The 2026 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the U.S., is less than a year away, but the planet’s biggest sporting event may not showcase America at its best, writes Will Leitch.
— Intelligencer (@intelligencer.com) June 26, 2025 at 6:10 AM
The always readable Will Leich, at NYMag:
The biggest sporting event on the planet is not the Olympics — it’s not even close. It’s the World Cup, specifically the men’s World Cup. (While the women’s World Cup has grown dramatically in the past two decades and regularly bests the men’s World Cup in American television ratings, in terms of revenue and scope I’m sad to say it’s also not even close.) There is no sporting event like the World Cup. It is the one true global event for the one sport that the entire world is absolutely mad about, the one sport everybody plays. Even the most recent World Cup, in Qatar, played out of season with a compressed game schedule under an authoritarian regime in a country where you couldn’t even buy a beer at the stadium, brought in $7.5 billion in revenue in three weeks. Nothing is bigger than the World Cup.
And next year — in now less than a year — it is coming here.
Specifically, it’s coming to the United States, Mexico, and Canada, three countries that have traditionally cooperated on the global stage, whose joint bid in 2018 was assumed to be rock solid, even if now it looks a little less so. When President Donald Trump met in the Oval Office with FIFA president Gianni Infantino last month, he was asked whether the three countries would still be able to cooperate. His response was less than reassuring. “Oh, I think it’s going to make it more exciting,” he said. “Tension’s a good thing.” And that was before the ICE crackdown was kicked into overdrive. Can you imagine where we’ll be in a year?
The first match of the 2026 World Cup will be in Mexico City on June 11, 2026; the first match in America (where most matches will be played) will take place on June 12 at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. It will be on us before you know it. And it is fair to say that the biggest sporting event on the planet will be arriving at a time when the United States is, well, perhaps not at its best…
The Club World Cup is a disaster.
It is entirely possible that you have not noticed there is in fact a major international soccer tournament taking place in the United States right now. Messi’s playing in it, and Vini Jr., and Kylian Mbappé. It’s a real tournament. But the FIFA Club World Cup, which ostensibly was meant to bring the best club teams in the world to the United States as a test run for the big show next year, has been an undeniable flop. Television ratings have been a flatline, huge football stadiums have been roughly one-third full, and many international fans, in particular, have stayed away, lest they be targeted at ports of entry — or in the parking lot. It’s also happening at a time, as you may have noticed, that it’s oppressively hot; Chelsea’s coach canceled a practice in Philadelphia, saying it’s “impossible” to train in these conditions. The tournament, with 32 teams, is far too bloated, and it’s clearly not breaking through a crowded sports calendar…The U.S. Men’s National Team is a mess.
The USMNT is actually playing in another international tournament right now, the Gold Cup, where they just advanced to the knockout round to play Costa Rica on Sunday night. I suspect you didn’t know about that either. The Gold Cup is never that big of a deal, but this year’s USMNT is in a particularly awkward spot. Most of its best players are skipping the tournament including star Christian Pulisic, which prompted American soccer legend Landon Donovan to criticize Pulisic on one of the telecasts and ultimately led to an extremely stupid online feud. But even USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino got after Pulisic for not playing, which is a particular problem because, as silly as the Gold Cup kind of is, this is for all intents and purposes the last “major” tournament the USMNT will play in together before the World Cup itself…We aren’t sure who even will be able to compete.
Last week, the Senegalese women’s national basketball team canceled a training camp it had set up in the United States to prepare for the upcoming Women’s AfroBasket tournament in Ivory Coast. The reason will probably not surprise you: Several players on the team were denied visas. The State Department wouldn’t say why they were denied, but considering Senegal is one of the 25 African countries the Trump administration is considering imposing travel restrictions on, it’s not difficult to guess…Right now there are potentially 41 countries that could end up on Trump’s travel-ban list, including Iran, which has already qualified, and likely qualifiers Congo, Venezuela, Senegal, Egypt, Ivory Coast, and Ghana. There may be more countries added between now and then too. The last two World Cup tournaments were held in Qatar and Russia and did not have this issue. The one about to be held in the United States very much will. So that’s not great…
Sister Golden Bear
No.
satby
Several European countries already have advisories against travel to the USA. I hope the US portion gets rescheduled to Mexico and Canada and all US events get cancelled.
Splitting Image
I can confidently say that the World Cup will be a complete clusterfuck.
What it does have going for it is that FIFA is corrupt as sin and they can probably bribe you-know-who put ICE on vacation for three weeks.
David Collier-Brown
The Globe and Mail has reported that the US government has made guarantees to the players… but not any fans.
prostratedragon
@satby: That would be the best outcome, though I guess FIFA would have an obligation(!!) to consider the impact of possible retaliation. Since they are unlikely to engage in this thought, the tournament will probably be bad enough to keep all major events out of the US for a generation.
Ten Bears
The carbon footprint hangs on it like fog on the bay
Like something out of a creepy old scifi/horror flick
Not as bad as car races but man I would stay away
Ohio Mom
I am assuming the sponsors are making contingency plans with Canada and Mexico to take on extra games. Maybe they will leave a token number of games in the U.S.
Just another way Trump will damage the economy, I imagine those games bring in lots of tourist dollars.
Jackie
@satby:
Sadly, I agree.
@Splitting Image:
I can see that possibility, but foreign soccer fans won’t trust that at all! Especially fans from Hispanic and African countries.
satby has it right.
pat
So we just sent back to Norway (I think) a 21yo who admitted to smoking marijuana a couple of times in the past? I think I remember that right. So who on earth is lining up to visit our Great Again America? And I don’t think it will get better before the World Cup.
On the other hand, how can it get any worse? and is it remotely possible that this insane ICE crap will stop? Ah…. no, sorry.
I read way too much on the intertubes. The last was something about money being taken away from people who are trying to help school students deal with mental issues. Really. Because the word equality or something showed up in the grant request.
DOGE: Destroying Our Government Everywhere.
I’m old enough I might not live to see 2028. Not sure if that is good or bad….
Dangerman
@Sister Golden Bear: In 1.
hrprogressive
Since money is the only thing Fascists understand, I would not come here even as a player.
Wouldn’t play a single game here.
Maybe that would get people’s attention.
cmorenc
The British ex-pat hosts of the soccer TV show / podcast “Men in Blazers” wryly put it: “Soccer has been the sport of the future since 1976”. Teams in our home pro league the MLS would struggle in the bottom half of the table in the 2nd-level English pro league (the misnamed “championship”) to avoid relegation and would be humiliated against a team of EPL (top division) starters. We do produce some individual American players of the quality to play in the EPL, but not a squad-full.
If non-US citizens appear to being treated badly due to ICE and the nativist racism that Trump has unleashed, that is going to reinforce foreign contempt for the US in the rest of the world beyond just for our soccer mediocrity but for the deeply tarnished quality of our society, and not at all because they envy us, as might have been at least plausibly argued 10 years ago.
Ruckus
A thought strikes me.
shitforbrains was elected by a majority of votes. Now of course he’s lost a bit of support since, just being himself, but there is still a not insignificant number of citizens of this country that support him. Why is of course question number one. This is a guy who can’t seem to be even close to normal human and who is far worse than his first disaster in office. And some people still seem to like him, and/or actually think he’s in any way capable of being an actual president of this country. Republicans must be extremely hard up for possible candidates if this is the best they can do.
Tehanu
Is he kidding? The hotel industry already tried to get the Orange Toad to back off deporting its workers and that only lasted a day or two until Gauleiter Miller had a hissy fit. I doubt if international tourism in this country — either foreign tourists coming here or Americans going abroad — survives the Toad’s reign.
dc
FIFA should move the tournament 100% to Canada and Mexico. They could handle the games. Would have to arrange flight paths to go around U.S. airspace to avoid planes getting shot down. And fuck any law suits, don’t pay and flip the U.S. off.
EarthWindFire
Mexico and Canada will be great hosts. The US hosted events will be a mashup of Mad Max and the Frye Festival.
ColoradoGuy
Even if ICE hassles “only” one out of a hundred tourists, guess how that’s covered in the home country? Most of the world does not have a Murdoch-controlled press, and will report on abuses of their citizens.
Captain C
@satby: Seconded.
Baud
The World Cup will be fabulous, so long as one watches Fox News.
Raven
Leitch, an Illini living in Athens!
satby
Tourism is already down. A few more months of ICE disappearing people who are US citizens, legal visitors on visas, small children with cancer, and grandmothers will cut it even more. It gets big play in other countries.
PsiFighter37
I think both the World Cup in 2026 and the Olympics in 2028 are major fiascos waiting to happen, and the US is likely to see far less spending on these events as a result. I suspect even diehard soccer fans from Europe and Latin America will be very wary of taking a chance of running into the wrong CBP agent at an airport – there have already been too many instances of this happening. Latin Americans in particular would be a special kind of crazy to risk visiting, IMO.
WaterGirl
@David Collier-Brown: And the word of the US Government is now worth, what?
Anonymous At Work
FIFA is far too corrupt to do anything drastic. It wants to crack the US market, knows the US anti-corruption laws could arrest any and all top-level executives, and expects to make tons of money from rubes. So FIFA won’t be the problem
Trump can only look at the grift FIFA does and be envious. Hell, Putin, the Russian mob, and the Mafia look at FIFA and go, “Man, those guys are corrupt and raking it in!” He also knows that Qatar and Russia have pulled off World Cups, so he has to as well, since Qatar and Russia are governments he envies and wants to emulate. Finally, he knows any problems in any of the three nations will be blamed on him and the world would LITERALLY be laughing at him. So, Trump won’t be the (main) problem.
Noem and her thugs, though, are on the look-out for people with funny names or who mock The Leader. The less they can pronounce a name, the less-white the person’s skin, and the less a person grovels at Customs, the more they’ll try something authoritarian. I imagine a few teams will have players detained before Customs realizes who they detained. I imagine a team or two will have multiple players detained and might protest in ways that mock Trump, Noem, the US generally, and that will start some shit. That’s the unknown.
Chief Oshkosh
@satby: “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
Mr. Bemused Senior
[The Tiger and the Brahmin. ETA a jackal figures prominently in the story .]
WTFGhost
Will we be good hosts? No… Trump is running everything important to our hosting the world cup, so, we’ll be really crappy hosts.
And seriously: we can’t even be good neighbors, when our economy is begging for millions and millions of dollars of extra money, just for being hospitable. No, first, we have to warn everyone not to overstay their visas, which is like saying to tourists, “no shoplifting,” which offends the eff out of 90% of tourists who never dreamed of shoplifting, not even that overpriced seashell sculpture, which should have been $10 but was $50!
(Seriously: when I have the cash, I overpay at tourist traps, if they’re done well. “Here, give me this $5 shaker of maple sugar; my people can’t count up to 10, so, we can’t accept change from a $10.” It’s confusing, yet delightful, to have someone saying “lemme leave you a $5 tip for being nice to tourists.”)
Any other person, no matter how bigoted, would have recognized that we have a duty to be a good host to the World Cup. Why do I suspect the tourney sites are in blue states?
Geminid
@Anonymous At Work: I expect the players will travel in groups, team by team, and that customs officers will know who they are dealing with. That doesn’t guarantee none will be detained, but it will lessen the chances.
Treatment of fans could be a different matter.
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus: SFB is a shitty person’s idea of a good person, Ruckus.
Chetan Murthy
haha, you remember that right! [wink wink nudge nudge] No way it was b/c his phone had a pic of creepy-doll-face VD Jance. No. Way.
NotMax
Could not care less about sportsball but no, we won’t be good hosts.
Imagine the continued mental deterioration and increasingly erratic/impulsive actions of the Dolt a year from now.
Almost Retired
I haven’t seen definitive statistics, but international tourism seems palpably down in Los Angeles. That’s not surprising given that Trump has singled us out for extra special attention.
The hotel by my office caters to Asian tourists, and seems mostly empty so far this Summer. Broadway and Spring Streets downtown (popular with Latin American tourists and the local Latino community) was super empty on Friday (although the long-bearded white hipsters were out in force).
I’ll bet the Theme Parks are taking a big hit, and undoubtedly there are fewer international visitors being disappointed by Hollywood Boulevard than usual.
Geminid
@WTFGhost: There could be some World Cup games played in Texas, and maybe St. Louis and Kansas City in Missouri, and/or Columbus and Cleveland in Ohio.
I’m not sure if venues and dates have been determined yet but they might be.
Another Scott
I saw a headline about this earlier. Let’s see… SoccerAmerica.com:
It sounds like the organizers weren’t keeping everyone informed of the (seemingly sensible) weather procedures.
I was at a baseball game in Baltimore once, with seats fairly close to the big scoreboard. It was a hot summer day, some clouds, a chance of rain. When suddenly there was a HUGE BOOM! and everyone – including the outfielders – scattered. Lighting had hit the scoreboard. (Even made the evening news.)
Yeah, you don’t want to mess around with lightning, and it’s bad form for a manager to be belly-aching about it…
CharlotteObserver.com has more.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Anonymous At Work
@Geminid: “Open your phones and unlock all social media,” says the bored Customs official. “Mbappe? That’s a weird name. What’s with the attitude?”
That cost PSG the number one player in La Liga. Wanna bet it happens more than once? ICE and BCP are both off whatever leashes they were and are full of wannabe-SpecOp-failures.
Miki
deleted
Chetan Murthy
@Anonymous At Work: wait, wut? Are you saying this happened? [I don’t follow footie, so wouldn’t have noticed this happening; I know, my bad] Mbappe got hassled by US CBP ?
I mean, that’s a fuckin’ international incident.
Chetan Murthy
And policing sporting even fans requires patience and gentleness, b/c they’re likely to be in a boisterous state of mind. Reacting to that the way these bounty hunter/ICE assholes have been shown to do, is not going to help things.
Raven
— Multiple firefighters have been shot while responding to a brush fire in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, according to Northern Lakes Fire Protection Chief Pat Riley, CNN affiliate KHQ reported.
Matt McIrvin
@Almost Retired: Disney and Universal are the ones that rely a lot on international visitors, and they’re hedged by having parks overseas. But I’m sure they are hurting
I’d heard that Disneyland foot traffic has been down just from locals avoiding it due to rumors of ICE activity.
bbleh
@Geminid: they have been. 11 US cities are scheduled to be hosts. Philly is one — there have already been some exhibition games — and there is considerable angst about how well prepared the city will be, both for that and for the 250th anniversary of 1776
Location of the host cities of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
West region
1 Los Angeles
2 SF Bay Area
3 Seattle
4 Vancouver
Central region
5 Dallas
6 Guadalajara
7 Houston
8 Kansas City
9 Mexico City
10 Monterrey
East region
11 Atlanta
12 Boston
13 Miami
14 NY/NJ
15 Philadelphia
16 Toronto
ExPatExDem
You talk about the EPL as if it’s a reflection of the high quality of British footballers, rather than a league full of foreign owners and foreign players.
mayim
@Almost Retired:
My anecdata is that Canadian visitors/tourists are way, way down in Maine this summer. I live just off one of the primary routes from the Montreal area to Old Orchard Beach. I’ve seen almost no Quebec plates on/along that route ~ other summers it can be 25% to 40% of cars on the weekend. It’s definitely hurting small businesses, according to people I’ve chatted with.
Almost Retired
@Matt McIrvin: Yup, I’m not losing any sleep over the fate of Disney or Universal, but this can’t be good for nearby local businesses. I feel like Trump has declared war on the LA economy and is still nursing a grudge from his failed attempt to build a 100 story skyscraper on the old Ambassador Hotel site. IIRC, he was out maneuvered by the Los Angeles Unified School District.
ExPatExDem
@mayim: Florida had about 200,000 fewer visitors in Q1 2025 vs 2024, and ICE Gestapo activity didn’t really get into full swing until about halfway through.
I’m curious to see what Q2 looks like.
Jay
@Almost Retired:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYqoXFYaRos
Empty air travel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B49wbCg2cKQ
Theme park ghost towns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Pj1epPu8I
Cruise Ships bypassing the US
That’s okay. Taco Don said that the US doesn’t need Canada for anything and doesn’t need any International Tourists.
Just a few things,………………………………………
snoey
@Another Scott: Maresca wasn’t complaining as much about having to take a lightening break as he was complaining about hosting a tournament in a place where it happens a lot.
Almost Retired
@mayim:
It’s impossible not to sympathize with the Canadians’ reluctance to spend money here.
Anecdata from my younger son who works as a server in an upscale beach-adjacent restaurant popular with our Antipodean visitors.
Australian visitors this Summer are way, way down. This is a mixed blessing because Aussies are generally shitty tippers.
But if white Australian surfer types are skipping a trip to Los Angeles, imagine how wary visitors from less-white countries are of coming here.
And, yes, I know modern Australia is very diverse and the tipping culture is completely different.
snoey
@cmorenc: We had a long run of world class goalkeepers – Friedl, Keller, Howard – who could cover for the deficiencies in front of them.
Not this time.
Chetan Murthy
Canadians care more about the future of the USA than most Americans do.
Jay
@mayim:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFDorIVuZwM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLOk5s_AR8A
Clueless Maine Governor begging Canadians to come back.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: Canadians are not alone. I was speaking with a friend (who lives in MA) today; he invited me to visit, and explained to him that i would not set foot on American soil, except in San Francisco (and that only because I live here). That I viewed the rest of the country as foreign land, and any flight I took would have its first stop outside the US.
I have a Global Entry interview at SFO on Tuesday AM; I called my mom to let her know that if I didn’t contact her Tue afternoon, she needed to get with my siblings to organize a lawyer. Just in case. Sure, it’s pretty damn unlikely. But who knows what the fuck these bounty hunter scum wll be doing ? Needless to say, I will power down my phone the minute I enter SFO.
Jay
And of course, the Orange Anus, shit on Canada again yesterday, over our 3% DST, apparently not a problem when 17 other countries have already imposed it, just when Canada does it. BTW, we imposed it 3 years ago, the bill is due next month.
and then, today the Ambulatory Orange Anus shit out some more mouth noises about Canada being the 51st State.
gene108
@pat:
He had a meme of JD Vance in his social media feed, which CBP checks these days for people entering the country. That’s what probably got him pulled aside for additional questioning.
The problem with U.S. marijuana law is it is still illegal at the federal level. This is what gets repeat foreign visitors screwed up. They buy some at a legal dispensary in the U.S., admto using it thinking it’s legal everywhere, and then get jammed by CBP because it’s still illegal at the federal government.
Obama turned a blind eye to Colorado, when it legalized marijuana. Enough other states have made it legal, it feels like there’s no going back. Technically the federal government, if it wanted to commit LE to the task, can still arrest people for marijuana and charge them with federal crimes.
Jay
https://bsky.app/profile/newsguy.bsky.social/post/3lsonzaijiu2k
Chetan Murthy
@gene108: I remember reading that his phone had a pic of him with a pipe of some kind, but don’t remember reading that he admitted to smoking pot. Did he do that?
gene108
@PsiFighter37:
Part of me thinks this is partly deliberate by this Administration. It will punish big cities in blue states, and really fuck with Los Angeles, which Trump & Co. especially hate.
It’ll also give right-wing dumbasses a reason to piss on soccer as a sport, and talk about how “Real Americans” don’t support it.
@cmorenc:
The mediocrity of U.S. men’s soccer is a mystery no one worries about solving.
There are. more kids playing youth soccer in the U.S., than the entire population of the Netherlands, yet we cannot find top level talent.
Ruckus
I played soccer in high school. Not in competition with other schools, only as a phys ed sport. It was fun and a good game. But that was in an all boys, Catholic technical training HS. I have no idea about now but CA public schools did not teach or have soccer as a sport all that long, long, long ago.
And soccer is a great sport that does a lot for overall fitness. I liked playing soccer.
Chetan Murthy
@Ruckus: Isn’t soccer one of those (oooh, icky) female-coded sports? Not like
foot-concussion-ball, I mean ?Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c5y2l9nn7y1o
It was the meme that attracted CBSA attention, and then after 2 hours of very threatening and intense interrogation and constant accusations of being a drug user, (a photo of a carved wooden pipe), by multiple CBSA “Orficers” in the Interrogation room, he “admitted” to having smoke pot once or twice.
As Alistair Kitchen, the Australian Reporter discovered, trying to cooperate with CBSA to “clear things up”, just gives CBSA more reasons to deport you.
gene108
@Chetan Murthy:
I think he did. This wasn’t his first trip to the U.S. I think he bought some weed a dispensary in NYC.
He also had a locked folder, which he unlocked because of the duress CBP puts people under, that had at least one naked picture of him and some other risque photos. This was about 10 years ago.
CBP was not always polite, but once they got around to examining documents they let the people through.
From the article I read, it looked like CBP was going to keep him there, without rest, without food, and without water until they could find some reason to deny him entry.
I worked with people on H1-b visas, and when Obama went all “tough guy” on immigration and tightened all the immigration laws, who got pulled aside for additional questioning.
CBP could be rude, the wait could take sometime, but once CBP examined the documents they let people through. They asked basic questions like “why are traveling to the U.S.”, “where do you live”, “where do you work”, etc. They weren’t rooting through cell phones and laptops back then looking for dirt.
AWOL
@Chetan Murthy: It is. The Proud Boys are regulars at NYFC games.
lowtechcyclist
@Anonymous At Work:
It’s too late for Trump to not be the main problem. People abroad already don’t trust us not to throw them in an ICE or CBP detention facility if they try to come here. That loss of trust won’t be undone by next June. Maybe he can work out a deal that assures the players that they’re safe, but they’ll play to half-empty stadiums at best.
Ruckus
@gene108:
Do they play it as a phys ed sport or do they compete?
Because as I stated above I did play soccer in freshman year HS but it was only phys ed, competition between the students. None of whom would have likely gone on to a professional level of that or any other sport.
Also, take any other physical sport, baseball, football, etc and how many HS students go on to play professional sports? A not insignificant number for sure but as a percentage of the population? We of course had football, basketball, track in my local HS after my first year, when I went to local, public, city HS. But I do not know anyone who went on to professional sports that I went to school with. And the school I went to was well known locally for it’s team sports. Did very well against other nearby high schools.
gene108
@Chetan Murthy:
I don’t know if it’s as female coded the same way gymnastics and figure skating are thought of almost exclusively women’s sports in the USA.
It might explain why no one has tried hard to improve the level of competition at lower levels. There’s been some effort, but clearly no where near enough for men’s soccer.
Jay
@gene108:
The real Football in the US, is “female coded” because only the US Women’s team can play the game at an International Level
The highest FIFA Final ranking the US Mens team has ever achieved is 11th
The Womens Team is currently ranked #1 and hasn’t ranked lower than the top 5 in the last decade.
Geminid
@gene108: I don’t see much mystery here. Soccer is by far the most popular sport in most of the world, with basketball a distant second. In this country football, baseball and basketball are more popular and pay more at the professional level, and those sports attract the better athletes.
Jackie
@Raven: I hate what’s being allowed to happen in America
KithKanan
@Ruckus: High school tracks, where football becomes a bigger deal, but soccer was the main use for the public elementary/middle school sports fields in the Bay Area-adjacent part of CA I grew up in in the 80s/90s. According to their websites, it’s a competitive team sport at all the public high schools both there and on the central coast where I live now. I can’t remember about then because I never cared much for sports.
Jay
@Geminid:
Real football requires a completely different skill set than Armoured Concussionfest, Basketball or Baseball.
There have been a host of League Leaders in Basketball, Baseball and Armoured Concussionfest that have tried to play other sports at the professional level off season, and they have at best, been “B” team players.
KithKanan
@Jay: It’s almost as if the kind of freakishly outlier athletic talent that makes one good enough to play at the top tier level in any given sport is at least somewhat specialized and merely exceptional general physical condition isn’t enough, nor can the effects of thousands of hours of training be replicated overnight.
Jay
@KithKanan:
It takes decades to master any single sports skill set well enough to merely be “good” at it. To be “great” at it, takes something else.
gene108
@Ruckus:
I think most kids play most sports, or parents sign kids up for sports, anywhere in the world, as a form of physical activity, to learn some basic teamwork skills, sportsmanship, to make friends, and because it’s fun.
I think difference between men’s soccer and football and basketball, is the latter pro leagues developed from the popularity of the games played at the collegiate level, which then acted as a feeder to further develop players to be ready to play professionally.
Basketball does not really on college that much anymore, other than wanting top talent to play a year or maybe two, to verify they have the athleticism and basic skills professional teams can develop.
Baseball looks for high school players with characteristics they think can translate to being an MLB players, if someone enters the MLB draft from high school, but they still have to work their way through the farm system of an MLB team that weeds out people who do not have MLB ability.
For whatever reason, men’s soccer never developed a way to have the level of competition that produced world class players like the U.S. produces in basketball and basebal, as well as versus the European and South American nations, and compared to other American sports.
gene108
@Jay:
Luck.
All world class athletes and sportsmen are lucky. They won a genetic lottery that let them be big enough, strong enough, fast enough, and coordinated enough to compete at elite levels.
Sure they work hard to rise to the top of their sport, but without the genetics they inherited, they wouldn’t be able to be there.
Jay
@gene108:
Women’s Footie did.
Anonymous At Work
@Chetan Murthy: I thought Mbappe switched from PSG to Real Madrid because the Parisian fanbase would hurl racism his way. So, a CPB guard hurling racism towards him would result in an incident. Worst thing that FIFA wants is a team in an easy Group deciding to stage an on-field protest against Trump.
Jay
@gene108:
It’s not just genetics.
I hate to use him as an example, because we are on the “outs” with him in Canada now, but Gretzky was not the best shot in the NHL, he didn’t have the fastest or most powerful shot, he wasn’t the fastest skater, he wasn’t very physical, he wasn’t the best stick handler, as far as physical skills go, he was at best, above average. He never dominated any of the NHL Skills competitions.
What he wasn’t average at, was being able to see the game as it was played, in 365 degrees in real time and an ability to predict where it was going, and that is almost impossible to do as a spectator, let alone one the ice.
sralloway
@satby:
That was my immediate response. Take the U.S, games out to Mexico and Canada.
Citizen_X
What an asshole. Everything’s a fucking show to him, everything’s entertainment, no matter how many people suffer.
You want to really entertain us, Donald? Get hit by a bus or something. Something accidental, but mortally injuring, public, and very, very painful. We will watch that shit forever.
sralloway
@Ruckus:A plurality. not a majority. He did not exceed 50%.
gene108
@Jay:
I think enough boys play soccer/football in the U.S. that it can’t be that female coded.
Female coded to me, in the U.S., is gymnastics where very few boys are enrolled in gymnastics compared to the number of girls enrolled in gymnastics. Male Olympic gymnasts that win gold are ignored by our media, whereas when the U.S. women’s gymnastic team wins medals, it produces some of the most popular sports figures in the country.
I think the reason women’s soccer is so much better than men’s soccer is a first mover advantage. The U.S. introduced women’s soccer in the 1970’s and 1980’s at a much higher level of competition than the rest of the world did at the time.
The U.S. men’s team was disbanded for decades, while the rest of the world kept playing at a high level. The U.S. “woke up” in 1988 or 1989, and realized we hadn’t fielded a men’s team in international competition since the 1950’s. Since we were going to host the 1994 World Cup, some collegiate soccer players, in the late 1980’s, decided to pull together to form a U.S. men’s national team to qualify for the 1990 World Cup.
We still have not been able to develop the level of competition in soccer that exists in Europe and South America.
Another Scott
OpenThread?
The Dew Point was at least 77F here yesterday when I was out walking the doggie. Absolutely miserable to be out in.
Phys.org:
:-(
Best wishes,
Scott.
Jay
https://bsky.app/profile/ddayen.bsky.social/post/3lsrk5vroyd2a
gene108
@Jay:
It’s not just genetics, but without the genetics you don’t get your foot in the door to compete at a high level.
Gretzky had the minimum natural ability needed to play competitive ice hockey. Not everyone can develop the leg strength needed to skate fast enough to keep up with the highest levels of competition in hockey.
Trust me, no matter how hard I try, I would never have been able to be strong enough to compete at the highest levels of ice hockey, even if I had Gretsky’s vision.
Jay
@gene108:
Wayne Gretzky started playing ball hockey at age two. He started single blade skating at age 2. He started playing ice hockey at age 2 years, 11 months.
I started single blade skating at age 10. Started playing hockey for my School team at age 12. At age 14, I lead my school team to the Provincial Championships which we won. I was the MVP.
When I was 15, we moved to BC. My Junior High had no hockey team. League teams were very expensive, and my family could not afford it, so no hockey for me.
My High School had a hockey team, but I knew many of the players. I did not try out. Their parents sent them every summer to Training Camps, run by NHL’ers, at $10K a pop. “Moose” had been attending those camps since he was 8. Nobody made the NHL, but a couple got University Scholarships.
mrmoshpotato
Fuck no – not the Nazi trash currently in the federal government
All US games should be split between Canada and Mexico.
Captain C
@gene108:
Setting aside any number of other issues, the best athletes go into other sports. Don’t remember where I saw it, but someone pointed out that if you take the 20 best NFL cornerbacks, 20 best NBA point guards, and 20 best MLB middle infielders (giving citizenship to the non-US citizen ones), and LeBron James for your goaltender, when they are 4 years old and trained them up in soccer European-style, the USA would probably win every World Cup.
Captain C
@lowtechcyclist:
And you know pretty much every non-USA network will be showing the empty seats over and over, probably with snarky commentary.
TS
@Raven:
Noem and Bondi are praying for the first responders – but when dem legislators are shot, they seem to think it’s not worth a comment, let alone a prayer.
Geminid
@Anonymous At Work: My impression is that elite football players are not very political, and certainly not political in the way American Democrats are.
More generally, my impression is that foreign nationals regard Trump as a Yankee problem for the Yankees to solve. So I’d be surprised to see football players protest Trump.
Jay
@Geminid: they would if their teammates were ICE’d.
Geminid
@Jay: Maybe. But that’s if their teammates are in fact harassed by ICE which might not happen and probably won’t in my opinion.
I think.people are projecting a lot of their fears and desires onto this event. But fortunstely this is not a hypothetical and we’ll find out soon enough those fears and desires come to.pass.
Jay
Carney has apparently caved on the DST to get trade talks back on track, but,
collection has paused, Legislation will allegedly be introduced to repeal the DST, if it’s fast tracked, and nobody objects, it will take 31 days after introduction to take effect. If the other parties or even some Liberal backbenchers object, it can take 2 years or more.
So, right now, I don’t know if Carney is playing ring around the posie with The Orange Ass Clown, or if this an actual “cave”.
Jackie
My fear is the “by 2034” won’t register to today’s voters. It definitely affects me. That’s only nine years from now.
Akita
I’m sure Stephen Miller is intently studying the 1936 summer Olympics in order to use it as a model in running an international sporting event. And in order to convince everyone that the trump administration conducted the greatest World Cup in the history of World Cups, he is currently searching for his very own Leni Riefenstahl as we commiserate here.
spc123
@gene108: because uber-athletes in the US (and Canada and other countries where other sports are paramount) tend to gravitate to the native sports – the money is directly in front of them and there are much older and widespread recruiting systems. What sport would a Mbappe play if he born and raised in the US? Soccer would not be a given.
Barry
@Splitting Image: “What it does have going for it is that FIFA is corrupt as sin and they can probably bribe you-know-who put ICE on vacation for three weeks.”
Trump, maybe. Miller, never.
Paul in KY
@Splitting Image: That is a good point.