By Amy Tennery
NEW YORK (Reuters) -With one year left to go until the 2026 World Cup, U.S. host cities and soccer fanatics hope the record-breaking quadrennial spectacle will elevate the “beautiful game” for American fans traditionally more keen on a different type of football.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino said three years ago he expected soccer to become the region’s top sport when the largest-ever edition of the tournament plays out in North America in 2026, with Mexico and Canada co-hosting with the U.S.
While the sport has a long way to go to loosen the vice-grip that the men’s “Big Four” professional sports leagues have on U.S. fans, the quadrennial spectacle will play out in a country transformed from its last hosting gig in 1994.
Professional soccer was a relative non-entity in the U.S. at that point, with Major League Soccer two years out from its debut season.
And while 94,194 turned up in the Rose Bowl stands for an underwhelming 0-0 draw in the final – Brazil ultimately beat Italy 3-2 on penalties – the sport took time to capture mainstream American interest from that point.
“There’s no way anybody would have thought that it would be at the level that it is now,” said Eddie Pope, who played in the MLS from its first season, beginning with D.C. United, before moving to the then-New York/New Jersey MetroStars and Real Salt Lake.
“(In) my days at Real Salt Lake, we literally – our locker room was in a strip mall. And you didn’t know where we were going to train in some days.”
The retired defender is now helping develop the next generation as chief sporting officer at Carolina Core FC, an MLS Next Pro club that hopes its new 11,000 square-foot (1,022 square-metre) training facility could serve as a base camp in the World Cup.
“For kids that come in now, they have no idea,” Pope told Reuters. “The players are better, the coaches are better. The referees are better – everything’s better. And it took time, but I would say that we’ve moved at lightning speed.”
With 11 of the 16 World Cup host cities located in the U.S., organisers hope to build a new legacy for the sport in 2026, even as the men’s national team struggles to click under new manager Mauricio Pochettino.
Atlanta, which was left off the roster in 1994 as it prepared to host the Summer Olympics in 1996, will become the country’s unofficial soccer capital when the U.S. federation opens its first-ever national training centre there in April.
With eight matches scheduled for the southern hub city, including one semi-final, Atlanta expects roughly $500 million of economic impact.
“You’ve a men’s league that’s been developed. You have international games coming in droves to the United States,” said Tim Zulawski, president of Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank’s AMB Sports & Entertainment.
“And ultimately, what you really have is kids having idols and people to look up to.”
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New York; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
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