb.”
Against Belgium, that step looked as steep as Mt. Everest.
StubHub is getting a red card from some World Cup fans
Two World Cup customers are suing the New York-based ticket-selling company, alleging “false and misleading” advertising that left them without tickets or a refund for the World Cup games they paid to attend.
In federal court in New York last week, two Californians — Julia Reeker Moghal and Reuben Renteria — sued StubHub seeking monetary damages and a ban on the company selling World Cup tickets. The lawsuit aims to become a class action and comes after weeks of fierce criticism and complaints from customers regarding the company’s practices.
Throughout the World Cup, videos have emerged on Instagram and TikTok of StubHub customers describing their nightmare experiences with the ticket-selling platform.
Some said they had purchased tickets to World Cup games as early as November of last year, booked flights and hotels and arranged travel plans, then StubHub notified them days to weeks before the match of a refund for their tickets, which they never requested.
There were similar complaints about last-minute cancellations from people who bought Coachella tickets on StubHub.
In the lawsuit, Moghal said she had purchased three tickets for nearly $2,000 for the June 18 match between Switzerland and Bosnia-Herzegovina at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, which were then canceled by StubHub. Moghal said she was contacted by StubHub and told her tickets would remain canceled, then was later told the tickets would be available one hour before the game.
When the match began, Moghal said she was at SoFi Stadium, but the tickets never came.
Renteria said he paid around $2,300 for the June 18 Mexico versus South Korea match in Guadalajara, Mexico, but they were canceled
“Devoted soccer fans have traveled from around the world to attend World Cup matches — and they reasonably relied on StubHub to provide the tickets they paid for as well as on StubHub’s warranty,” Blake Hunter Yagman, the attorney representing the two, said in a statement. “Instead of rewarding their business, StubHub sold them World Cup tickets that they either could not provide or on speculation, only to be stranded, in many cases, at the stadium gates without any recourse.”
According to StubHub’s website, its Fan Protect Guarantee states the platform will deliver valid tickets or refund in the event of a ticket issue, and that it will “go out of our way to find replacement tickets” of a comparable value. The lawsuit alleges the replacement tickets many fans were given by StubHub were worse than their original tickets.
FIFA, the World Cup organizer, states in its terms and conditions that the FIFA Marketplace, its own ticket-selling platform, is the only authorized platform for World Cup tickets, and that only tickets purchased through it are guaranteed by FIFA to be valid.
Despite the risk of purchasing through a third-party platform such as StubHub, many fans opted to do so to avoid the 30% FIFA resale tax, believing that the Fan Protect Guarantee would safeguard their order.
Since World Cup tickets began selling on FIFA Marketplace last September, fans have expressed disappointment in the expensive price tag. FIFA utilized a dynamic pricing system for the sale, and as sales phases progressed leading up to the games, the cost of tickets increased tremendously. In March, the extreme cost of tickets prompted 69 members of Congress to write a letter to FIFA urging them to lower their prices.
Tickets for the upcoming Friday match between Spain and Belgium in Los Angeles are selling on StubHub for over $1,300.
StubHub said in various statements to the news and in legal proceedings that ticket cancellations were a result of transfer problems and issues with FIFA’s ticketing infrastructure.
StubHub did not respond to requests for comment.
A FIFA spokesperson responded to this accusation in a statement, saying, “FIFA has no visibility over, or control of, secondary market ticket transactions carried out on third-party platforms. The transactions facilitated on these platforms occur entirely independently of FIFA’s official ticketing platform. With reference to the reliability of the services available to fans on FIFA’s official ticket platform, FIFA rejects any suggestion that the functional issues being experienced by users of third-party platforms with respect to FIFA World Cup 2026 tickets are the result of FIFA’s ticketing infrastructure.”
SEATTLE — James Wilson, one of just six men who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, never could have imagined how grand the country he was founding would become. But he knew how it could get there.
Wilson envisioned a steady stream of foreigners coming to America every year, reinvigorating the energy and vitality the nation needed if it were to survive, much less thrive. Which is why Wilson, who moved to the colonies from Scotland at 22, argued against barriers on immigration that would “deprive the government of the talents, virtue and abilities of such foreigners as might chose to remove to this country.”
What Wilson had in mind, then, is something such as the U.S. national soccer team, which gathered to train Saturday morning, on the country’s 250th birthday.
Six of the 26 players on the team, which will face Belgium in a World Cup elimination game Monday, are foreign-born. Five others were born to immigrant parents and two others have immigrant grandparents or great-grandparents. Nearly half have dual nationality.
U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino jumps into the arms of his players after their World Cup win over Paraguay at SoFi Stadium on June 12.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Yet they all play with the U.S. flag stitched over their hearts. What could be more American than that?
“It is special,” U.S. captain Tim Ream said of having the team together on Independence Day. “Obviously, doubly special because it’s during a World Cup and triple special because it’s here in the U.S. “As a group, with all our different backgrounds, it’s a true representation of what America is. It’s a melting pot of, of people, of personalities, of characters.”
And it’s led by a country-music-listening Argentine coach, Mauricio Pochettino, who first learned to throw a baseball last week so he could perform first-pitch duties at a Seattle Mariners’ game. (He threw a strike.)
“That sort of stuff can only happen in America,” said striker Folarin Balogun, who grew up in England with Nigerian parents but plays for the U.S. because he was born in Brooklyn, qualifying for birthright citizenship through the 14th Amendment to the constitution Wilson helped write.
It would be hard for the U.S. soccer team to more closely resemble the architects who founded the country, nor the vision those architects had for their creation.
Eight the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence and eight of the 55 framers of the Constitution were immigrants. That’s about the same percentage of immigrants on this summer’s World Cup roster. Another 20 of the Founding Fathers were the sons of immigrants; again, the same percentage as the national team.
“That is the U.S. experience of taking different people from all over the world, the immigrant experience, and mixing it into something that the world has never seen,” said Adam Sawyer, a co-founder of Relevant Research, a Baltimore firm which provides support to immigration researchers and organizations.
“One in seven Americans was foreign-born. Our soccer team is like one in four. I always think of soccer [as] leading society and it’s pulling us with it,” continued Sawyer, who recently published an analysis of the role global migration has played on World Cup success. “Our sporting teams push us forward towards further integration.”
The signers of the Declaration of Independence never foresaw a World Cup, much less an American World Cup team. But they did see immigration as such a fundamental strength, they used America’s founding document to condemn King George III for endeavoring “to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners.”
Without that naturalization, Christian Pulisic might not be playing for the U.S.; in fact, he might not even be in the U.S. His paternal grandfather Mate immigrated from the former Yugoslavia in search of opportunity and was later naturalized as a U.S. citizen. The paternal ancestors of goalkeeper Matt Turner became naturalized citizens after fleeing to the U.S. to escape religious persecution in Lithuania and midfielder Cristian Roldan’s parents escaped civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, then gained permanent residency through President Reagan’s amnesty program.
“This soccer team is reflecting America at its best,” said Faisal Al-Juburi, co-chief executive of RAICES, a Texas-based humanitarian aid and immigration services nonprofit. “Its global roots, its shared purpose, its one jersey.”
Soccer in the U.S. has long been an immigrant sport. In the years after World War II, when soccer was still an amateur and semi-pro game, the best teams in the country had names such as the Philadelphia Ukrainian Nationals, New York German-Hungarian SC and the Los Angeles Danes. Joe Gaetjens, one of the country’s first stars and the man who scored the goal that beat England in the 1950 World Cup, was a Haitian immigrant.
In recent years, however, the national team has begun recruiting dual-nationals from overseas, among them World Cup midfielder Malik Tillman, who was born to a U.S. serviceman in Germany, and Antonee Robinson, who was born in England to a naturalized U.S. citizen father, and Sergiño Dest, a Dutch native whose father is Surinamese American.
“It is definitely a team that embraces their diverse backgrounds, and that’s quite meaningful, especially now,” said Al-Juburi, the son of Iraqi immigrants. “This notion that we are stronger with impenetrable walls that divide us is definitely not reflected in this team. It credits a lot of its success to its immigrant roots.
“And I think that’s incredibly powerful to see that and to see a nation cheering and getting behind that diversity. It is a reminder that we are stronger from that coexistence.”
But Al-Juburi doesn’t see the result as a melting pot, which burns away the unique flavors and characteristics of each ingredient. For him, it’s more a gumbo in which every ingredient changes and improves the mix.
U.S. players huddle seconds before playing Bosnia-Herzegovina during a World Cup knockout round match at Levi’s Stadium on Wednesday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“You’re looking at lineage from Nigeria, from Guatemala, from El Salvador, from Mexico, from Liberia, Jamaica, Croatia,” he said. “All these disparate ingredients work together so beautifully and in such a balanced way.”
And when that team succeeds, as the U.S. has this summer, it not only underscores the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, but it offers a lesson for today as well.
“This team contains a different picture of inclusion really mattering, just by being exactly who they are,” said Jules Boykoff, a political science professor at the University of Portland (Ore.) and a former U.S. youth international. “They don’t have to say anything. They just have to be who they are and do their best on the pitch.”
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — What do you mean U.S. forward Folarin Balogun got red-carded? For that?
As a nation, we’re pretty new to all this. And this VAR abomination we’ve all now been introduced to? Thanks, we hate it.
Soccer’s video assistant referee system is worse than the NBA’s tedious in-game reviews. Worse than the existential NFL question of whether it is or is not a catch. Dumber than not being able to argue obvious balls and strikes in a pre-ABS baseball world.
Worse than all those things put together.
And now that we witnessed it burn the U.S. men’s soccer team in its rousing 2-0 round of 32 World Cup victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday, all of us newly accredited soccer experts in America are ready to declare war on VAR.
In a physical fixture filled with shoving and shouldering, pushing and pummeling, blood and guts, after 60-plus minutes of letting ’em play, Balogun’s off-balance misstep got him kicked off the pitch.
A match of no-calls — including, initially, this gnarly moment of incidental contact between Balogun and Tarik Muharemovic — and the United States found itself down a man for most of the second half at Levi’s Stadium.
The unfortunate accident will rob Americans — both those on the pitch and those glued to screens at home or at a watch party — of their top scorer (Balogun has three goals in three matches) in a round of 16 showdown with Belgium on Monday in Seattle.
The young man was doing LeBron James’ silencer celebration after scoring a goal one moment and being tagged with soccer’s equivalent of a Flagrant 2 the next — because of how one moment was assessed on tape delay.
Delay being the operative phrase. No one loves late calls, but soccer has some late calls. Examined in super-slow motion. And, as the United States’ Tyler Adams pointed out: “When you slow everything down, it’s only going to look worse.”
And Balogun didn’t mean it! That’s a better defense in some situations than others — including this one. Per letter of the law.
ESPN’s resident refereeing expert, Andy Davies, a former Select Group referee with more 12 seasons on the elite list provided this summary judgment: “With both players challenging for ball, the contact from Balogun on Muharemovic, while it looked bad in slow motion, was purely accidental and an unfortunate result from two players challenging for possession of the ball in a normal football movement.”
Also, Davies: “VAR made their recommendation to the referee based on slow-motion and still replays, which is not aligned with VAR protocols, as these should be used for only point-of-contact purposes in a red card tackle situation.”
Let me tell you something you already knew: FIFA is inconsistent.
Malik Tillman’s exquisitely placed, curving free kick for a goal in the 82nd minute might have been Messi-esque, but the call on Balogun? Not Messi-esque.
In a group play match against Algeria, Lionel Messi, the Argentine superstar, seemed to rake his studs along Aïssa Mandi’s right calf and ankle. That time, a foul was called. VAR had a look. And despite the rules stating that a challenge from behind with studs-on-calf contact and a level of force should be a red card — no card was administered. Can’t have Messi missing games.
“For me, never is this red card,” Pochettino said. “Watching after on TV, never was [it] intention[al] to step up on the player. That was a normal action in football that happened by accident.
“That is why for me it’s never a red card.”
But you don’t have to take his word for it.
On Fox, former French footballing legend Thierry Henry said: “You need to adopt some type of common sense. He never went to hurt nobody. He went to get the ball, and where do you land after? You have to land somewhere.”
Commentator Ian Darke weighed in with a post on X: “Reckless and yellow would have covered it.”
Trust your own eyes.
In an attempt to eliminate human error, this great sport has introduced human error. But it feels more egregious than a bad call in the run of play because it’s justice — or injustice — meted out arbitrarily, unevenly and after the fact.
Look, I’m sure the world doesn’t want to hear any of our star-spangled opinions about how to improve the beautiful game — but in this, we’re united.
There’s a universal sentiment: Give VAR the red card.
Trejo has played for several first and second division soccer clubs in the South American country since 2023 and signed on with the northern Venezuela-based Club Sport Marítimo de La Guaira earlier this year.
On Sunday, Trejo’s club announced the deaths of his family in an Instagram post.
“Club Sport Marítimo de La Guaira profoundly laments the irreparable loss of the wife and sons of our player Lucas Trejo,” the team wrote. “[The deaths] occurred on June 24th during the earthquake that shook the entire country.”
When the earthquakes struck, Trejo was at a training session in the capital city of Caracas while his wife Yanina and children— Aarón and Ainhoa— were at the family home in the severely affected beachfront city of La Guaira.
Trejo’s brother-in-law Ricardo Ardiles told CNN Español that the Club Sport Marítimo de La Guaira defender rushed home after the temblors and was “emotionally overwhelmed” as he dug through rubble for days in search of his family.
“What he found was a horrific scene,” Ardiles said last week. “He found absolutely nothing of what the building itself had been.”
Trejo was far from the only athlete gravely affected by the seismic activity in Venezuela.
Former Club Sport Marítimo de La Guaira player Héctor Bello also lost his wife Andrea during the earthquakes. She died while protecting their infant daughter, who was later found alive by rescue teams.
“I’m going to make sure our baby remembers how wonderful you were, how much you loved her,” Bello wrote in an Instagram post honoring his wife. “I’ll tell her the story of how you saved her, how you gave your own life for our daughter, how you were a brave woman who, even with your last breaths, never abandoned her.”
“Venezuelan football bids a heart-wrenching farewell to a young man who represented our country’s colors with pride, commitment and love,” a social media statement from the federation read. “His passing has plunged the entire Vinotinto family into mourning and leaves an indelible mark on all those who shared moments with him both on and off the pitch.”
Eighteen-year-old Razan Sijaa, who played for Caracas Fútbol Club, 14-year-old Víctor Palacios of Club Sport San Augustín’s academy and 17-year-old prospect Ricardo Veloz were also killed by the quakes.
Locally, the family of Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas narrowly escaped tragedy and were doing OK after the earthquakes.
“Literally two blocks away from where my family was, two buildings collapsed — the whole building,” Rojas told reporters last week. “I’m lucky, to be honest with you guys. I’m really lucky to have my family still alive and with me. I’m not taking this for granted.”
According to Rojas, his wife and kids were in Caracas, which is approximately six miles south of where the quakes struck. His wife was there to renew her passport, and the kids were going to try to get Venezuelan citizenship. He added that his sister was in Los Teques, Rojas’ hometown about 17 miles south of the coastal destruction.
“It’s really tough to see teammates of mine and players that I played with at some point in my career lose family members, to lose kids,” said Rojas, who spent years playing baseball in La Guaira. “It’s really devastating. It’s been really hard for me to go to sleep at night.”
Remember when we were sure the World Cup would suffer from all the issues that had everyone seeing red before the first ball was kicked?
And remember when we were certain soccer could never catch on in this country?
Despite controversies over visas and ticket prices and transportation, and in spite of consternation over expansion and new rules, the game has, as usual, proved too good to fail.
And we, the American people, have become unusually engrossed in it.
We’ve been tuning in on TV in record numbers and, even at exorbitant prices, helping to sell out our 70,000-some-capacity stadiums. Before group play was even finished, this tournament — staged also in Mexico and Canada — already outdrew the 1994 World Cup, which was hosted by the United States and set an attendance record of nearly 3.6 million.
We’ve been loving the healthy cultural exchange, and we’re being reminded that cultural barriers of traditional sports fandom can be breached.
So now, to keep our interest from drying out like a pitch on a hot summer day, the goal should be to keep the market saturated with soccer. That will take Major League Soccer tearing down all the walls.
It’s already turned the page on its calendar, adopting a summer-to-spring season format that will better blend with the global game.
Now MLS needs to make its games easier to watch, and to do its part to make the sport easier to play.
Canada goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau, left, celebrates with teammate Jonathan David after a 1-0 win over South Africa at the World Cup on Sunday.
(Kelvin Kuo / Los Angeles Times)
While the proverbial iron is hot, it needs a strike like Stephen Eustáquio’s winning rocket in the 92nd minute of Canada’s 1-0 victory against South Africa on Sunday at SoFi Stadium.
Eleven players on the two teams were MLS representatives — including Eustáquio, who spent the last six months in LAFC’s midfield.
Goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau, who played two seasons with LAFC and now plays for Orlando City, stopped the only shot he saw for his second clean sheet this World Cup, which saw the Canadians succeed in their first knockout stage appearance.
There’s been no avoiding MLS players in this World Cup. The greatest of them is piling up goals for Argentina: Lionel Messi, the Inter Miami superstar, is now the all-time World Cup goal-scorer (with 19).
MLS has set an attendance record too, with 44 players participating. It ranks as the league with the second-most players apart from the top five European leagues. LAFC had three current players in the mix.
But wait. Record skip. Before you celebrate the MLS’s contributions to this soccer spectacle, check with the VAR. Yep, without the 13 MLS players representing nations that rank 40th or lower in FIFA’s world ranking, there actually would be fewer than the 37 MLS participants at the World Cup four years ago.
A baby’s first steps are for celebrating, but three decades after the league’s formation, MLS is still searching for a giant leap. It’s still having a mean time of trying to make “fetch” happen for real.
It would help to make its games more readily available — not to the already converted, but to fans who didn’t even know what they didn’t know about soccer until the World Cup began in their backyards.
MLS has already brought MLS from behind Apple’s season pass paywall. And the league and streaming service also reportedly have agreed to a revised media rights deal that will end at the end of the 2028-29 season, three and a half years earlier than expected.
But the hat trick would be to remove the need to subscribe to streaming service to watch MLS games altogether, and then get those matches onto the networks people know to tune into for their sports.
Normalize watching American soccer.
And stop gatekeeping. MLS’s developmental programs are too restrictive and exclusive — they’re not developing more soccer players, they’re curtailing who can play.
It’s in the league’s interests, and the sport’s in this country, to encourage as many players to play as much as they can — including for their high school teams, which MLS Next bars.
They’ve got people in the tent; the goal should be to make them want to stay.
To make them want to join the world’s circus, not to let it pack up and move on, out of sight and out of mind, until it swings back through years from now.
For forward Folarin Balogun, things couldn’t be going any better.
“You know, if someone said before the tournament, two games and you’d be through to the knockouts, I think we all would have taken it,” he said. “We’re delighted.”
On Monday, the U.S. got more good news when Christian Pulisic, its talisman, returned to training after missing 10 days because of a calf injury. So Balogun said the last thing the team wants to do is take its foot off the gas for Thursday’s group-play finale with Turkey.
U.S. forward Folarin Balogun celebrates after scoring against Paraguay during the teams’ opening World Cup match at SoFi Stadium on June 12.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“The object and the aim is to go out there and win,” he said before Monday’s practice at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine. “Three wins, three games. We can create history.”
He is unlikely to be part of that effort, however. Balogun, Tyler Adams, Chris Richards and Antonee Robinson all picked up yellow cards in the first two U.S. games, and a second booking against Turkey would leave them ineligible to play in the round of 32 match.
There’s no need to risk that in a game that will change neither team’s World Cup fate — the U.S. already won the group while Turkey has been eliminated and will fly home after the match. But protecting their momentum is important for the Americans, who last won their group in 1930 and have won a World Cup knockout-stage game just once.
“Game to game, even minute to minute, half to half, it ebbs and flows,” captain Tim Ream said of momentum. “You can wrestle momentum away from teams and create your own. Every goal, every block, every set play — everything that we’re doing is together. That’s how we create the momentum.”
U.S. defender Chris Richards kicks the ball in front of Paraguay forward Julio Enciso while midfielder Tyler Adams looks on.
(Kelvin Kuo/Los Angeles Times)
“Momentum is everything,” defender Richards added. “Going into the last game with the group stage with two wins, hopefully we can finish with the third.”
With decisive victories over Paraguay and Australia, the U.S. has consecutive wins in a World Cup for the first time in 96 years. It has never won more than twice in a tournament, so beating Turkey would make history — and a bold statement.
“The belief’s always been there,” forward Alejandro Zendejas said. “Not just now, but in the past FIFA windows. We’ve been playing against good national teams, respected national teams, and we’ve been coming out with a positive result. So just keep on believing in this group.”
Zendejas said one reason the team is playing so well is because the players genuinely like being around one another. And unlike other national team camps, which rarely last more than 10 days, these 26 players have been together nearly a month, which has helped bond a roster that was already tight.
“The vibes are high, the team is having fun,” he said. “Training is intense, but in a good way. That’s since the beginning of this whole camp.
“It’s fun being around these guys. There’s a bunch of jokes. But when it comes to work and training and games, we get serious. And we’ve been showing that.”
With coach Mauricio Pochettino likely to rotate his squad against Turkey to protect the players with yellow cards, Zendejas is among those who figure to see the field for the first time in the tournament. Midfielder Cristian Roldan, who is in his second World Cup but has yet to play, was in line to get some minutes as well, but he was held out of training Monday with what was vaguely described as a muscle strain. His status is listed as day to day.
Pulisic’s role in Thursday’s game could be Pochettino’s toughest decision. The team’s best player, Pulisic was electric in the first half of the opener with Paraguay, setting up two goals. But he hasn’t played since, and his absence was noticeable against Australia.
So while getting him back on the field would be a positive, an additional week’s rest and recovery also would be valuable since there will be no room for error in the knockout stages.
Brenda Jaimes pushed her way through an ecstatic crowd in downtown Santa Ana Thursday night, stopping in the middle of Fourth Street and calling attention to herself by shouting, “Me! Me!”
Fans blew horns and spun noisemakers, chanting “México!” and “¡Sí se puede!” They brandished the Mexican flag seemingly everywhere: on banners, painted on cheeks, emblazoned on Jaimes’ tube top. They stood on the back of trucks and boogied.
An Orange County Fire Authority truck flashed its sirens to cheers. A line of drivers cruised down Fourth Street — the historic cultural and economic heart of Latino Orange County — to high-five the crowd and let people shake their cars as if everyone was inside a bounce house.
Jaimes wanted something more dramatic.
She lay down in the arms of some men wearing green Mexico soccer jerseys. They counted to three, launched her a good 8 feet upward, then effortlessly caught the laughing Jaimes.
Scenes like this replicated themselves across Southern California after the match, from Koreatown to Boyle Heights to Pacoima to Huntington Park — really, anywhere with a big Latino population. It happens any time Mexico wins big in soccer. But the pachanga was even more pronounced in Santa Ana.
A year earlier, Fourth Street was empty. Federal immigration agents were seizing people across the city. The National Guard set up a roadblock complete with an armed Humvee for over a month, just a block away from where Jaimes and so many others celebrated.
One of the most Latino big cities in the country trembled in fear. On Thursday night, Santa Ana erupted in joy.
“This here is the antithesis of the raids last year,” said Sandra De Anda, who wore a Stetson and a Tigres Mexican soccer club jersey and waved a South Korea flag. She’s the director of policy and legal strategy at the Orange County Rapid Response Network.
Last June, the Santa Ana native joined thousands as they marched down Fourth Street for days demanding that ICE and the National Guard leave town. Through the rest of 2025, she and others in the Rapid Response Network fought la migra in courthouses and through fundraisers for immigrant detainees and their loved ones.
“They tried to take our community down, but they had no chance,” De Anda added as her boyfriend rushed off to join the celebration. “We Mexicans always get beat down, but we have pride. Tonight, you see how we stand up when we need to.”
Jaimes agreed.
“It’s so important to do this especially after last year,” she told me after her short turn as a Cirque du Soleil performer. “We don’t care what Trump can say about this. It was his birthday recently — who cares? This right here is real.”
Another young woman shrieked as she sailed above us. Jaimes pointed at her, then looked at me. “Throw yourself también [also], bro!”
I stuck to slapping the hoods and windows of so many cars that my hand turned black with soot.
Mexico soccer fans shake a car cruising down Fourth Street in downtown Santa Ana after Mexico’s 1-0 World Cup win over South Korea on Thursday.
(Gustavo Arellano / Los Angeles Times)
Seeing Mexico become the first country to win its World Cup group would be thrilling any year. But in 2026, when Trump continues to meddle in Latin American affairs while his migra goons keep launching raids across the country, the satisfaction hits that much more.
Few things irk Trump and his followers more than Mexicans succeeding at anything. Eleven years ago this week, he announced his presidential campaign by stating that Mexico was “not sending its best” immigrants but instead, people he claimed were mostly rapists and drug dealers. Trump has spent his two terms obsessing over the U.S.-Mexico border, attacking anything that reeks of diversity and demeaning Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as if she were a junior executive at one of his many failed companies.
Conservatives and more than a few liberals always get furious when Mexican Americans wave the flag of their ancestral homeland — but rooting for Mexico’s soccer team especially brings out the venom. Fans far outnumber supporters of the U.S. soccer team during matches in this country, which brings on accusations of treason against Mexican Americans even though other diasporas do the same, with nowhere near the same opprobrium.
Haters don’t get why so many Mexican Americans root for El Tri. The team embodies what it means to be Mexican: They’re a good group of folks who always seem to get bad breaks and never seem to win against the powers that be — but never stop fighting for a better day, while having fun doing so.
That’s why Americans of all ethnicities should back Mexico along with the U.S. side in this World Cup, which Trump has already sullied. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security denied a Somali referee entry into this country because he allegedly was “talking to some very bad people,” per the White House World Cup task force. The Trump administration is forcing Iran’s squad to base its training camp in Tijuana, which means players have to fly to matches in Los Angeles and Seattle instead of taking every other team’s short bus trip.
Every Mexico victory should give solace to the underdogs of the world and affirm the belief that a communion of nations engaged in friendly rivalries is better than Trump’s proclivity for launching indiscriminate raids and bombings. To cheer for Mexico is about as American as you can get right now.
Sydney Tran took her turn at the Fourth Street procession in a Honda Civic packed with friends. The crowd shook her car with such vigor that the 23-year-old Westminster resident couldn’t turn up the music like people shouted at her to do.
“This is crazy!” yelled Tran, who wore a Mexico soccer jersey. “I’m Vietnamese, but this is wonderful to see my Mexican friends so happy. They deserve to be happy — it’s been rough for them. It’s been rough for all immigrants.”
Mexico fans celebrate a goal while watching a FIFA World Cup soccer Group A matchup between Mexico and South Korea in Boyle Heights on Thursday.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
The festivities were still going strong when I left. Restaurants that were usually closed by 10 p.m. had lines out the door. Dance parties sprouted on sidewalks. Rancheras, funk and oldies blasted everywhere. The police were nowhere to be seen, unlike last year, when they broke up the anti-ICE protests with rubber bullets and tear gas.
Cynicism shot through me for a second. Mexico, which won on a fluke goal and two miraculous saves, stands virtually no chance of beating soccer titans like France and Argentina once the knockout stage of the World Cup begins. Trump’s immigration team vows that more raids are forthcoming. And I can only hope that the overwhelmingly young crowd will take the passion they showed for Mexican soccer to the ballot box this November.
Then I chilled out.
Everyone around me got to breathe and scream and let out their frustrations about our nation in the most delightful way imaginable. Reality would return the next morning — but for one night, for a few hours, life was wonderful for Mexican Americans, and better days ahead seemed possible. Sí se puede, indeed.
SEATTLE — Cristian Roldan and Haji Wright grew up less than three years and 30 miles apart, Roldan in Pico Rivera and Wright in Culver City. The odds that they would go on to become teammates on not one, but two, U.S. World Cup teams seem astronomical.
Yet despite starting at the same time and place and arriving together at the same destination, the two players followed completely different paths to get there.
Wright joined the Galaxy’s academy at 14 and signed with Schalke of the top tier German Bundesliga days after his 18th birthday. Roldan was still playing for El Rancho, when he was 17, making him the only member of the U.S. World Cup team to play four years at a public high school.
“I might be the last one,” Roldan said. “I hope not.”
Crescenta Valley’s Salar Hajimirsadeghi and El Rancho’s Cristian Roldan meet in unison for a header.
(Tim Berger / Glendale News Press)
High school soccer was once the foundation of the sport in the U.S. Eighteen players on the 2002 World Cup team, the only American team to reach the tournament quarterfinals, played for their high school teams. By 2022, the only man on the roster who played four years for a public school was Roldan.
“I don’t wish my story, or how I ended up here, was any different,” Roldan said. “What I will say was it made it more difficult to be here, play[ing] four years in high school. But it makes my story special.”
His story becomes even more special with this World Cup, which opened for the U.S. in Inglewood, a 45-minute drive from his boyhood home, and will continue when the Americans face Australia on Friday in Seattle, where Roldan played two years at the University of Washington and 12 seasons as an all-star midfielder with the Sounders, winning two MLS titles.
“When we talk about people’s paths, Cristian’s is not the standard right now,” said older brother Cesar, an athletic trainer with the Galaxy. “Cristian did it mostly to be around his friends. He wanted to play with his buddies.
“That is not a standard way to make it into MLS. And forget about making [it] all the way to the national team.”
“Yeah, it’s different,” Cristian said with a smile. “Being able to play in your backyard, have friends and family there. It’s a celebration.”
And it may never be repeated.
Roldan, 31, is the third-oldest player on the U.S. team, so the MLS academy system was just getting started when he enrolled at El Rancho in 2010. But as the academy system and the Elite Club National League became larger and more powerful, they began to throw their weight around.
Academy and elite club teams essentially robbed prep soccer of its best players by forcing them to choose between their high school teams and elite club programs, demanding a year-round commitment and banning participation in other sports. When top players began opting for the academies, others had no choice but to follow if they wanted to be seen and scouted.
That also robbed U.S. soccer of one of the few advantages it has over European and South American countries, most of whom have nothing to rival the high school and college sports infrastructure where kids can play and develop for free.
Cristian Roldan sprints during a training session Tuesday in Irvine ahead of the United States’ World Cup match against Australia on Friday.
(Andre Penner / Associated Press)
“That’s not available in Germany or England, or whatever,” said Brian Schmetzer, Roldan’s coach with the Sounders. “I like the fact that the United States is a big enough country where we can give kids opportunities to continue playing.”
Especially since the academy and elite club pathways aren’t open to everybody. Moving from a free neighborhood high school team to an academy can be expensive, erecting a “pay-to-play” barrier that often restricts those programs to wealthier families. Travel to games and practices can also be an issue. Since many high school-age players can’t drive, a parent has to accept the responsibility of toting them back and forth to team activities.
That leaves little time for work, which can pose an additional financial burden.
“My parents would have done whatever for us. So they would have made things happen,” Cesar Roldan said of Cristian. “But he really didn’t have any of those options. There was just not the opportunity.”
Paul Caliguiri, who played in two World Cups before retiring as the second-most-capped player in U.S. Soccer history, said the slow strangulation of high school soccer will ensure some talented players will be overlooked.
“There are a lot more qualified players that choose the path of high school soccer rather than the full-time academies,” he said. “The issue is that many of those players that don’t go to full-time academies when the opportunity presents is likely due to transportation.
“We need to have more full-time training offered to players without increasing the ‘pay to play’ cost.”
Dominic Picon, who coached all three Roldan brothers at El Rancho, agrees.
“We’re losing a ton of kids who never get seen,” he said. “There’s a lot of kids that just get lost in the shuffle simply because we have a very limited scope of how we find players. If you look at our three main sports — baseball, basketball and football — virtually all of them play high school sports. They all come through that pipeline.”
Roldan, the son of a Guatemalan immigrant father and a Salvadoran-born mother, said he never really considered any of those issues when he decided to play with the neighborhood kids in high school, just as his older brother Cesar had done.
“I looked up to my brother and I wanted to share a similar path as he did,” he said. “And I wanted to win a trophy for the city of Pico Rivera, which only has one high school.”
U.S. midfielder Cristian Roldan defends the ball from Senegal forward Habib Diarra during an international friendly match on May 31.
(Scott Kinser / Associated Press)
He made good on that last pledge in his senior season. Playing with younger brother Alex, who was a junior, Roldan scored 54 goals and had 31 assists — what Picon calls “video-game numbers” — to lead El Rancho to 29 wins and a CIF Southern Section title. Individually, he was named the Gatorade national player of the year.
Alex would go on to play alongside Cristian with the Sounders and captain the Salvadoran national team. Picon said he knew the brothers were good. But he didn’t know how good.
“When you’re coaching them, they’re in high school,” he said. “You never look at them and say, ‘You know, these guys are going to be in the World Cup someday.’”
In fact, there was some doubt both would even play in college. Alex was headed to a junior college in Arizona before receiving a last-minute offer from Seattle University. And Cristian, despite his award-winning senior season, had very few firm offers from top schools, in part because he insisted on playing high school soccer and in part because he was small at 5-foot-7.
“What hurt him is playing at a public school,” Picon said. “His rise was improbable because of where he came from, but also when he did play in front of [college] coaches, I think his size was something that dissuaded coaches.”
Contrast that with Wright, whose exposure at the academy level helped him get stamped as one of the country’s top youth players, opening up professional opportunities before he was old enough to vote.
In the end, it wasn’t Roldan’s talent that got him a scholarship as much as it was the boldness of his mother Ana. When Washington coach Jamie Clark inadvertently sat down next to her at the Surf Cup showcase in San Diego, she urged him to have a look at her son.
He did, then called Picon the next week.
“He’s a legit player,” Picon remembers telling Clark. “He’s better than 99% of the academy players out there. It’s just because of where he plays, the city that he’s from.”
Cristian Roldan speaks to reporters during a team training session in Seattle on Thursday.
(Soobum Im / Getty Images)
Picon was right. In his first season at Washington, Roldan was the Pac-12 freshman of the year and after his sophomore season he turned pro. MLS stardom and two World Cup selections were on the horizon. And there was luck in that, the coach says.
But that good fortune started at home with parents who put their faith in public schools, then saw that faith rewarded.
“It’s the quintessential American story, right?” Picon offered. “You have immigrant parents. They come here and they put a lot of trust in the public school system. At the elementary level, the teachers were tasked with making sure they have a grasp of English. They did that.
“At middle school, they were tasked with getting them prepared for high school and they did that. All three were accepted into a four-year [college], their kids.
“Where Cristian and his brothers lucked out is having the parents that they did. They were the type of parents that any coach, high school or club, would want to have.”
Getting to the World Cup, then, isn’t always determined by the path you take. Sometimes the most important factors are how and where you started.
VANCOUVER, Canada — When the first men’s World Cup game played in Canada kicked off last week, Anthony Totera sat in the stands and wept.
“It was a dream come true,” said Totera, who has spent most of his 57 years on earth promoting Canadian soccer. “I can’t describe the emotions. It was something surreal.”
If the 1994 World Cup, the first held in the U.S., forever altered the direction of American soccer, this summer’s tournament, which Canada is sharing with the U.S. and Mexico, has the potential to do the same for that country.
“This is going to be something monumental,” Totera said. “We’re going to get to another level, another point, where we’re going to say this was when it all turned.”
With an opening draw against Bosnia and Herzegovina last week in Toronto and Thursday’s 6-0 blowout victory over Qatar in Vancouver, this tournament is already the most successful on the field for Canada, which had lost all six previous World Cup games it had played. Now it’s poised to advance to the knockout rounds for the first time ever.
Jonathan David’s three goals were more than Canada had scored in its previous World Cup seven games combined. And former LAFC goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau, who lost his chance to play in the last World Cup when he broke his leg in the MLS Cup final, had no trouble making them stand up, recording Canada’s first-ever World Cup clean sheet.
The hosts outshoot Qatar 32-2 and had 97 touches in the box in one of the most dominant performances in recent World Cup history.
“I really think that we’re a soccer country,” LAFC midfielder Stephen Eustaquio said. “It’s a very special group.”
But the win was a costly one since Canada, which entered the tournament missing three starters to injury, lost another early in the second half when midfielder Ismael Kone was carted off on a stretcher with an apparent broken leg after Qatar’s Assim Madibo clipped him from behind.
And while that success on the field — costly or not — is significant, Steve Reed, the former Canadian Soccer Assn. president who was instrumental in bringing the World Cup to Canada, said the real goal wasn’t to win games as much as it was to win over the public.
“Each time we have hosted major tournaments, we have seen a significant increase in participation and general public interest,” said Reed, who was part of the group that organized the 2015 women’s World Cup in Canada. That tournament produced nearly a half-billion dollars in economic activity, double the original projections. It also boosted investment of soccer infrastructure, including the construction or upgrading of 21 “FIFA-quality” pitches, and surged youth participation numbers. The quarterfinal game between the host country and England drew a record TV audience of 20.8 million Canadians.
“I would say that we have proved that we excel at hosting major events. This will just be reinforced in 2026,” Reed said.
“In terms of expectations,” he continued, “one would be the continued growth of the game, particularly on the men’s side. We have always been great at the grassroots level. But we need to be better at the top end of the game, creating more professional opportunities for players in our domestic leagues and creating a pipeline to bigger clubs in major leagues.”
Canada fans celebrate after a 6-0 win over Qatar at the World Cup on Thursday.
(Kaleb Tatum / Associated Press)
That’s exactly the kind of legacy the 1994 World Cup created in the U.S., where it gave birth to Major League Soccer, a deep lower-tier professional infrastructure and an academy system that has sent players to major teams all over the world. Canada has also benefited from that, with MLS placing teams in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. Nine players from the league — including three from LAFC — are on Canada’s World Cup team.
In the last decade, Canada has begun building its own youth development system. It also launched the Canadian Premier League, an eight-team professional league that has already sent 15 players to the national team. Those initiatives had a good foundation to build on since soccer is Canada’s most popular sport in terms of registration and participation and ranks behind only hockey as a spectator sport.
Still, when Victor Montagliani, a former Canadian Soccer Assn. president, first publicly floated the idea of bidding to host the men’s World Cup in 2013, he was lampooned.
“People absolutely laughed at him, all across this country,” said Totera, who is now the grassroots ambassador for the Premier League. “But his closest friends and people that knew him knew he didn’t lie when he said, ‘I want to bring the World Cup to Canada.’ And he brought it.”
Canada had to pair with the U.S. and Mexico to make that happen, with the so-called United Bid beating back a proposal from Morocco thanks in part to some steady diplomacy from Reed, who took over as president when Montagliani was chosen to lead CONCACAF, the governing body that oversees soccer in North America, Central America and the Caribbean.
Canada’s reward was 13 World Cup games — seven in Vancouver and six in Toronto. Mexico gets the same number, while 78 of the record 104 matches will be played in the U.S.
That same year, 2018, Reed and Canada Soccer put the final piece of its World Cup preparations in place when it hired John Herdman to rebuild its men’s team.
In seven years with the country’s women, Herdman had taken a team that finished last in the 2011 World Cup to the quarterfinals of the next tournament, sandwiched between two bronze-medal performances in the Olympic Games. His impact on the men’s team was equally as stunning.
When Herdman took over, it had been 32 years since Canada played in its only World Cup. The country not only returned in its first cycle under the new coach, but it won the CONCACAF qualifying tournament to earn its place in the 2022 tournament.
“Being a Canadian football supporter, the roller-coaster ride has been downward for most of the years,” said Totera, who pulled on his first Canada soccer shirt the year he entered first grade. “But for the last few years, it’s been on on the upswing.”
Herdman found success in part by making the recruitment of dual nationals a priority, starting four of them — including Alphonso Davies, who immigrated to Canada from a refugee camp in Ghana — in Qatar.
Nearly a quarter of Canada’s population was born somewhere else and Herdman leaned into that diversity.
Jesse Marsch, the U.S.-born coach who took over the national team in 2024, followed Herdman’s lead, recruiting six dual nationals to his World Cup team. As a result the 26 players on Canada’s roster, or their parents, come from more than 17 countries — from Iran, Croatia, Jamaica and Barbados to Haiti, Lebanon, Nigeria and the Philippines.
“We’re a melting pot. We embrace it,” said Totera, whose family moved to Canada from Italy. “I look at that team, our team, and they’re from all parts of the world. Not one from one section of the world or the other section. No, all over.
“Amazing.”
Now, with a win and draw in two games, that diverse Canadian team is almost certain to advance out of a World Cup group stage for the first time — just as the U.S. did when it first hosted a men’s World Cup in 1994.
“After ‘94, after the World Cup was there, they took off to bigger and better things,” Totera said. “I believe once we get into the knockout route, we won’t look back.
“We’re on the cusp of something really special in this country right now. And we need to grab it and run with it.”
SEATTLE — Growing up the son of an NFL wide receiver, Alex Freeman said he felt a lot of pressure to play the American version of football, not the one the rest of the world plays.
“I always got asked if football was the path,” he said last summer. “But I always had a secret love for soccer.”
And he had to keep it a secret because he wasn’t sure his father Antonio, a Super Bowl winner with the Green Bay Packers, would understand.
But his stepfather did. Jake Hinkle introduced Alex to the sport and served as his first coach while his mother Rochelle urged him on.
Now his biological father, who last played in 2004, the year his son was born, has joined the cheering section as well.
“I was with him at the hotel,” Freeman said, “and he was just giving me those kinds of speeches that you hear from a dad. He’s just telling me to be myself. I think he knows that being myself has gotten me to this point. So why change that, right?”
Instead he put a massive exclamation mark on what has been a breakout 13 months by setting up Gio Reyna for the final goal of a 4-1 win for the U.S. in its World Cup opener against Paraguay. The U.S. returns to group play Friday in Seattle where it will face Australia, with the winner of the match taking the inside track toward advancing to the knockout rounds as the group champion.
Much of that still sounds like a dream to Freeman, who was playing for Orlando City’s reserve team in MLS Next Pro during the last World Cup. He wasn’t in the national team’s plans this time around either until coach Mauricio Pochettino called him in for an audition last year, something Freeman called a big surprise.
U.S. defender Alex Freeman kicks the ball over Paraguay forward Antonio Sanabria during the second half of a World Cup group stage match on June 12.
(Kelvin Kuo / Los Angeles Times)
But Freeman earned his first international start less than three weeks later, then played all but three minutes of the Americans’ six-game run through the Gold Cup, the team’s last competitive tournament before the World Cup.
Since joining the national team, Freeman has appeared in 17 consecutive matches and has become the ninth-youngest American to start a World Cup game.
Freeman, 21, is the youngest player on a young team, the second-youngest roster the U.S. has sent to a World Cup in more than three decades. That just doesn’t bode well for the future — it’s paying off in the present, too.
Reyna is on his second World Cup team at 23. Folarin Balogun, 24, had two goals in the U.S. opener, becoming the first American to score multiple times in a World Cup game in 96 years. And Chris Richards, 26, completed all 83 of his passes in the opener, the most without a miss by a World Cup player since 1966.
With an average age of 26.8 years, the U.S. is the fifth-youngest team in the World Cup. Leave captain Tim Ream, 38, out of the equation and only Ivory Coast and Ecuador have younger rosters.
Pochettino is being rewarded for giving those young players a chance, with five players making their World Cup debuts against Paraguay.
“He has this ability to find the potential [of] the young players and he is not scared to give them the responsibility to put them on the field,” LAFC goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, who played for Pochettino at Tottenham, told CBS Sports. “I can see a lot of coaches protecting themselves and try[ing] to not take that risk with the young players. But he’s not this kind of coach. If the young player deserve[s], he will be on the field.”
With Freeman, Pochettino broke with tradition in another way. Many national team coaches won’t call up players who aren’t starting for their club team, but Freeman has played more games and minutes with the U.S. this year than he has with Villarreal, the Spanish team he joined in January after appearing in only 32 MLS games with Orlando City.
The coach explained himself by saying he was choosing the “right 26” players for the World Cup, not the best 26. And Freeman fits Pochettino’s need for a defender who can transition seamlessly between a back three and back four, allowing the U.S. to play the kind of dynamic style the coach prefers.
If questions about his presence on the team have left him feeling slighted, Freeman says he’s fueled more by the adversity he has faced than by his recent success.
“Knowing that I’ve been in different environments, different situations, it’s how can I be consistently good, consistently solid, consistently making a difference?” he said. “Especially now in the World Cup, in another different environment. It’s how can I consistently help my team?”
A decade after making a clean break from football to play fútbol, Freeman says he has no regrets.
“I had to pick,” he said. “And soccer was the clear choice by far.”
Even his father, with whom he remains close, recently admitted as much, telling his son that playing in a World Cup beats winning a Super Bowl.
“Absolutely,” the younger Freeman said. “Seeing it now, especially throughout the last year I’ve been with the national team, knowing that it’s a different type of competition, it’s a different type of atmosphere? For sure.”
Béla Guttmann may be the most consequential soccer coach you’ve never heard of. But if it weren’t for Guttmann, you may never have heard of Pelé.
And Brazil may never have become the greatest soccer-playing country on Earth.
That’s because Guttmann changed the shape of modern Brazilian soccer — and changed the sport forever — when he imported the revolutionary 4-2-4 system from Hungary to Sao Paulo in 1957. A year later, Brazil won the first of five World Cups and the joga bonito was born.
But what Guttmann brought to Brazil isn’t nearly as interesting as how he got it there. That’s just one of the fascinating stories in “The Beautiful Game … The Untold Story,” the exhibit that will open the Holocaust Museum LA on Sunday at the Goldrich Cultural Center, a $70-million expansion that will double the size of the Pan Pacific Park museum’s campus to 70,000 square feet.
A soccer ball from the holocaust is among the items on display in the exhibit “The Beautiful Game … The Untold Story” at the Holocaust Museum LA.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
The exhibit was unveiled during a private reception on Saturday followed by a free preview day open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The grand public opening will take place in August.
The show’s launch coincides with eight local World Cup matches, which kicked off with the United States’ 4-1 win over Paraguay on Friday at SoFi Stadium, and it shines a light on the important but largely overlooked relationship between Jewish life and the global game, as well as how Jewish innovators like Guttmann shaped the modern rhythm, style and culture of the sport.
“It was in the same intellectual level as jazz, as art and everything modern and progressive,” journalist Allon Sander, who helped curate the exhibit, said of Jewish participation in European soccer in the years before World War II.
“The origin of the game and how it intersects with Jews and the Holocaust and the impact that these Jewish footballers and coaches had to shape the game and help popularize the sport is so fascinating,” added Beth Kean, the museum’s CEO. “And it’s an unknown history.”
Much of that story can be told through Guttmann, who was born in Budapest in the final year of the 19th century and developed into one of the sport’s first Jewish stars, representing Hungary in the 1924 Olympics and playing for nine teams in two countries before retiring to become a coach.
But none of that success mattered when the Hungarian government began introducing anti-Jewish laws in 1938, costing Guttmann his job and nearly his life when he was sent to a Nazi forced-labor camp, where he was tortured. Just days before he believed he would be shipped to Auschwitz, which meant certain death, he escaped alongside Erno Erbstein, another Jewish coach.
Erbstein revolutionized soccer in Italy before dying in 1949, along with the entire Torino team, when their plane crashed into a hilltop outside Turin. Four years ago, he was inducted into the Italian soccer hall of fame. Guttmann, meanwhile, who lost much of his family in the Nazi death camps, would go on to coach for 42 years in 14 countries, winning championships in six of them yet only staying in a single place for more than two years just once.
“He’s running away from his demons,” said Ronen Dorfan, a journalist and sports historian based in Budapest whose research was instrumental in putting the exhibit together. “His father was murdered, his sister was murdered. You never know how you survived in Budapest during the war so he had guilt feelings.”
A jersey worn by player Max Wozniak and a jersey from the 1930s are displayed in an exhibit called “The Beautiful Game … The Untold Story.”
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
The exhibit was designed in three sections, the first devoted to the years before World War II, the second is about the Holocaust and the third is the postwar years. And while it details Jewish participation in, and influence on, global soccer, it also challenges the cliché that Jews were intellectuals, artists and laborers but not athletes.
“We are always trying to challenge stereotypes. Stereotypes that we might have about ourselves and even stereotypes that we believe about others,” said Jordanna Gessler, the museum’s vice president of education and exhibits who helped curate the show. “It’s crucial to help people find their place and their voice and really see the unity, the similarities between people.
“This is a story that was lost in time and we’re really bringing it out,” Gessler added. “To really have this conversation and encourage people to explore stories that they might not know.”
One thing people might not know is that in the 1920s and ‘30s, Europe’s best teams weren’t in England, Germany or France, but in Austria and Hungary, where they were led by Jewish players and coaches such as Hugo Meisl, Jozsef Braun, Arpad Weisz, Marton Bukovi, Gusztav Sebes and Gyula Mandi. Weisz and Braun were both killed by the Nazis.
A soccer ball from the 1974 World Cup is displayed at an exhibit called “The Beautiful Game … The Untold Story.”
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
The surge of antisemitism and fascism in Germany, Italy and Eastern Europe helped spread the influence of those revolutionary players and coaches around the world.
“With the rise of the Reich and the Holocaust, the coaches ran away,” Dorfan said. “And they ran to every corner of the world, to Brazil, to Argentina, to Portugal [and] provided coaches to Real Madrid, to Barcelona, to Benfica, to Flamengo.
“There isn’t one of these clubs that doesn’t owe its tactical development in the ‘40s and ‘50s to the Jewish coaches, which came primarily from Hungary.”
The primary tactical development was the shift from the popular but rigid 2-3-5 formation, which required immense physical endurance and tactical discipline, to the fluid 4-2-4, which spread the wingers to the touch line and allowed for improvisation and creativity on the attacking end, a formation pioneered in Budapest in the 1920s.
“They developed a more refined game of passing the ball, keeping it on the carpet rather than the English kick and run, and really put thought into tactical thinking,” Dorfan said.
Guttmann, who played or coached for more than two dozen teams in his career — including one, in Romania, that paid him in vegetables during the postwar period — brought the Hungarian approach to Brazil in 1957 when he coached Sao Paulo to a championship. After Vicente Feola, the manager Guttmann replaced at Sao Paulo, took over the national team a year later, he brought the formation with him, popularizing many of the tactics still used in modern soccer, such as fluid defensive wingers, overlapping full backs, the use of a withdrawn striker and an attacking midfield.
The soccer team at the Theresienstadt concentration camp’s flag is displayed in a Holocaust Museum LA exhibit called “The Beautiful Game … The Untold Story.”
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
“He is the whole exhibition in one man,” Dorfan said of Guttmann.
“Obviously if we wouldn’t have had the Holocaust, those [coaches] wouldn’t be kept out of Europe, Europe would be much stronger, much more developed. [And] then the development of Brazil or the success of Brazil would be coming much later,” Sander said.
Dorfan spent the better part of two years tracking down many of the more than 100 trophies, uniforms, photos and trinkets that make up “The Beautiful Game” exhibit, a search that required determination, perseverance and more than a little luck. Many of the items, because of their ties to Jewish athletes and teams, were hidden during the war and presumed lost. Others resurfaced only through detective work that sent Dorfan following leads that spanned decades and crossed more than a dozen borders.
That also cost money. So Alan Rothenberg, the man who, as president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, first brought the World Cup to Los Angeles 32 years ago, stepped up to lead an effort that raised more than $1 million to fund the exhibit.
“The story really needs to be told, particularly with what’s going on right now with respect to antisemitism,” Rothenberg said. “It’s really important for people to realize what can happen. And soccer is a great vehicle to draw them in. The one main thing in the museum is bringing schoolkids in.”
The Nazis and their collaborators failed in their attempt to erase the history of Jewish soccer pioneers; in fact, they inadvertently popularized both the men — and women — and their ideas. But the sport also helped other Jews survive a dark period and Kean said that may be the most beautiful and uplifting part of “The Beautiful Game.”
“The main reason we decided to do this exhibition in the first place is because for years so many survivors, when they talk about their life before the war, so many of them talk about soccer. So many of them were passionate and fond of the sport,” she said.
“We knew the exhibit opening was going to coincide with the World Cup. L.A. is going to be on the world stage. This is a great opportunity for the museum to get these stories out.”
Consider it a save for the tournament, three points for soccer in America and maybe even a win for uniting the States.
The Americans on the pitch did all that, including making sure a sellout crowd of 70,492 fans got their money’s worth for their exorbitantly high-priced seats to watch football under Friday Night Lights at SoFi Stadium.
U.S. forward Folarin Balogun, right, celebrates with Sergino Dest and Chris Richards after scoring during a World Cup win over Paraguay on Friday at SoFi Stadium.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
It was not a clean sheet. And it wasn’t an elixir for all the issues — visas, tickets, transportation — that ailed the tournament in its buildup.
But the opening statement by the United States confirmed what we thought might be true. Only one thing could save this soccer tournament: soccer.
The U.S. delivered a performance to change the conversation — for the next few weeks and maybe longer.
Making history to alter history.
The United States scored multiple goals in a World Cup first half for the first time since 2002.
It got two of them from Folarin Balogun, the Brooklyn-born, England-raised forward of Nigerian descent who became just the second USMNT player to score two goals in a World Cup game and the first since 1930.
Got a perfect match from Chris Richards, the afro-rocking defender with the long, loping strides, who was 83 for 83 on his passes. That’s better than any player at a World Cup since 1966.
And if possession is nine-tenths of the law of attraction, know that the Americans possessed the ball 71% of the first half, most in the first half of a World Cup game in the modern era.
Landon Donovan, star of the 2002 team that reached the World Cup quarterfinals — a record that still stands — posted on X: “From start to finish, that was the most enjoyable day of soccer I’ve ever experienced.”
That’s the stuff that will get the American people going. Get us invested, get us behind them. That could convert even devout casuals.
Americans love a good underdog story. We also want the best, the finest, the biggest — and this, with its expanded field of 48, is the biggest version of the biggest and best tournament in the world.
And the only thing we love more than winning is dominating. The United States did that Friday against a Paraguayan team that had allowed only 10 goals in 18 World Cup qualifying matches, and whom the United States beat 2-1 in a tense match in November.
Fans cheer during the U.S. win over Paraguay in their World Cup opener Saturday at SoFi Stadium.
“The fans, amazing,” said Pochettino, the team’s accomplished Argentine coach. “On behalf of the whole team, a massive thank you to the fans. Because the energy that they [gave] to the team was amazing. We can do amazing things if the fans are in this as well.”
Friday was so good for soccer in America.
And so good for America. The kind of butt-kicking that’s chicken soup for a nation’s soul.
Maybe it’s idealistic and naive, or apple-pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, but I believe that they can win. (And by win, I mean make the quarterfinals again.)
There’s no removing politics from this World Cup, but wouldn’t it be fun to all rally behind a team together? Can’t you see the country coalescing behind the right wingers and left wingers on the pitch? Picture people celebrating the freedom inherent in Pochettino’s system? Cheering the all-for-one and one-for-all of this team of dual nationals and Americans raised abroad — or in Alabama?
Postmatch, Pochettino refused to single out any one player, instead giving reporters a recitation of his roster: “[Christian Pulisic] was amazing [setting up two goals]. Balogun was amazing, of course. Tim Ream was amazing, of course. Chris Richards was amazing, yes. Weston McKennie, he was amazing, amazing. Antonee Robinson, Alex Freeman, amazing. Sergiño Dest, amazing …”
Harry Redknapp has revealed his plans to quit Soccer Aid after almost 20 years, noting that he would rather “bow out” when things are going well rather than waiting for his team to lose
Harry Redknapp has revealed his plans to quit Soccer Aid (Image: PA)
Harry Redknapp has revealed his plans to quit Soccer Aid after almost 20 years. The sports star, 79, has been involved with the annual charity event, which has raised millions for UNICEF UK, since 2008 and after recently leading England to victory against Soccer Aid World XI, has admitted he will take a step back from it all sooner rather than later.
The former I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! star has acted as Manager and Coach for various teams made up of former players and celebrities over the years but would rather quit amid a rather successful period instead of waiting until things start to go wrong for his team.
He told The Sun: “I think I’ll probably retire myself off. I think I’d better get rid of me now, yeah. We won this year so you know, that might be it for me. I’ll bow out. Best to go out at the top rather than being booted out for getting beat again or something.”
This year, Harry, who has managed Tottenham, West Ham, QPR and Birmingham during his mammoth career as a football manager, teamed up with The Chase star Bradley Walsh to choose the England squad, which was eventually made up of actors Chris O’Dowd and Damson Idris along with former England striker Jermain Defoe amongst a host of others.
Speaking about working with Bradley, who has become one of the UK’s most famous television presenters after appearing in Coronation Street in the early 2000s, Harry was full of praise but joked he would have rather been on the inside when it came to the World Cup.
He said: “Me and Bradley were like a dream team. We picked the winning team between us. Bradley was fantastic and just having a few days with Bradley was worth all the money. It would be lovely to be in on the action for the World Cup, but I had Soccer Aid instead!”
This year, the annual charity football match raised a staggering £16.5million for the children’s aid organisation. The match, which was created by Robbie Williams and Jonathan Wilkes in 2006 , aims to raise millions for UNICEF every year but has never raised as much as it did this year. By raising over £16m, the celebs taking part have increased the total ever raised from the event to £137million.
The grand total was revealed in the last few moments before Soccer Aid went off air, in an announcement made by Robbie, who also performed his song Feel for the halftime performance.
Over £1million of the total amount was raised by Olly Murs. The singer had taken on a mammoth challenge that involved cycling, rowing and running the 400km distance from Old Trafford to the London Stadium. Prior to the match beginning, Tom Hiddleston revealed on air that Olly had raised £1,342,214 for the total pot.
The rest of the funds were raised throughout the event, including the build up to kick off. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen came out to the pitch to deliver the football and revealed that before play had even begun, the event had raised over £4.6million. Tim delighted fans as he said his Toy Story character Buzz Lightyear’s catchphrase: “To infinity and beyond!”
Roughly 15 minutes before the teams headed out, GK Barry caught up with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen with the latter catching many off guard courtesy of his comments.
While stood in the tunnel, upon GK Barry asking for their attention, the latter stated: “I’m just just b****ing about penalty shots.” The comment went unacknowledged by ITV, despite airing pre-watershed.
As Americans, the pair aren’t used to European football. Tim continued to say he was going to “try to work out how you win or lose a game on a penalty shot”. Tom, who said he did have some knowledge of the UK game, jokingly hit back: “You cannot use your hands.”
Soccer Aid celebrated its 20th anniversary with a massive showdown at the London Stadium. The fixture occurs every year and its mission is to raise vital funds for UNICEF while bringing together a unique mix of world-class football legends and beloved celebrities.
In many ways, the most ambitious World Cup in history — which kicked off Thursday in Mexico City — has inspired more angst than anticipation, more fear than fervor.
The competition, returning to North America for the first time in more than three decades, has expanded to 48 teams and 104 matches, to be played over 39 days in 16 cities in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The complex planning was eight years in the making.
Yet even before the competition opened with Mexico facing South Africa at the iconic Estadio Azteca, it has been marred by a number of controversies that threaten to overshadow the soccer and cloud the tournament’s legacy.
“I view this World Cup as the most politically combustible World Cup in recent history. And that’s saying something,” said Jules Boykoff, a political science professor at the University of Portland and author of eight books on the politics of international sport.
“We’re in uncharted territory in many ways.”
Relations between the host countries, once strong, have been strained by the Trump administration’s tariff policies and disagreements over border security. Travel bans have barred potential World Cup visitors — and even support staff and match officials — from entering the U.S. and others are fearful of making the trip, worried about ICE raids and immigration roundups.
The U.S. is at war with a tournament qualifier, Iran. And Iran has fired missiles and drones on Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, nations that also are World Cup participants.
The International Sports Press Assn. said Iranian and African journalists have been denied visas to cover games in the U.S., and Iran protested after more than a dozen members of its support staff had their requests to enter the U.S. rejected. The Iranians, who were forced to move their training base from Tucson to Tijuana, will spend limited time in the U.S. during group-play games that will take place in Inglewood and Seattle.
Players and journalists from Senegal, Uzbekistan and Iraq have been detained at U.S. airports for up to seven hours by immigration officials. Then on Monday, Omar Artan, a decorated referee and the first Somali official selected to work a World Cup, was turned away at Miami International Airport.
In addition, ticket prices have been so high and the lottery process for obtaining them so opaque, the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey have begun formal investigations into FIFA practices. Other states, including California, hosting tournament matches have begun asking questions as well.
All that has conspired to produce a World Cup that is struggling to catch on with the public. According to a recent poll by Yougov.com, a majority of Americans — 54% — say they are not at all interested in the tournament and nearly six in 10 say they will not watch any matches.
“People are just in a bad mood,” Boykoff said. “It’s a tough time.”
FIFA president Gianni Infantino remains optimistic, promising this will be “the biggest, the most inclusive, the greatest FIFA World Cup ever.” He made the same claim about the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and the 2018 tournament in Russia.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino speaks during a news conference on Wednesday before the start of the World Cup.
(Carl Recine / Getty Images)
“The World Cup should be understood as both a global sporting celebration and a major commercial enterprise, with these two dimensions being mutually enforcing rather than contradictory,” said Steve Georgakis, a lecturer on sports studies at the University of Sydney and a frequent author on soccer.
This year’s tournament is projected to swell FIFA’s coffers by nearly $9 billion and the TV ratings, it says, will be massive.
“Its universal appeal combined with the participation of 48 nations ensures that it remains a genuinely global sporting event,” Georgakis said.
Boykoff has his doubts.
“In this particular political moment, with the Trump administration being erratic and impulsive and needing a win from this tournament and the fact there’s so many moving parts geopolitically, I don’t have confidence that it’s just going to end up being a soccer-focused next five weeks,” he said.
This is not the first World Cup to kick off under some kind of black cloud.
The 1974 tournament in West Germany was tarred by the geopolitical fallout of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Four years later Argentina’s military dictatorship used the World Cup to sportswash a “Dirty War” in which as many as 30,000 people were tortured, murdered and disappeared.
The 2010 and 2014 World Cups were troubled by cost overruns and delays in the construction of stadiums and other infrastructure and the threat of labor unrest while global outrage over human rights violations and discrimination against women and LGBTQ people hung over the last two tournaments.
Those issues never fully disappeared but were overshadowed by the brilliance of the soccer. Jonathan Wilson, a columnist with the Guardian and author of “The Power and the Glory: The History of the World Cup,” expects the same this summer.
“The other stuff will still be there in the background,” he said, “but fundamentally the football will, for the vast majority of people, take over. It’s just sort of a natural cycle.”
Argentina star Lionel Messi controls the ball during an international friendly against Iceland on Tuesday.
(Butch Dill / Associated Press)
And as with every World Cup, there undoubtedly will be unforgettable moments.
Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, the top scorers in soccer history, will be playing in their sixth and final World Cups — Messi chasing a second straight title and Ronaldo pursuing the only prize that has eluded him.
Kylian Mbabbe will be trying to take France to a third consecutive final while young superstars like Erling Haaland of Norway and Lamine Yamal of Spain will be looking to put their mark on their first World Cups.
Four teams — Jordan, Curacao, Cape Verde and Uzbekistan — have qualified for the tournament for the first time.
And there will be other storylines no one saw coming, all of which will contribute to the narrative of this World Cup.
“Major sporting events have a way of capturing public attention and shifting the conversation toward what is happening on the field rather than off it,” Georgakis said.
How much the actions of the Trump administration affect that calculation remains to be seen.
There are travel restrictions in place that fully or partially bar citizens from 39 countries — including a number of World Cup participants — from entering the U.S. And the administration has said ICE and Homeland Security personnel will have a visible presence at World Cup venues, including SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, where the American team will begin play Friday.
“There will be federal agents,” confirmed L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna, who added that he could not guarantee immigration sweeps would not take place. “ They told us that specifically would not be occurring,” he said. “Any of that’s subject to change.”
Mexico fans celebrate during a watch party at Plaza Mexico in Lynwood on Thursday.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
The difficulty in obtaining visas and the fear of being rounded up by immigration agents are being blamed, in part, for less-than-expected tourist traffic. Hotel operators in all 11 World Cup host cities say bookings for the tournament are well below projections. Several countries have issued warnings about travel to the U.S.
Then there are the own goals from FIFA over tickets and parking prices as high as $900 at some stadiums, weather issues and a short-lived ban on water bottles.
FIFA has defended its policies on ticket prices by arguing that premiums are necessary to maximize revenue, which it will invest in global soccer development. Variable, market-based pricing, it said, simply reflects standard entertainment practices in North America. The organization did, however, reverse its ban on fans bringing bottles into games. Spectators are now allowed to enter stadiums with one soft, plastic 20-ounce water bottle.
And despite a warning from climate scientists that one in four World Cup games could be played in dangerously hot conditions, FIFA will start 40 of them at 3 p.m. or earlier local time, the warmest time of day, to accommodate European TV viewers.
Georgakis said the play on the field will have to overcome all those issues if this World Cup is to earn a favorable place in history.
“Ultimately the success of the World Cup will be judged by what happens on the field,” he said. “If the football is compelling, dramatic and memorable, the tournament will likely be remembered as a great World Cup. If the play falls short, then the off-field issues such as ticket prices, extreme heat, ICE enforcement activities, the Trump administration will receive great attention and could shape perceptions of the event.”
With its World Cup opener just four days away, the U.S. team moved into its temporary home in Irvine on Monday, where the players found thousands of new Southern California neighbors waiting in line to watch them kick a ball.
After the U.S. announced that Orange County Great Park would be its base for at least the group stage of the tournament, the City of Irvine held a raffle for passes to see the team train in its only public workout.
Thirty-two thousand people applied and 5,500 received access on a warm Monday morning to watch the team rush through a light 45-minute practice that was notable primarily because it was the first in which injured center back Chris Richards was fully involved. Richards tore two ligaments in his left ankle playing for Crystal Palace, his English club team, on May 17 and hadn’t played or fully trained since. The team is rushing to get him ready in the hopes he can play at some point in the three-game group stage.
But the practice was also notable because it was the first at Championship Soccer Stadium, about 50 miles southeast of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, where the U.S. will open its World Cup on Friday against Paraguay.
“[The] environment and facilities are crazy. It’s more than we expect,” U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino said of the venue. “We are so grateful.”
Championship Soccer Stadium is owned and managed by the city, which has leased it to the Orange County Soccer Club of the second-tier USL Championship. But the club was temporarily evicted in late April to make space for the national team — which is just fine with them.
U.S. men’s soccer player Chris Richards autographs the shirt of a young fan during a team practice Monday.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
“How can you not be excited about the host nation training in your facility?” said Dan Rutstein, president of business operations of the Orange County club.
“We’re proud to be associated with the U.S. national team. We wouldn’t want to ever block anything, even if we could.”
(And they couldn’t, the city said.)
The Great Park is a sprawling 500-acre complex built on the site of the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, which closed in 1999 after 56 years training pilots for conflicts from World War II through the first Gulf War. In 2001, voters approved a proposal to convert the space into a public park and nature preserve, one which now includes, among other things, five sand volleyball courts, four basketball courts, 25 tennis courts, 12 softball and baseball fields, the ice arena where the Ducks practice and 25 soccer fields, including the pristine one FIFA just installed inside the 5,500-seat stadium.
“The idea was that this would be a quality facility, a great park that we hope will rival San Diego’s Balboa Park and other great parks across the country,” Irvine mayor Larry Agran said. “It took a lot of nurturing, a lot of time, a lot of work.”
Bringing the World Cup — or at least a World Cup team — to Irvine also took a lot of time and work. Agran said the city put out feelers about hosting a training base five years ago and made the first cut in 2024 when the Great Park was placed on a list of options distributed to tournament qualifiers.
Over the next two years, Rutstein said, about a dozen national teams sent representatives to have a look while Sam Zapatka, the operations manager of the USMNT, said he scouted 27 facilities from Seattle to San Diego. After his first visit to the Great Park, however, he said he stopped looking and in March, the team announced it would train in Irvine.
On Monday, when the players filed out of the stadium’s locker room, which FIFA expanded and upgraded, they were greeted by rhythmic clapping and chants of “USA! USA!”
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1.U.S. men’s soccer player Weston McKennie takes part in a training session at Orange County Great Park.(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)2.(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)3.U.S. men’s national soccer team coach Mauricio Pochettino waves to fans attending practice on Monday.4.Pochettino speaks to players after drills at Orange County Great Park on Monday.(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
“I think we’ve all been, I wouldn’t say overwhelmed, but possibly surprised by the excitement and the buzz,” said captain Tim Ream, who led the team onto the field. “Pulling up here with 5,500 fans ready to watch a training session is incredible.
“We get to train in an actual stadium with a good pitch. The support, really, from all the kids out there is amazing. You want to feel like you have a good home base, right? So really, we’re looking forward to being here.”
Especially after 5,000 of your neighbors show up for the housewarming party.
As soccer fans await the FIFA World Cup kickoff Thursday — and as criticism of the organization’s ticketing practices and social impact on local communities circulates across North America, where the games will be held — longtime aficionados want to remind the sports community of the real beauty beneath the game.
Last Friday at Espacio 1839 in Boyle Heights, visitors were greeted by the thumping bass of cumbia sonideras, earthy scent of leather trinkets and clothing racks featuring silky screen-printed soccer jerseys. The Latino-centric gift shop reached maximum capacity with a new pop-up art exhibit titled “El Fútbol Es del Pueblo,” featuring over 30 artworks that provide commentary on the global sport.
“It’s reclaiming the sport again, reminding folks that the essence of the game belongs to the people,” said Nico Aviña, owner of Espacio 1839. “With everything that’s going on with the World Cup, everybody’s giving FIFA credit, but I think that we need to reclaim that power. This is a people’s sport and it belongs to us.”
Nico Avina gets ready to start a soccer match at Mariachi Plaza at “El Futbol es del Pueblo,” a community soccer event hosted by Espacio 1839.
(Jill Connelly/For De Los)
Every four years, soccer fans around the globe go berserk over the World Cup, but in host cities like Los Angeles, the worldwide spectacle feels bittersweet and financially out of reach. Fans have paid thousands of dollars for non-premium seating at SoFi Stadium; this does not include parking, which is estimated to be about $250 near the venue.
“ I’m not interested in going into those games or paying these ridiculous amounts,” said Aviña. “It’s more about greed. It’s more about wealth extraction than anything else.”
That sentiment resonated with 42-year-old Antonio Rivera, a Bay Area local who recalled the excitement he felt as a child in Jalisco watching the 1986 World Cup, which Mexico hosted. He remembers his little toy bank shaped like Pique, the anthropomorphic jalapeño pepper that was Mexico’s tournament mascot.
“You hear stories of people going to the World Cup with their whole family. Now you can’t even get a ticket,” he said. “ It’s an important opportunity for people to talk about some of the discomforts that they may have with an organization like FIFA.”
Rivera was at Espacio 1839 on Friday accompanying his son, Marc Rivera, one of the youngest exhibitors, alongside his classmate Miguel Yanez. The tweens came down from Napa, Calif., to showcase their acrylic comic-strip painting featuring Mexican soccer player Alexis Vega, who channels his Mesoamerican ancestors when scoring the victory goal.
Marc Rivera explains the meaning behind his painting on display at “El Futbol es del Pueblo.”
(Jill Connelly/For De Los)
“It’s important to expose our next generation and give them an opportunity to express themselves a little bit,” Antonio Rivera said.
Tijuana artist Vianney Harelly’s piece was hard to miss on the wall. It featured a bloody cross with the Spanish words for “soccer comes with blood and tears.” It also included headlines from articles regarding the Naupan artisans who were allegedly underpaid by Adidas and social-impact brand Someone Somewhere, during its work on the latest embroidered Mexican soccer kit.
“I wanted it to be a piece showing kind of the dark side of the World Cup, because there’s so many things that are buried underneath the whole spectacle,” Harelly said.
The 30-year-old said they are not interested in tuning into the World Cup activities because of the close relationship between FIFA President Gianni Infantino and President Trump. Human rights organizations have called on the FIFA leader to request that the Trump administration declare a moratorium on ICE raids during the soccer tournament; SoFi stadium workers threatened to strike if agents aren’t kept out of the venue.
Artwork on display at “El Futbol es del Pueblo.”
(Jill Connelly/For De Los)
“I know people want to be seen and celebrated and they wanna feel love,” Harelly said. “But I don’t want them to settle and think that the only option for them to feel love and be seen is through corporations that hate us.”
Gerardo Gómez looked mesmerized as he glanced at the wall. Some of his favorite pieces included a scarf that read “Siempre Antifascista” and a banner that featured a masked Indigenous soccer player with the words “Futbol Libertad.”
“I think a lot of us here love the sport, but we are against FIFA,” Gómez said. “What you’re seeing here is a representation of the people’s struggle that comes with the sport.”
The 46-year-old said the soccer organization, as well as the Olympic Games, have a history of displacing marginalized communities; for example, ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil, at least 19,000 families were displaced to make way for sporting infrastructure.
That’s why he’d rather put his focus on the Homeless World Cup, an annual international street football tournament that advocates an end to homelessness globally. Players are individuals who have experienced some form of homelessness or social exclusion in their life.
“People that came together [for the Homeless World Cup] recognized that soccer brings people together,” said Gómez. “And it’s the most beautiful thing I have experienced.”
A soccer match at Mariachi Plaza on June 5, 2026.
(Jill Connelly/For De Los)
As the sun went down, the crowd shifted over a block to Mariachi Plaza where a 3-vs.-3 cascarita, or scrimmage, began on the pavement. Onlookers gathered around the makeshift field, which had no clear outer bounds, as the pulsating drumming and anti-ICE chants led by Lxs Tigres del NorthEnd (an independent LAFC supporter group) filled the air.
“It’s very bittersweet,” said 30-year-old Claudia Llontop. “With families being deported.”
Llontop, who grew up watching the World Cup, arrived at the pick-up match with her two children — and even documented her journey getting there on TikTok to her more than 50,000 followers. She had been trying to find ways to kick a ball around when she heard about “El Fútbol Es del Pueblo,” which allowed her to put on a red mesh jersey and run like the wind.
“This is for single moms, this is for kids, this is for high schoolers,” said Llontop. “ I think this alone is a lot more powerful than FIFA, because this is us.”
TIJUANA — Iran’s soccer team arrived in Mexico on Sunday morning for training ahead of the World Cup, before its first two group matches at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood later this month.
Ehsan Hajsafi was the first player to exit the plane with markings for German charter airline USC, which arrived at about 5:05 a.m. He led the team, dressed in blue blazers over white T-shirts, through a brief security check with Mexican officials and dogs before boarding a bus.
The bus stopped briefly at the entrance to the Tijuana airport, where around 20 or so Iran fans waved flags.
The team’s participation in the World Cup, jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, has been complicated by the Iran war. Problems with processing visas earlier led Iran to move its training base from Tucson to Tijuana.
The team has been training in the Turkish city of Antalya. It flew directly to Mexico on a private jet from the Mediterranean city’s airport.
Some members of their entourage were reportedly still without U.S. visas, according to Iranian state television Saturday. Those include the Iranian Football Federation’s secretary-general, Hedayat Mombeini, and its vice president, Mehdi Mohammad Nabi.
Iran plays its first two games at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood against New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21, then heads to Seattle to face Egypt on June 26. Iran and the U.S. could meet in the Round of 32 on July 3 in Arlington, Texas, if both teams finish second in their groups.
In March, President Trump discouraged Iran from participating in the tournament, saying he didn’t think it was “appropriate” and raising concerns over players’ “life and safety.” A day later, Iran’s national team countered, saying “no one can exclude” it from playing.
Iran finalized its team on Monday, including 17 home-based players whose clubs haven’t played since February because of the war. Star forward Sardar Azmoun was dropped in March, reportedly because of a social media post that angered Iranian authorities during the war.
Iran’s sports minister said in March that it would “not be possible” for the team to participate in the World Cup, but the Islamic Republic’s soccer federation said in May that it was moving ahead with a team. The federation had insisted that all players and staff be granted visas, including those who had military service in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iran’s national soccer team set off from Turkey for their World Cup training base in Mexico on Saturday, with some members of their entourage reportedly still without U.S. visas, before three group matches in the United States later this month.
The Iranian Football Federation’s secretary-general, Hedayat Mombeini, and its vice president, Mehdi Mohammad Nabi, were among 14 staff and officials without U.S. visas before games in Los Angeles and Seattle, according to Iranian state television.
It was unclear whether the federation’s president, Mehdi Taj, had been issued a visa.
The team’s participation in the World Cup has been complicated by the Iran war. Problems with processing visas had earlier led Iran to move its training base from Tucson, Ariz., to Tijuana, Mexico, which is on the border with California.
The federation accused the U.S. of “vindictive behavior” in refusing visas for “key managerial and administrative members” of the team.
The decision had “effectively denied the Iranian national team the opportunity for a level playing field and a competition free from discrimination,” according to a statement on the federation’s website. It added that the federation would pursue the matter through world soccer authority FIFA.
The Iranian Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, meanwhile, responded to an earlier social media post from U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack, in which he congratulated his embassy staff for processing the Iran team’s visas.
“You cannot whitewash conduct that violates FIFA regulations and breaches the United States’ host obligations merely by praising yourselves,” the Iranian post read. “This represents the worst possible form of politically biased interference in sport.”
One U.S. official earlier told the Associated Press that all players on the Iranian team were approved for visas, while a second official said visas had been issued for players, coaches, trainers and some support staff. A third official suggested that some applicants affiliated with the team had been rejected for requesting visas “under false pretenses.”
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the visas publicly.
The squad has been preparing for the World Cup at a training camp in Antalya. The team said that it has already received visas from the Mexican Embassy in Ankara.
The players, dressed in blue blazers over white T-shirts, left the luxury Mardan Palace hotel in Antalya on Saturday afternoon. They boarded a private jet at the Mediterranean city’s airport and were due to fly directly to Mexico.
Iran plays its first two games in Inglewood against New Zealand on June 15, and Belgium six days later, then heads to Seattle to face Egypt on June 26. Iran and the U.S. could meet in the round of 32 on July 3 in Arlington, Texas, if both teams come second in their groups.
In March, U.S. President Donald Trump had discouraged Iran from participating in the tournament, saying he didn’t think it was “appropriate” and raising concerns over players’ “life and safety.” A day later, Iran’s national team pushed back, saying “no one can exclude” it from playing.
Iran finalized its team on Monday, including 17 home-based players whose clubs haven’t played since February because of the war. Star forward Sardar Azmoun was dropped in March, reportedly because of a social media post that angered Iranian authorities during the war.
Change in water bottle policy
FIFA announced that it will now allow fans to bring their own water bottles to some stadiums during the World Cup, adjusting a policy that had barred spectators from bringing refillable water bottles into the tournament’s 16 stadiums across North America, including some with limited or no shade from the sun.
FIFA in a social media post said fans will be permitted to bring one soft plastic 20-ounce, factory-sealed, disposable water bottle into any match taking place in the United States or Canada.
In a video released by FIFA, Chief Operating Officer Heimo Schirgi said fans will still not be permitted to bring in hard sided, reusable water bottles “due to safety and security reasons.”
Going green
As the tournament opens on Thursday, 13 of the 16 stadiums have earned LEED certification, the world’s most widely used green building rating system, the U.S. Green Building Council said. Ten have been certified since 2024 through the rigorous process to ensure buildings meet strict sustainability standards. The council expects at least two of the three remaining stadiums to achieve certification in the coming weeks.
Together, the LEED-certified stadiums have installed over 11,500 solar panels to generate clean electricity. Because of the changes made, they will save over 100 million gallons of potable water annually and eliminate more than 5 million single use plastics annually, according to information shared by the stadiums. Four venues are reusing, recycling or composting nearly all waste, preventing it from reaching a landfill.
Soccer Aid has raised an eye-watering and record-breaking amount of money for Unicef with their annual charity match that saw the likes of Joe Marler and Angry Ginge compete
Joe Marler and Angry Ginge at Soccer Aid(Image: Shutterstock)
Soccer Aid have raised a huge sum of money for Unicef. The annual charity football match raised a staggering £16.5million for the children’s aid organisation.
The match, which was created by Robbie Williams and Jonathan Wilkes in 2026, aims to raise millions for Unicef every year but has never raised as much as it did this year. By raising over £16m, the celebs taking part have increased the total ever raised from the event to £137million.
The grand total was revealed in the last few moments before Soccer Aid went off air, in an announcement made by Robbie, who also performed his song Feel for the halftime performance.
Over £1million of the total amount was raised by Olly Murs. The singer had taken on a mammoth challenge that involved cycling, rowing and running the 400km distance from Old Trafford to the London Stadium. Prior to the match beginning, Tom Hiddlestone revealed on air that Olly had raised £1,342,214 for the total pot.
The rest of the funds were raised throughout the event, including the build up to kick off. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen came out to the pitch to deliver the football and revealed that before play had even begun, the event had raised over £4.6million. Tim delighted fans as he said his Toy Story character Buzz Lightyear’s catchphrase: “To infinity and beyond!”
Roughly 15 minutes before the teams headed out, GK Barry caught up with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen with the latter catching many off guard courtesy of his comments.
While stood in the tunnel, upon GK Barry asking for their attention, the latter stated: “I’m just just b****ing about penalty shots.” The comment went unacknowledged by ITV, despite airing pre-watershed.
As Americans, the pair aren’t used to European football. Tim continued to say he was going to “try to work out how you win or lose a game on a penalty shot”. Tom, who said he did have some knowledge of the UK game, jokingly hit back: “You cannot use your hands.”
Soccer Aid celebrated its 20th anniversary this weekend with a massive showdown at the London Stadium. The fixture occurs every year and its mission is to raise vital funds for UNICEF while bringing together a unique mix of world-class football legends and beloved celebrities.
Former United captain Wayne Rooney led the line for England. Big football names taking to the pitch included Jill Scott, Jack Wilshere and Theo Walcott.
Other huge names making up the England side were Tom Hiddleston, Danny Dyer, Paddy McGuinness, Olly Murs and Joe Marler. They were joined by Toni Duggan, Steph Houghton, Jordan North, Angry Ginge, GK Barry, Jack Wilshere, Joe Hart, Sam Thompson, Chloe Burrows, Jack Whitehall and Owen Cooper.
GK Barry was yelled out by a celebrity teammate during Soccer Aid after she ignored a pass to instead dance with the crowd just seconds into her time on the pitch
Tom Grennan and GK Barry at Soccer Aid(Image: Shutterstock)
GK Barry appeared to leave a Soccer Aid teammate frustrated just moments into her time on the pitch. The Loose Women star was yelled at by Tom Grennan after she was too busy dancing with the crowd to see him pass her the ball.
The 26-year-old influencer, whose real name is Grace Keeling, was on England’s team at this year’s charity match and came on after replacing Tom Hiddleston in the 41st minute of the game. She quickly got the ball and passed it to Grennan, then turned to the crowd to celebrate, but missed Grennan’s return pass.
As Keeling celebrated, Grennan kicked the ball back to her and it rolled out of play. He appeared to yell something at her, gesturing to where the ball had rolled out of bounds, before turning his back.
Fans thought Keeling’s antics were “hilarious”. One said: “GK Barry in soccer aid is absolutely sending me”. Another added: “Literally love GK Barry so much”. A third said: “GK Barry is hilarious”. One called it an “all time soccer aid moment”.
Prior to the match, GK Barry sat down with Mirror to talk about Soccer Aid, particularly what her footballer girlfriend Ella Rutherford thought of it. “She’s really excited,” Keeling revealed. “I’ve never been one to understand football; I’ve never had the chance, but I feel like she’s loving telling me about it. She’s like ‘This is a corner’, and I’m like ‘OK’.”
Keeling joked that she and Rutherford were “swapping roles” and she was going to be “signing up to Portsmouth”. She also revealed how her girlfriend was helping her prepare for the match.
“I’m learning how to dribble,” she laughed, adding: “Learning what goal is ours that we have to shoot in. Ella’s got me on a high protein diet, which is hell – I’ve been doing a lot of that, a lot of eggs, a lot of mince, it’s disgusting but I’m hoping that will make me automatically become a footballer.”
As for advice on how to be on the pitch, Keeling says she’s noticed Rutherford is “very good at stopping people getting the ball”. But Barry is a “wuss”. “Her main thing is, you need to control the ball,” she explained, adding: “I get scared – if I’ve got a six-foot man coming towards me trying to get the ball, he might have to have it.”
Despite her excitement for Soccer Aid, Keeling joked it wasn’t her “bag”. She said: “Because I’ve watched Ella do it i sort of maybe kind of know what to expect a little bit, that’s what I’m telling myself.” But, the thought of 60,000 people attending is giving Grace the fear.
“I have a thing, I forget how to walk if I think someone behind me is looking at me,” she said, adding: “I do fear that I may skip onto the pitch or something like that. But it should be exciting, it’s the biggest thing I’ve done.” And despite being terrified she may embarrass herself, that doesn’t matter for Keeling as she’s taking part in an “amazing” event.
And Keeling admits that aligning herself with such a positive cause is “nice” for her due to the ages of her audience. “I think it’s amazing to tie in with that,” she said, adding: “Our team, there are so many types of people in different bits of the industry, so the amount of people we’ll be able to bring in and donate to the charity is amazing.”
