{"id":3881,"date":"2026-06-12T18:33:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=3881"},"modified":"2026-06-12T18:33:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:33:34","slug":"the-american-dream-world-cup-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=3881","title":{"rendered":"The American Dream: World Cup glory"},"content":{"rendered":"
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INGLEWOOD \u2014 During December\u2019s World Cup draw in Washington, D.C., Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, soccer\u2019s global governing body, presented President Trump with the organization\u2019s first-ever FIFA Peace Prize.<\/p>\n

Read more Gators star discus thrower Alida van Daalen eyes national record at NCAAs<\/a><\/p>\n

The 18-carat gold trophy stands 14\u00bd inches tall, and although hollow inside, still weighs 13.6 pounds.<\/p>\n

It was at the draw at the Kennedy Center that Trump asked U.S. national team coach Mauricio Pochettino if he was ready for some truly heavy lifting?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you think, coach. Can you win the World Cup?\u201d Trump asked, recalled Pochettino.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, Mr. President,\u201d Pochettino responded.<\/p>\n

Three months later, Pochettino had a similar conversation with U.S. national team players at a training camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not us? Why not us? Why not us?\u201d he told the team. \u201cWe need to really believe that we can be there. We need to dream.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dreaming hasn\u2019t been the problem.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ever since the improbable run to USA \u201994\u2019s Round 16, upsetting Colombia, a pre-tournament favorite along the way, World Cup glory has been the ultimate American dream.<\/p>\n

In their 2009 book \u201cSoccernomics,\u201d Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski wrote that because of their financial power and soccer infrastructure, the U.S. and Japan were \u201cdestined to become kings of the world\u2019s most popular sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Kuper, a longtime Financial Times columnist, and Szymanski, a Michigan sports management professor, updated the book for the 2022 World Cup, they had to admit, \u201cWell, we were wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The World Cup returns to the U.S. this week, 32 years, 30 Major League Soccer franchises, hundreds of millions of dollars in national team funding, eight Team USA head coaches after the Miracle On Grass with those dreams as glittering and empty as Trump\u2019s trophy.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Team USA opens Group D first-round play against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium Friday (6 p.m. PT) as international soccer\u2019s biggest underachiever.<\/p>\n

The U.S. has 14 million participants in organized soccer, the most in the world, double Germany\u2019s 7 million, the second most on the planet, yet the Americans haven\u2019t been among the 20 nations who have reached the quarterfinals at the last five World Cups. South Korea reached the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup. Morocco made the 2022 tournament semis.<\/p>\n

The U.S.?<\/p>\n

Team USA has advanced to the World Cup quarterfinals just once, in 2002 when it knocked off regional rival Mexico in large part because of a tactical blunder by El Tri coach Javier Aguirre. The U.S. is 1-19 in its last 20 World Cup matches against European teams. Germany\u2019s 2-1 victory in Chicago last Saturday was the Americans\u2019 ninth straight loss to a European side in all competitions.<\/p>\n

The 1994 World Cup was about laying the foundation for MLS. This World Cup for American soccer is about changing the narrative.<\/p>\n

Read more Pictures: Pulse 10th anniversary commemorated with portraits at Orlando City Hall<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI think if we can do something special, if we can get that quarterfinal, that semifinal, I think we\u2019ll no longer have that conversation,\u201d said Marcelo Balboa, a former U.S. captain who played in three World Cups. \u201cBecause when we do go to Europe, you get that conversation of how the Americans don\u2019t have any players that can change the world soccer, they don\u2019t. They\u2019re okay teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yeah, you know what, making a semifinal could shift a little bit the (view of) world soccer and look at the United States in a different way. Because right now they look at us, \u2018Oh, they\u2019ll get out of the group,\u2019 and we get stuck there. So there could be a huge change, especially the way everybody sees us after this World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

American soccer has been reaching for the stars for more than a quarter-century.<\/p>\n

U.S. Soccer, the sport\u2019s national governing body, in 1998 launched Project 2010, a $50 million development initiative that was supposed to be the road map to take Team USA to the sport\u2019s pinnacle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWinning the World Cup by 2010: Soccer\u2019s Equivalent to the Apollo XI Moon Landing\u201d was the title of the project\u2019s 1998 report. The document\u2019s cover featured an astronaut on the Moon, American flag in one hand, the World Cup trophy in the other, an image that, like the report\u2019s title, is just as laughable now as it was then.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have answers for that,\u201d said Tim Ream, the current U.S. captain, referring to the Americans\u2019 lack of World Cup success. \u201cI haven\u2019t gone into a deep analysis and looked at all the reasons. \u2026 There are any number of things that people can look at and analyze. For me, because I\u2019m still playing, I haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it is something that I\u2019m sure people are trying to understand. You look at the explosion on the youth level and how many kids are gravitating toward the sport and wanting to play the game, I think it bodes well for the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, I don\u2019t have an answer for your question, unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the answers is that out of all the millions of kids playing the game in the U.S. has yet to step a world-class field player. The U.S. has produced three world-class players, all of them goalkeepers: Kasey Keller, Brad Friedel and Tim Howard, whose World Cup record 16 saves against Belgium in the 2014 World Cup Round of 16 was not enough to advance the U.S. to the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are USA and competing against Belgium, Portugal,\u201d Pochettino, the former Argentina international who coached Tottenham Spurs to the UEFA Champions League final, said after losses to those European teams in March. \u201cI think, for sure, Belgium and Portugal have a few or some players playing (who are) in that top 100 (I don\u2019t think we have that).\u201d<\/p>\n

No U.S. player this year made the Guardian newspaper\u2019s annual list of the world\u2019s top 100 players. Forward Christian Pulisic was the highest rated American player at 116 in the paper\u2019s survey of 219 former players, coaches, media and other experts.<\/p>\n

And Pulisic comes into the tournament hardly in top form. His goal in a friendly against Senegal last month was his first goal in this calendar year and his first for the U.S. national team since November 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to do this for ourselves. We want to do this for our own country. We don\u2019t need to prove to anyone else,\u201d Pulisic said. \u201cWe have good players, really good players playing in top clubs in the world. We have a good team and, yeah, we\u2019re going to do the best we can to prove ourselves right more than anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

If not, at least one American has gotten his hands on the World Cup. In August, Infantino, a regular visitor to the White House, stopped by the Oval Office with a guest \u2013 the World Cup trophy. At one point Infantino placed the World Cup trophy in Trump\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

Read more Mayor Demings will reconvene tourist-tax task force<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cCan I keep it?\u201d Trump asked.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Team USA enters the World Cup looking to shake its reputation as the sport’s biggest underachievers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\nThe American Dream: World Cup glory - Orlando Relocation Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=3881\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The American Dream: World Cup glory - Orlando Relocation Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Team USA enters the World Cup looking to shake its reputation as the sport's biggest underachievers.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/orlandorelocationreport.com\/?p=3881\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Orlando Relocation Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-12T18:33:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/orlandorelocationreport.com\\\/?p=3881#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/orlandorelocationreport.com\\\/?p=3881\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/orlandorelocationreport.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/47d95744296542489ff5c4bd403450f8\"},\"headline\":\"The American Dream: World Cup glory\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-12T18:33:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/orlandorelocationreport.com\\\/?p=3881\"},\"wordCount\":1186,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/orlandorelocationreport.com\\\/?p=3881#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/orlandorelocationreport.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/efab44bc997c194fdc80865c147c9010.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Soccer\",\"Sports\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/orlandorelocationreport.com\\\/?p=3881#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/orlandorelocationreport.com\\\/?p=3881\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/orlandorelocationreport.com\\\/?p=3881\",\"name\":\"The American Dream: World Cup glory - 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