Category: Soccer/Union

SEATTLE — Like any sport, soccer is a game of players, tactics, skills, and decisions. But when it comes to emotions, no sport is like the world’s most famous one.

Not for nothing did soccer resist the long march of analytics far longer than increasingly-global basketball, baseball, ice hockey, gridiron football, and others. (Americans might not know cricket, for example, but that bat-and-ball game has its own volume of statistics.)

So, yes, we can talk about player matchups in Friday’s U.S.-Australia showdown for first place in Group D (3 p.m., Fox29, Telemundo 62). We can talk about the Socceroos’ impressive striker Nestory Irankunda and 6-foot-6 centerback Harry Souttar. And we can certainly talk about whether Christian Pulisic will shake off his calf strain in time.

But it’s impossible to avoid this moment’s romantic side. The Emerald City is rich with a half-century of soccer history, from the NASL’s Sounders to the MLS version, always drawing big and passionate crowds. In recent years, the NWSL’s Reign have joined them, with their own robust fan base watching stars of the women’s game.

For all that time — from hosting Pelé at the Kingdome to hosting Lionel Messi at Lumen Field, from Bobby Moore to Clint Dempsey, from Michelle Akers to Megan Rapinoe — Seattle’s soccer tapestry has missed one piece.

Until this year, it had never hosted a World Cup.

Now, at last, that hole is filled, and with style. Since the day in early 2024 when FIFA announced the U.S. would play a group game here, Seattle has been counting down to this moment, and so have fans across the country.

A game in this city, with its stage towering over the south side of downtown, is a joy any time. But a World Cup game here is on American soccer’s bucket list. So it’s natural that U.S. and Sounders midfielder Cristian Roldan, in his 12th season with the only club of his career, has led the welcome committee for the squad.

“I’ve told them that the city is ready, that the city is energized,” he said before Thursday’s practice at the University of Washington, his alma mater — with its own famed sports theaters in football’s Husky Stadium and basketball’s Palestra-like Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

“We haven’t had a game here in a long time, and we’ve been desperate to host a World Cup game, a U.S. men’s national team game,” Roldan added. “So they’re going to feel the crowd, feel the energy, and it’s about feeding off it.”

He felt it even more as he set foot on his old college field, with glittering Lake Washington a stone’s throw away and Mount Rainier towering beyond. On the same day that Penn product Duke Lacroix returned to his alma mater in Philadelphia ahead of Haiti’s clash with Brazil on Friday, a similar scene unfolded thousands of miles west.

“I’m thankful to have this full circle moment,” Roldan said. “I don’t think people realize how special it is for me to be here and enjoying this experience with the men’s national team.”

Come lunchtime, a walk through downtown showed what awaits. Fans in U.S. jerseys were all over, from Pike Place Market (Seattle’s version of Reading Terminal) to the glistening waterfront.

Fox’s studio show set up shop on one of the piers, with the ferries crossing Puget Sound as one backdrop and a boisterous crowd as another.

It’s a different vibe from sprawling Los Angeles, and they’ll tell you that here as much as a visitor from out east naturally senses it.

Everything will come together at noon local time on Friday, when a capacity crowd of just under 67,000 will roar the U.S. team onto the field.

The vibrant scene in Seattle as Fox’s studio show goes on air:

#USMNT

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— Jonathan Tannenwald (@jtannenwald.bsky.social) June 18, 2026 at 2:23 PM

The players are excited to experience it, especially those who haven’t before. Because the stadium usually has artificial turf, the U.S. men haven’t been here since the 2016 Copa América Centenario, when grass was installed like it has been this summer. (The World Cup’s grass also helped bring the women’s team here in April, ending a nine-year drought.)

“I’ve obviously spoken to ‘Roldy’ and other people who’ve said how much of a soccer culture Seattle has, and I’m really looking forward to experiencing that firsthand,” defender Antonee Robinson said. “The first game that was played in that stadium looked amazing. So I’m looking forward to being a part of it, too.”

Roldan isn’t expected to start, and he knows it. But if he gets on the field as a substitute, the roar that rises will no doubt be as great as a U.S. goal.

“I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it,” he said. “This is a place that I call home, and I’ve called home for a while. … I’ve given my heart and soul to this club. To be able to see the field would be a dream come true, and I think it would be special not only for me, but I think for the city of Seattle as well.”

IRVINE, Calif. — Sebastian Berhalter was just over a year old when he went to South Korea to see his father, Gregg, play in the 2002 World Cup. But he knows a lesson from back then applies today.

The U.S. men’s soccer team opened that tournament with its biggest win on the biggest stage since 1950, a 3-2 upset of Luis Figo’s Portugal. It stunned the world, even if it only made a limited impact back home.

It also was just one game. The Americans followed it with a 1-1 tie vs. co-host South Korea, then a 3-1 loss to Poland in the group stage finale. They backdoored their way into the round of 16 only because South Korea edged Portugal at the same time as the U.S.-Poland game, which allowed the Americans to finish second.

Longtime U.S. fans will remember their shredded nerves of that morning, as Portugal hammered away in the final minutes but could not find the net. An equalizer would have put the Americans out on goal difference, since Portugal had routed Poland, 4-0.

The odds of that scenario repeating are lower now, not least because the U.S. is the co-host. The caldron on Friday in Seattle will be theirs this time, instead of the opponent’s.

Still, it’s worth turning to that page of the history book to bring some perspective to the upcoming U.S.-Australia showdown for first place in Group D (3 p.m., Fox29, Telemundo 62).

“Yeah, it is one game, and we know we have tough teams coming up, and they’re all going to present different challenges,” the now-25-year-old Berhalter said after Tuesday’s practice. “But for us, it’s just taking it one moment at a time, one game at a time, and we’ll be good.”

Winger Tim Weah has had his own moments of fandom lately, as a Brooklyn native and New York Knicks diehard. But when he put on his work clothes, his focus was clear.

“From a fan standpoint, I think it’s amazing to celebrate it,” he said. “But for us, we want to not get too high. We want to make sure that we’re focused on what we need to focus on. I think staying humble is the key. As a group, we just have to prepare for our next game and be ready to fight.

The familiarity between these teams extends beyond their friendly meeting in suburban Denver last October, a 2-1 comeback U.S. win. Australia midfielder Aiden O’Neill and defender Kai Trewin play for New York City FC, highly regarded defender Lucas Herrington plays for the Colorado Rapids, and veteran defender Miloš Degenek used to play for the Columbus Crew.

If it becomes the kind of physical contest that friendly was or the defense-first game Australia played in upsetting Turkey, Berhalter said the U.S. will be ready.

“I love the way they defend,” he said. “You like teams that have that brotherhood. You like teams that when you go against them, you can see they’re hungry and that they want to fight, because it makes you raise your level that much more.”

He also had the line of the day when he praised manager Mauricio Pochettino’s influence on the team’s intensity.

“I think one is that we’re American, we don’t take s—, and I think that’s something that he really put in,” Berhalter said, drawing laughs with his turn of phrase. ”Even though he’s [Argentine], he has that mindset of, ‘Look, this is what we do, and this is who we are, and this is what America’s about.’ Even from an outside perspective, he showed us Americans what we’re about, and he really drilled that into us, and I think that’s something that has helped us this last cycle.”