soccer booming – In the decades since the 2002 U.S. team shocked Germany, soccer has leapt from obscurity to mainstream—accelerated by MLS growth, women’s dominance, and global star power like Beckham and Messi—just as the World Cup arrives with 11 U.S. cities set to host game
The first time the U.S. looked genuinely dangerous on a World Cup pitch, the room felt like it should have erupted. Instead, it didn’t.
Back in 2002, a sultry evening unfolded inside a makeshift viewing room at a U.S. military base in South Korea, not far from the Demilitarized Zone. Plastic chairs ringed a TV on a wheeled stand. The atmosphere was muted—more dutiful than rowdy—despite the stakes on the screen.
The U.S. men’s national team faced Germany in the quarterfinals. Four years earlier, the Americans had left the World Cup finals in France with the worst record of all 32 nations. This time, the underdogs looked like they belonged. When Germany—then three-time world champions—took the lead in the 39th minute, the U.S. kept fighting. Germany held on for a 1-0 win.
To me, it felt epic: a team going out on its shield. I expected that same sentiment to spill out from the soldiers on the post-match microphone. What came back instead was a chorus of “woulda, coulda, shoulda.” Not just disappointment, but disdain.
Now, more than two decades later, soccer has moved past the question of whether Americans are willing to buy in. It has become mainstream—and the timing is impossible to miss. The World Cup is set to land in a country that. by new demand and new investment. has started to treat global football as part of its own sporting identity.
Soccer has overtaken baseball as America’s third most popular sport. behind football and basketball. according to data analytics firm Ampere Analysis. The shift arrives as the United States sits at the center of the men’s World Cup universe: Canada and Mexico are co-hosts. and 11 U.S. cities are hosting games. The final is set for MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on July 19.
The hosting momentum is not a one-off. Including this year’s tournament, the U.S. has hosted or co-hosted four World Cups—two for the men and two for the women—and the 2031 Women’s World Cup will make it five, the most of any nation.
At the same time, American fans aren’t just watching. They’re building culture around the sport. Americans now play soccer and watch soccer—domestic and foreign. They also embrace soccer culture, from the patriotic passion of the American Outlaws following the U.S. national teams to supporter groups like the Portland Timbers Army. which light up Major League Soccer stadiums with an intensity that mirrors hardcore ultras in Europe.
For an expat Brit, that change is the kind you don’t just notice—you realize you’re living inside. In the U.K. the sport sits close to the center of daily life. played and watched by toddlers. geriatrics. and everyone between. from playground kickabouts with coats as goalposts to Sunday morning scrimmages on muddy park pitches and the velvety green turf of futuristic stadiums.
In the U.S., the transformation has been harder-won, and the scars of earlier false starts still show.
American soccer’s early stumble gave way to a rebuild
The sport’s potential in the U.S. was visible as far back as the late 1970s. when it briefly caught mainstream attention through the North American Soccer League. That era carried the glitz and glamour of aging international stars. headlined by Pelé. Franz Beckenbauer. Johan Cruyff. and George Best. The spectacle didn’t last. When the shine wore off, the league folded, leaving the U.S. without a marquee professional soccer league.
Soccer didn’t disappear—it survived through indoor professional play, youth soccer, and expat communities—but it lacked the popularity and credibility to break through for most American sports fans. For more than a decade, it stayed in the doldrums.
Then FIFA stepped in with a promise that changed everything. FIFA recognized the U.S. was “leaving money on the table” as the world’s biggest sporting market. In exchange. FIFA awarded the United States hosting rights to the 1994 World Cup Finals on the back of America’s promise to create a new top-tier domestic league.
Two years after that World Cup, Major League Soccer was launched. But building from scratch was never going to be easy. MLS commissioner Don Garber recalled that when MLS was originally born out of the 1994 World Cup. “people didn’t have a professional league to support… They had no stadiums that were soccer-specific. Kids were playing, but not with the organization that it has today.”.
Underfunded and lightly regarded, MLS struggled to win mainstream attention. The league lost an estimated $250 million in its first six seasons. With modest attendances and limited television coverage, it teetered on the brink of following the NASL into oblivion.
Believers kept pushing anyway. Landon Donovan—joint all-time record goal scorer for the U.S. Men’s National Team—described the goal as stability and permanence. telling that when previous iterations of the league appeared. “They all folded.” Donovan said the first. second. third. fourth. and fifth goal was to “create a league that is stable. that is here for good… The reality is they needed to create a league in our country that was sustainable. that would be around for a long time.”.
A women’s wave helped shift the culture
For the men, the road often looked like a long scramble. For the women, it wasn’t the same story.
In the 1990s, the U.S. Women’s National Team won two World Cups and an Olympic gold. That international dominance had an impact on how soccer matured in the American imagination—especially with a country that loves winners.
Alex Morgan, a two-time World Cup winner, said the women’s success played a huge role: “The fact that the women have been so dominant on the international stage has played a huge factor,” Morgan said. “You look at the amount of kids playing soccer — I think it’s the No. 1 sport for kids in the U.S.”
But that early international flourish wasn’t matched at home. Success in successive women’s leagues struggled to last, even though today, the National Women’s Soccer League is thriving. The NWSL is described as having record attendance, rising viewership, a landmark media rights deal, and greater visibility than ever.
Morgan’s perspective on what’s changed is blunt. She remembered a time when her family couldn’t watch her play for Lyon. France. in the Women’s Champions League final. “There was no stream. It didn’t exist,” she said. “Now I have the opportunity to watch Women’s Champions League every single week… I just think the appetite is there.”.
Players such as Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain, Michelle Akers, and Kristine Lilly helped give American women’s soccer an identity and made casual audiences look twice. The person who did that for the men’s game in a different way was David Beckham.
Beckham turned attention into momentum—and changed MLS economics
In the early 2000s, American sports idol culture was built around faces Americans already knew: Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in football, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and Tim Duncan in basketball, and Albert Pujols, Derek Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez in baseball.
For soccer in the U.S., the face had been Donovan. Still, while Donovan was highly talented, he wasn’t the kind of global marquee that MLS needed to force instant attention.
By 2007, Beckham was a global icon and serial winner. He’d claimed multiple trophies at the highest level with England’s Manchester United and Real Madrid of Spain. He arrived in the U.S. with an off-the-field profile that matched the spotlight—marrying Victoria Adams, the former Posh Spice of Spice Girls fame.
At 32, Beckham could have chosen any of the biggest clubs in Europe’s top leagues. Instead, he shocked the sport by choosing to play for the LA Galaxy in Major League Soccer.
Tim Ream, a U.S. men’s national team defender who was a college kid at the time playing at Saint Louis University in Missouri. remembered the immediate lift. “When he came over, it was crazy,” Ream said. “The fact that he came over when he did. still very much in his prime — that is something that you can’t overlook… It raised eyebrows for a lot of the diehards. but I think it also brought more people into the fold in terms of the casual fan. Now all of a sudden we have a legitimate superstar playing in MLS and people want to watch.”.
Donovan described what it meant off the field. “When he came as a player. even though the beginning was difficult for him. for us. for our team on the field. the [impact] off the field is almost hard to quantify. ” Donovan said. “Because immediately the name LA Galaxy around the world was a known name. And Major League Soccer was a known league because David Beckham was here.”.
Beckham stayed for six seasons. He brought Hollywood glamour as A-list friends like Tom Cruise and Will Smith showed up for games. He also added glitter to the Galaxy’s trophy cabinet as they won two MLS Cups.
His financial and business impact was even more structural. The Designated Player Rule—allowing clubs to work around the salary cap to sign up to three big-money players—was created to accommodate Beckham’s substantial wages and is still known as the “Beckham Rule.”
Messi’s arrival carried the same logic into a new era
The “Beckham effect” didn’t stop when he left the pitch. Part of Beckham’s playing deal included a future opportunity to buy an MLS expansion team, which he exercised when he became co-owner of Inter Miami CF.
Inter Miami debuted in 2020. In 2023, the club landed Lionel Messi, an eight-time Ballon d’Or winner, in what the article describes as the ultimate coup.
Donovan confirmed that Messi’s impact mirrors Beckham’s in its own way. He said. “David was the perfect owner to bring a guy like Lionel Messi because he understood what it was like and what it would take to get someone like Messi and what that would look like.” Donovan added that he saw evidence of demand in merchandise sales: “I saw the other day the top 10 jersey sales for teams around the world and Inter Miami’s in the top 10 because Leo Messi’s here.”.
MLS commissioner Garber framed Messi’s role as a continuation of a broader build. “David brought us through the growth years. Leo is helping to take us where we want to go. Each one has had a unique impact,” Garber said. “Who’s next?. Not quite sure. but I can assure you that if there’s a player who wants to come here who will be the next Leo Messi. we’ll figure out the way to bring him into Major League Soccer.”.
A U.S. league that has grown—plus the unfinished work
The numbers now look like a country that has committed to the sport rather than tried it briefly. MLS has expanded from 10 teams in 1996 to 30 franchises. Most teams play in soccer-specific stadiums, and the league averages about 23,000 spectators per game. There is also a streaming partnership with Apple described as making MLS easier to watch in the U.S. and around the globe.
Challenges remain. The article points to an overreliance on foreign players and a youth development system “in need of work.” Even so, the overall trajectory is described as upward.
Winning a men’s World Cup soon remains a tougher hill. Only eight national teams have ever won the tournament, and FIFA has 211 member nations, making the odds clear even without argument.
Still, the conclusion isn’t about trophies. It’s about the direction of travel—about a country that has become soccer-friendly enough to host, watch, and celebrate the game at scale.
As the World Cup approaches, the question that lingered over that 2002 disappointment feels different now. I find myself wondering what those soldier friends from South Korea might say if they saw what soccer has become in the U.S. today.
United States soccer World Cup 2026 MLS Major League Soccer Don Garber Landon Donovan David Beckham Inter Miami CF Lionel Messi NWSL Alex Morgan sports business streaming partnership Apple TV+ MLS