The World Cup is finally here, and for the next 39 days, billions of soccer fans worldwide will hang on the fate of the 48 national teams vying to be named the global best for the next four years.
There is nothing else quite like it.
If you haven’t followed it closely, try to imagine it as a kind of March Madness wherein the bracket’s unexpected turns and Cinderella runs can upend every expectation: add into it the international scope and quadrennial timing of the Summer Olympics; then top it off with the fervor of beloved religious observance — and you’ll be getting close.
My familial WhatsApp group started really buzzing two days ago, after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani posited the possibility of Morocco winning it all, and won’t stop buzzing until the confetti rains down on the overjoyed winners. In between will be everything from play-by-play game commentary, to status reports on Panini collections or taste tests of World Cup branded snacks, to shared photos of candles lit for the success of a favored team.
Because, when you are all in you are all in, am I right?
Thursday the opening match took place between Mexico (which, along with the United States and Canada, is co-hosting this World Cup) and South Africa.
On Sunday, our own Linc-turned-Philadelphia-Stadium will host Cote d’Ivoire vs. Ecuador. Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch has written about the Cote d’Ivoire team — which he will see in person — and whose fans came to watch them in Chester even before the World Cup started.
The Vourvouliad (the collective we’ve coined for my extended family) long toyed with the idea of attending one of the Philadelphia matches as a group — but FIFA’s dynamic pricing put the kibosh on that by making every seat cost a small fortune.
But we’ll make do — as we have every mundial before this one — watching from afar.
Truth is, many of us are also approaching this World Cup with more than a little bit of trepidation. We will watch the World Cup matches taking place on U.S. soil with bated breath, given President Donald Trump’s xenophobia and his administration’s targeted deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other Department of Homeland Security agents to Black and brown cities, communities and gathering spaces.
But we longtime fans have too many great memories born of our experiences of soccer to boycott the World Cup altogether — even though some have called for that.
In fact, most of the fans that I’ve spoken with lately are consumed by the exact opposite: trying to find a way to get into a World Cup stadium.
Ecuador’s Moisés Caicedo carries the ball during a World Cup 2026 qualifying soccer match against Argentina at Banco Pichincha Stadium in Guayaquil, Ecuador in September.A
Felipe, who — perhaps channeling Pelé, Neymar and countless other soccer icons — only wanted to go by one name, will be at the Philadelphia opener Sunday, rooting for his home country of Ecuador.
“I will be going to the stadium with my family. We will also be tailgating with some other friends from Ecuador before the game outside the stadium,” he told me. “I think it will be a great opportunity to meet other soccer fans there.”
“I am really excited for the World Cup, not only because Ecuador’s national team is in great shape but also because it is a once in a lifetime [opportunity] to have your home country’s national team playing a World Cup in the city you are living in,” Felipe added. “I wish the organization would take into account the fans’ enjoyment before the profit, but I guess this is the business model we sadly see in many other sports as well.”
France’s Kylian Mbappé, left, scores his side’s third goal during a World Cup 2026 group D qualifying soccer match between France and Ukraine in Paris in November.Christophe Ena
Ben Rush-Goebel, who moved to Philadelphia from France more than a decade ago, probably won’t be at France’s match on June 22.
“The tickets are really too expensive,” he told me, “so unless I find a magical way to get to the Philly game, I will be watching it with my friends. I can’t wait to go to the FanFest to watch this game and others. Might also go to a bar. Fado has always been our spot. In 2018, when France went to the finals to beat Croatia, we were in the rain on South Street watching from the screen set up by Brauhaus Schmitz. This was the most amazing time as we rushed after the victory to buy cheap champagne to celebrate.”
Brazil’s Vinícius Júnior celebrates after scoring his side’s second goal against Colombia during a FIFA World Cup 2026 qualifying soccer match at Mané Garrincha stadium in Brasilia, Brazil, in March 2025.Eraldo Peres
Rob Levin, raised in Brazil and rooting both for their Seleção and Argentina’s Albicelestes, will be watching Brazil play in Philadelphia June 19 from home, or with others at a watch party.
“Chevere to have the World Cup here,” he said. “It’s a shame that the ticket costs are so high and travel to and fro is so fraught — I hope all the fans behave and all players are treated well and with respect — no place for politics in these games. May everything go as smoothly as possible, as it should.”
The Union’s Danley Jean Jacques, right, is the first active player from the Philadelpha club to play in a World Cup, on the Haitian national team.Jessica Tobias
Numa St. Louis, whose team, Haiti, is participating in the World Cup for the first time in more than 50 years, hasn’t given up on seeing the team play against Brazil on June 19.
“I’m still hoping to score a ticket for the Haiti-Brazil game,” he told me, “but if not, I’ll be enjoying the tournament the Haitian way — at community watch parties, breaking bread with friends and family, dancing, and vibing to Haitian music and rhythms while cheering on our team.”
“The entire Haitian community is energized by the opportunity to support our national team and celebrate this historic moment together …Win, lose, or draw, this team has already made us proud,” he added.
Like Levin, St. Louis worries about the welcome players and international fans might feel in the U.S. venues. “I have some concerns about how the United States is being perceived by many international fans,” he said. “Reports regarding the treatment of an African referee, Senegalese players, and issues involving Iranian supporters have raised questions about whether the spirit of the tournament is being fully embraced. The World Cup should be a celebration of cultures, people, and the beautiful game. It should feel welcoming, joyful, and inclusive for everyone.”
And it should resonate, even years later.
“My best soccer memory goes back to 1996, the first time Ecuador beat Argentina in Quito,” Felipe told me. “I was 12 years old and went to watch the game at the stadium with my grandfather who was a huge fan of soccer.”
Rush-Goebel points to that 2018 moment on South Street after France’s win as his favorite soccer memory: “A whole lot of French people, many of whom were my friends, my wife, [all of us] stressing together, in the rain, to an amazing victory!”
For myself, I have fond memories of seeing Mexican immigrants in Philly dressing their Jesus figures in El Tri’s national jerseys before Mexico played in the 2014 mundial — but you have to go all the way back to the 1970 World Cup in Mexico for my best memory.
Sure, I recall snippets of the televised semi-final “game of the century” between Italy and West Germany, and maybe even Pelé’s magnificent header that opened the final between Brazil and Italy…
In this June 21, 1970 file photo, Brazil’s Pelé jumps for joy after scoring his team’s first goal against Italy in the first half of a World Cup final at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, before winning 4 – 1. Kurt Strumpf
But what lives most vividly in my memory played out during the long lent leading up to those games.
I’m a kid, standing under the eucalyptus tree in my grandmother’s house in Guatemala with my brothers, trading Panini we purchased for centavos at the corner store in Zone 7 so that we could fill every team roster with stamps in our albums. We talked fútbol nonstop — me, who can’t stand sports, and my brothers, who love soccer and baseball with equal passion — and cheerfully bickered about who would go the distance.
For me soccer will always be about those two people I love, who I want to keep talking fútbol with until the day I die. The beautiful game is beautiful precisely because of the profound connections it invites and honors — be it with family members, friends or strangers across continents and time zones.
Or with a city, hosting its first ever World Cup matches with characteristic style and grit. May you hold our deep and indelible memories forever, Philadelphia.
The parking lot was crammed, and the game was already underway when Benny McLaughlin pulled his Impala toward McVeigh Playground, the spot in Kensington where he played as a kid before traveling the world as one of Philadelphia’s true soccer pioneers.
He grew up on Hurley Street in a rowhouse across from the playground where neighbors hung out their windows in the summer of 1948 to fete McLaughlin with a ticker-tape parade after he made the Olympic team.
McLaughlin played professionally as a teenager, was a star at North Catholic, kicked leather balls that felt like cinder blocks in the rain, and helped the U.S. qualify for the 1950 World Cup.
But he had to miss the tournament in Brazil. Why? Because his job refused to give him time off.
McLaughlin, who once played in front of more than 100,000 people in Scotland, was told by a British journalist that he was good enough to play in England’s first division. Considered by one admirer to be the “Babe Ruth” of his neighborhood, in Philadelphia soccer circles, McLaughlin was an icon.
But he still needed a parking spot that Sunday afternoon in the early 1970s at his old playground. Finally, he was spotted behind the wheel.
“Someone goes, ‘Benny’s here,’” said his son, Andy, who sat in the passenger seat. “They waved him in and just said, ‘Park the car anywhere. Leave the keys. Drop it here.’”
Benny McLaughlin already had his cleats and shorts on. He was in his early 40s, there to play in a reunion game of old teams.
Benny McLaughlin playing for the Philadelphia Nationals at Holmes Stadium on Erie Avenue.Mark McLaughlin
Andy, then 12 years old, watched as his dad subbed in. A defender from the Five And One Club — another Kensington watering hole — pointed to McLaughlin and said he had him covered. Good luck.
“He made a move or two around the guy and the guy just fell down,” said Andy, 65. “He took a quick pop shot, and it was in. It was just smooth. I was going crazy. I get goose bumps thinking about it now. And it’s true. I witnessed it. He still had it.”
McLaughlin’s six children would often ask their dad how good he was back in the day. The dad guarded his heroics like state secrets. He was humble. McLaughlin was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 1977 and told his kids that it was because he had good teammates.
Just once, Andy said, he wished his dad would brag. That wasn’t McLaughlin, who always had a second — or third — job while raising his family on Convent Avenue in the Northeast.
He finally gave his son a glimpse of the life he lived when he blasted that shot into the net at his old playground.
“That was the proof,” Andy said. “I was like, ‘Yeah!’ I was roaring. What would you do? My friends needle me like, ‘What happened to you?’ It’s like being Mickey Mantle’s son. What do you want from me?”
Benny McLaughlin was the 1951-52 American Soccer League MVP.Mark McLaughlin
Missing the World Cup
The World Cup will be broadcast worldwide over the next six weeks as players from 48 nations play in sold-out stadiums across three countries. Six games will be in Philadelphia, and the event is now a spectacle after years of planning.
But in 1950, it was anonymous to most Americans. McLaughlin, then 22 years old, was in Mexico the previous September to help the U.S. qualify for the 1950 World Cup. He graduated from North Catholic three years earlier and was an all-American at Temple before dropping out after one year to work.
He was hired in 1949 by Fischer & Porter, a factory in Hatboro that made parts for Navy ships and submarines, where his brother-in-law was an executive. McLaughlin asked the company if he could have a few weeks off to go to Brazil and play in the World Cup.
“They told him, ‘If you go, you no longer have a job,’” Andy said.
Len Oliver, a Hall of Fame soccer writer and Philadelphia native, once wrote that McLaughlin was one of the best American-born players of his era. He was a star. But he couldn’t play in the World Cup.
“Imagine that happening today,” Andy said. “Let’s say you’re a youth player, you make the national team, and you’re going to go represent the U.S. in a foreign country. They would wrap the company’s logo around you. It had to be a real kick in the teeth not to go. But he had to decide. He had a life decision to make. He needed to work. He wanted to get married. If the company said you can’t go, then what do you do?”
McLaughlin playing for the American Soccer League All-Stars in 1947 at Ebbets Field.Mark McLaughlin
That’s Bernie Flanagan
McLaughlin’s father, Bernard, immigrated from Scotland after being recruited by Bethlehem Steel to work at its plant and play on its soccer team. The McLaughlins eventually moved to Kensington, where Benny learned to play soccer in the streets as the boys used the neighborhood’s narrow passages as soccer fields.
His skills blossomed at Lighthouse Boys Club where he played with Walter Bahr, another Kensington kid who became a giant in Philadelphia soccer. They were best friends and played together as teenagers on the Philadelphia Nationals, a professional squad that traveled to New York on the weekends.
McLaughlin was just 15, so he used a false name — Bernie Flanagan — to protect his amateur status while making $15 a game. A tipster wrote to the U.S. Olympic Committee in June 1948, informing them that Bahr and McLaughlin were pros. The USOC passed the information to the U.S. Soccer Federation, which said it would investigate the high schoolers. Nothing to see here, they said.
“Ben, a young fellow doing a graduate thesis came across these letters,” Bahr wrote to McLaughlin years later after being sent a series of correspondences about their amateur case. “Thought you’d get a kick out of them.”
McLaughlin and Bahr remained amateurs and played together on the U.S. team at the 1948 Olympics in London.
“He looked up and saw 90,000 fans,” said McLaughlin’s son, Bernie, 73. “His cousins from Scotland came over to see him play. He said he was never more proud to be an American.”
Two years later, he was ready for the World Cup. But the company did not budge. McLaughlin, engaged to be married later that year, couldn’t risk losing his job.
“He needed a job, right?” said his son Mark, 59. “All he ever said to us was that it was for personal reasons. What do you do? You choose family. That’s him.”
The U.S. team stunned England that summer in a 1-0 win that still stands as one of the most significant moments in American soccer history. It was so hard to fathom that the Brits back home thought the score was a mistake. They even made a movie about the upset.
Bahr assisted the winning goal, which was scored by the player Andy said replaced his dad on the roster. McLaughlin and Eugene Olaff — who was slated to be the backup goalie but couldn’t get off work as a New Jersey state trooper — read about the win in the newspaper.
“Imagine getting that news,” Andy said. “It had to be bittersweet. You’re thrilled for them but sorry for yourself. When you have time to evaluate it, what’s a few weeks when you’re making history?”
Benny McLaughlin (second from right in second row) at a Philadelphia All-Stars game in 1955.Mark McLaughlin
Benny’s legacy
Bernie was a freshman at St. Joseph’s when some teammates who grew up in his dad’s old neighborhood recognized his last name.
“My dad’s picture was hanging up in bars in Kensington,” he said as the taverns all sponsored teams. “They said, ‘Is your dad Benny McLaughlin?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ They said, ‘Well, if you grew up in our neighborhood, you would’ve never had to buy yourself a beer.’”
About 10 years ago, Andy was sitting at a quiet bar on Torresdale Avenue when he heard a few guys talking about soccer. He joined the conversation.
“I said, ‘Yeah, my dad played one time,’” Andy said. “The guy said, ‘Oh yeah? Who’s your dad?’ I said, ‘Benny McLaughlin.’ He looked stunned. He said, ‘Your dad is Benny McLaughlin? Benny McLaughlin is your dad?’ He was fumbling for words. Finally, he says to the bartender, ‘This guy is on scholarship for the rest of the afternoon.’”
McLaughlin’s name still means something in Philadelphia, but his legacy has dimmed outside the city. Perhaps that would be different if he played in that World Cup and scored that iconic goal. But he never thought about it, his sons said. It didn’t make him bitter or dim his love of the game he learned to play as a kid in Kensington.
He kept a pair of old soccer cleats — “You would’ve thought they were Frankenstein’s boots,” Mark said — under the basement stairs and watched VHS tapes of European highlights, marveling at how they blasted the ball. He cheered the next generation of American players, some of whom grew up near Kensington. The game never left him.
“He always said that soccer is for the new generation,” Mark said. “He had no regrets for what he did. He was grateful for what he was able to accomplish. He never looked back.”
Ed Blaney, who played at St. Joe’s, told the McLaughlins that he credited their dad for his college scholarship. McLaughlin, he told them, helped make soccer relevant in the U.S., which caused more colleges to field teams.
Blaney played at North Catholic and grew up in Kensington, just like McLaughlin. He would not have been able to afford college without the pathway the neighborhood celebrity created. Forget the World Cup. That is McLaughlin’s legacy, Bernie said.
Walter Bahr and Benny McLaughin with McLaughin’s four sons: Mark, Andy, Brian, and Bernie.Mark McLaughlin
One last reunion
McLaughlin kept his job at Fischer & Porter for more than 20 years before working for the city in the redevelopment authority. He sold carpet at night and delivered kegs on the weekend, doing whatever it took to raise six children with his wife, Joan. McLaughlin made breakfast every Sunday — fried eggs and bacon — and often topped a summer barbecue with a drive to Goodnoe’s Ice Cream in Bucks County.
“I want to stop myself from bragging about him,” Andy said. “But I don’t. As great as a soccer player as he was, he was a great dad, too. He was always looking out for us. He always had a nice word for you. He was just a great, loving dad.”
McLaughlin was starting to fade in 2010 when his family moved him to a senior facility in West Chester. A few weeks later, a new resident named Harry Naughton was complaining about his hips. He told the staff he used to play soccer. They told him they had someone else living there who once was a big soccer player in Philly.
“Don’t tell me it’s Benny McLaughlin,” Naughton said.
The staff asked Naughton how he knew it would be McLaughlin.
“Who doesn’t know Benny McLaughlin?” he said.
Mark soon took his dad to Naughton’s apartment. Benny couldn’t say much, but his son knew he recognized his old teammate. Naughton was a goalie on the Philadelphia Nationals, the team McLaughlin played for under that fake name.
Mark took out his phone, called Bahr, and put him on speakerphone. The three teammates were together again.
Bahr asked Naughton how his back was feeling. He said it was giving him trouble, but how did Bahr know?
Benny McLaughlin (left) and Walt Bahr at Lincoln Financial Field for the Union’s first game in April 2010.Mark McLaughlin
“‘Oh, I just figured it would be bad from all the times you had to bend over to pick the damn ball up from the back of the net,’” Bahr said.
Benny McLaughlin, who died two years later in 2012 at age 84, laughed. So did the others as they chatted that afternoon about the old days.
McLaughlin played the game as a kid with wizardry, a skinny kid from Kensington who moved the ball with ease and always seemed to find an open teammate. Eric Charleson, one of America’s earliest soccer experts, once wrote that McLaughlin had “a fire, spirit, and determination that defied the rigors of the sport.” But he was more than that, Charleson wrote, as McLaughlin had “integrity, sportsmanship, and character.” That’s why he didn’t talk much about his career. His game said it all.
And there he was in his old buddy’s apartment, talking about the game they once mastered. The game they played on the streets in Kensington and the game they toasted in those little neighborhood taprooms. The game that took them around the world and the game that wasn’t yet popular enough to get you off from work. But McLaughlin didn’t mind. The game gave him enough memories. He didn’t need a World Cup.
“You almost saw a youth come into all of them,” Mark said. “They were young again for a minute. The joy and the smile. The eyes were shining. It was just so awesome. It was the best day ever.”
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — U.S. men’s soccer team manager Mauricio Pochettino has said many times during his tenure that he wants his players to believe they can win this World Cup.
If it’s unrealistic, or derided by fans and media, he does not care. His job has been to make his players think they can do it, and use that belief to put extra fuel in the tank.
(For the record, reaching the quarterfinals is the bar most outsiders have set; and if you ask this reporter’s opinion, that’s correct.)
On Thursday, in his final remarks before Friday’s opening game against Paraguay (9 p.m., Fox29, Telemundo 62), Pochettino finally turned to a more realistic tone.
Mauricio Pochettino (left) walking with a U.S. team staffer at Thursday’s practice.Jonathan Tannenwald
Asked how he defines success now, he started by saying “it’s difficult.” Then, acknowledging those who hadn’t heard his passionate stances in the past, he set out his explanation.
“I think for me, ‘successful’ is winning,” he said. “It’s win tomorrow, and win after tomorrow, and win. If we don’t arrive to the final and we don’t win the World Cup, to talk about ‘successful’ is, I don’t know — for me and my mindset.”
Pochettino has heard from plenty of people in his 22-month tenure to date about the mountains American men’s soccer must climb, and the obstacles along the way. And now he knows firsthand how his players truly stack up against the world’s best, especially after games against powers Belgium, Portugal, Senegal, and Germany.
“If you say to me, oh, the conditions, or this [other thing], or we play against good national teams, I say, OK, OK,” he said. “But when we signed here, it’s because we wanted to come here, and to be involved in that unique event, but with the possibility to compete well, and believing in winning.”
Mauricio Pochettino making a point to a group of players during the U.S. team’s open practice on Monday.Jonathan Tannenawld
Asked what he’ll say to his players before Friday’s kickoff, Pochettino joked that “I already spoke, I already talked — too much. I said [to them], don’t expect an unbelievable speech Friday.”
That’s mainly because in his opinion, they “don’t need an external motivation” at this point.
“They need the motivational speech and inspiration when they need to go to train and improve in every single area,” he said. “And then tomorrow, it’s late. … If you are not ready, sorry guys, it’s impossible to perform. What were [we] doing all this year and a half [we’ve been preparing]?”
‘Their emotional intelligence is very high’
But in a way, the manager gave that speech to the media from the podium on Thursday, in a news conference where he alternated freely between English and Spanish.
Mauricio Pochettino (right) talking with U.S. captain Tim Ream at Thursday’s practice.Andre Penner
“The players, tomorrow, need to go on the field and feel in a bad way that they need to perform,” he said. “And to perform is to respect some rules, but also the most important is not to be disconnected with your emotional relationship with the game. And we were talking about that: they need to think tomorrow and play like they are a child, with no pressure, with no responsibility.”
He also said he wants his players to “take it step by step,” and that “the key is not to look at the finish line before you actually get there.”
Pochettino particularly applied that to the players he’ll summon from the bench, a key part of any manager’s strategy with five substitutes allowed per game.
“How many players aren’t starters early in the World Cup, but end up big figures in the tournament?” he said. “It’s not just about how you start, but how you continue and how you finish.”
Mauricio Pochettino looks to the heavens during a philosophical moment at a U.S. practice in March.Jonathan Tannenwald
Perhaps his most revealing words came when he opened up about what he has learned from the players, for as much as they have learned from him.
“I really admire the players’ mindset,” Pochettino said. “I don’t think they should be underestimated, because their emotional intelligence is very high — well above the global average. They become great athletes because they possess that capacity and talent, and they develop that mental strength. I tell you, they are all intelligent.”
He has also learned the different ways required to connect with the 26 players on this squad, and the over 70 he has had in U.S. camps over his tenure.
“The trick is getting to know each individual so you can communicate effectively, finding the right frequency,” he said. “You realize that, ultimately, they all feel the same things, face the same struggles, and have the same needs. It’s about finding the right frequency to connect with each personality. They are giving us so much, and honestly, we are really enjoying the whole group.”
Keeping the lineup secret
As nice as it was to hear Chris Richards declare himself “ready” on Wednesday, that only counted for so much without his boss’s blessing. Pochettino gave it on Thursday, calling the key centerback “available.” He also said all 26 players on the roster are fit to play.
But he backed off saying whether Richards has the green light to start.
“Chris is available to be selected, and then we will decide if he’ll start from the beginning of the game or is on the bench,” Pochettino said. “But I think we celebrate the job that our medical staff and performance [staff] did — worked really hard to recover Chris, and recover some other players that arrived with minor things. No big issues. … It’s a really good feeling to have 26 players available to be selected.”
Pochettino said he knows what his starting lineup will be, but signaled that he hasn’t told the players. That includes the goalkeepers, the subject that has been second to Richards’ health in the most-discussed rankings.
The goalkeepers at work during Friday’s practice in Irvine, Calif., amid a backdrop including a balloon decorated with U.S. Soccer’s logo.Jonathan Tannenwald
“No, I’m not going to tell you,” he said when invited to. “But I already decided. Only if something happens before the game [would it change].”
Asked if the players know, he said: “I don’t know if they know. Because if they know, you are going to start to call them.”
The room laughed with him at that. Such leaks are a tradition in other countries, including Pochettino’s native Argentina, and England where he worked for many years. It isn’t in the United States, though, at least not yet.
IRVINE, Calif. — There is no question that this U.S. men’s soccer team has players with talent and pedigree like never before. Even some of their predecessors, who are as prone to claiming “back in my day” as in any other sport, have said as much lately.
Now, at last, the time has arrived to prove it. For all the pomp and circumstance that Friday’s World Cup opener against Paraguay (9 p.m., Fox29, Telemundo 62) will bring, it also will serve as the ultimate measuring stick.
This is the 12th men’s World Cup in which a U.S. squad has taken part. In the first 11, going all the way back to the inaugural edition in 1930, the Americans have played 37 games.
They have won just nine.
Christian Pulisic’s goal against Iran in 2022 came in the only U.S. win in that tournament.Alex Grimm
It’s not just that number, sitting alongside 20 losses and eight ties. It’s that the U.S. men haven’t won two games in a group stage since that 1930 tournament. They haven’t won two games in a single tournament since 2002, when they reached the quarterfinals with a round of 16 win over Mexico.
That, in turn, still stands as the only World Cup knockout-round win in program history. And the fact that it came against the opponent the U.S. knows best in the world means that while there isn’t an asterisk, it’s still not the same as beating a team from elsewhere.
Can this be the summer when that finally changes? And if so, what will it take?
“I think the maturity of the group now, I would say,” U.S. midfield star and longtime leader Tyler Adams said at Friday’s practice. “I know we’ve got some faces [for whom] it will be their first experience in the World Cup. But that being said, they’re all playing at a high level somewhere in the world, if not in MLS, and they’re all going to be able to contribute at a high level.”
Tyler Adams (left) speaking with the media before Friday’s practice.Jonathan Tannenwald
The U.S.’s group is easier than others, lacking a European or South American superpower and coincidentally having three rematches of friendlies from last year. A smaller gap in talent means intangibles like mentality and home-field advantage might make a difference.
“I think just continuing to put in good performances, and believing,” said Christian Pulisic, the Americans’ most important playmaker. “I think having the confidence that we’re able to beat anyone, I think that’s what it is. And I think we’ve gained some experience, especially the last World Cup, a lot of guys being around, and now we have an opportunity to prove it.”
Indeed, Pulisic and Adams are among 13 players on this World Cup squad — exactly half the roster — who were also in Qatar in 2022. But the message has also gotten through to players who weren’t, such as fast-rising defender Alex Freeman.
“I feel like for us it’s having, that confidence in ourselves,” he said. “Knowing that we’re on home soil and it’s a different type of environment, knowing that we have the fans behind us. Now it’s kind of just to show what we can do, knowing that on the field it’s going to be a different type of confidence, different type of intensity that we’ll have to show.”
Christian Pulisic (center) getting to work on Friday.Jonathan Tannenwald
And how did they feel on game day eve?
“A good nervous, I feel like,” Adams said “I’ve never get nervous for games, but I just feel like … it just feels really real in the moment. And I’m to get out there with this group of guys, because I’m confident in what we can do.”
Adams wasn’t on the squad when the U.S. beat Paraguay in Chester last November because of an injury suffered a few days before that game. So when asked if that game matters now, his first answer was, “I mean, I didn’t play in it, so to me it doesn’t matter.”
But after the laughs all around that ensued, he agreed that the experience does help the team overall.
“It is nice when you’re breaking down film of an opponent, and you’re breaking down watching with players that we have on the field,” he said. “So I think for a lot of guys, it was probably a good experience.”
Freeman was on the field and became the center of attention when a brawl broke out at the end of the game. That was the latest lesson for the 21-year-old defender, who made a big move from Orlando City to Spain’s Villarreal two months later.
“I think for me and the team, we know how intense it is, right? And aggressive as well,” he said. “We feel like in those games, it’s going to be kind of the battle, who can strike first. I think for us, it’s to be aggressive first — I think we want to be those people that can go and make the game the way we want to do.”
So, here they are, in the final hours before the biggest game of their lives, with the opportunity for more biggest games of their lives afterward.
Final preparations were underway Thursday afternoon at the stadium in Inglewood, Calif., where the U.S. and Paraguay will meet on Friday night.Jonathan Tannenwald / Staff
“It’s not quite here — still got another day,” Pulisic said. “But definitely feeling more real, getting excited.”
And Adams gave one more rallying cry, adding to the list of them he has given.
“This is, for me, the biggest opportunity to just really grow the game, to inspire people, to show that American players are at the level of the rest of the world,” he said. “I’m not going to say it’s difficult to showcase that week in week out when you’re playing abroad, but that’s not the collective. Now you have a group of Americans playing together at a high level — let’s show everyone what we’re capable of doing.”
Earlier today, Tyler Adams was asked about the burden Christian Pulisic has carried on his shoulders for a decade as the biggest #USMNT star.
Here was Adams' eloquent response, and what Pulisic said a few minutes later about whether he feels less of a burden now:
The heat and humidity have transformed the atmosphere into an obnoxious broth — just in time for the World Cup FIFA Fan Festival — and we can do without the fireworks, thank you.
The official temperature at Philadelphia International Airport had reached 97, setting a record for the date, with a heat index of 103 at 4 p.m. It beat the high of 95, reached in 1985, and an encore was expected Friday, when the record also is 95.
In addition, the steaminess has added volatility to a vapor-swollen atmosphere that is even making the windows sweat. The city’s heat emergency remains in effect until 8 p.m. Friday, and the National Weather Service is advising people to stay hydrated and in air-conditioning if possible.
With a front approaching, strong thunderstorms with potent winds are likely at some point during the FIFA fan festivities in Fairmount Park on Friday.
It will still be hot during the weekend, forecasters say, but as the World Cup activities heat up, the humidity will be so comfortable you might think you had moved.
As for game-time conditions Sunday for the Ecuador vs. Ivory Coast match in South Philly, spectators might want to pack an umbrella.
When the storms are expected to arrive in Philly
The government’s Storm Prediction Center warned that the region could be affected by “multiple disturbances,” and the atmosphere is well-juiced with moisture.
Rich Thompson, chief of forecast operations at the storm center, in Norman, Okla., said the center might have to issue a severe watch for the Philly region Friday, when he happens to be on duty.
Those attending the FIFA Fan Festival on Lemon Hill in Fairmount Park will be well-warned in case of severe weather, said Philadelphia Soccer 2026 spokesperson Melissa Ferdinand, via screens, announcements, and text messages.
In short, if you didn’t like the weather Thursday, you won’t like Friday’s, either.
The weather service warned of the “risk of heat-related illnesses for much of the population — especially those without effective cooling or hydration.”
The outlook for the weekend
Temperatures on both Saturday and Sunday are expected to reach 90 or better, but the air is going to be refreshingly drier. All thermal comfort being relative, the differences will be as noticeable as they are welcome.
At game time Sunday — 7 p.m. — it should be quite comfortable in South Philly. However, another system may touch off more showers during the game in advance of what will be a refreshing air mass to start the workweek.
Philadelphia’s scorching, soupy weather could not stop soccer fans from making the trek to East Fairmount Park, where World Cup revelers filed in Thursday afternoon to celebrate the tournament’s kickoff at the FIFA Fan Festival.
Thousands of soccer lovers were present, arriving at Lemon Hill for the festival’s 2 p.m. start time — an hour before Mexico started its clash against South Africa in the World Cup’s first match, in Mexico City. Philly’s FIFA Fan Festival, which is slated to run for 39 days through the end of the tournament next month, arrived amid a heat advisory that saw temperatures push into the mid-90s with heat indexes surpassing 100 degrees, thanks to high humidity levels.
And that did not go unnoticed by festival attendees.
“This is far too warm for us,” said Rhys Gray, who traveled to Philadelphia from Scotland. Gray arrived in town Tuesday and plans to make the city his home base as he and his father follow Scotland’s games throughout the World Cup. Gray, who donned a matching plaid bucket hat and shirt for the occasion, said the city had been welcoming so far.
“I never felt so popular,” he added.
The FIFA Fan Festival serves as the city’s official World Cup watch party, and sprawls across a million square feet of lush, green space at Lemon Hill. It is capable of holding 15,000 attendees, many of whom are expected to take in matches on the festival’s 60-foot-wide screen on the main stage. The family-friendly event also features more than 80 food trucks, a massive shopping area, and a beer garden, among other amenities.
And while it attracted World Cup watchers from around the world Thursday, Philadelphia-area locals also made the trip. Many attendees seemed to be rooting for Mexico, judging by the sea of green-and-red soccer jerseys that dominated the space.
Among Mexico’s supporters was Bianca Vetta, who traveled to Philly from Easton with her mother. On Thursday, Vetta’s face was painted like the flag of Mexico, with red, white, and green marking her cheeks to show her support for the country’s team. Her father, she said, is from Mexico.
Bernard Dagenais, president and CEO of the Main Line Chamber of Commerce, also supported Mexico over South Africa. Dagenais, who parked at the nearby Philadelphia Museum of Art and walked to Lemon Hill, said his support for the country only made sense.
“Why not?” he asked. “They’re our neighbors to the south.”
Dagenais’ walk is likely not to be unique during the festival’s run, as extensive road closures and parking restrictions arrived with the event. Organizers have encouraged attendees to take rideshares or public transportation, which some Philadelphia residents, like West Philly’s Eric Abreu, heeded.
Despite the travel restrictions, Abreu said, getting to the festival was convenient and trouble-free, thanks to a $10 Uber ride that dropped him off nearby. And while he plans to head back to the festival grounds in the coming days, he did note Thursday was a little on the warm side.
“Hopefully we just get a nice tan,” Abreu said.
Philadelphia itself, meanwhile, is slated to host its first World Cup game Sunday, when Ivory Coast faces off against Ecuador at Lincoln Financial Field. FIFA has temporarily renamed the arena “Philadelphia Stadium” for the World Cup, which will include six games in town through July 4.
Philadelphia’s role as a host city, however, seemed to be secondary to the match at hand Thursday afternoon. As the match started, attendees flocked to the festival’s largest screen, set out picnic blankets, and danced to music reverberating through the grounds. Cheers and applause in Philadelphia erupted as the teams took the field in Mexico City.
On Thursday afternoon, said attendee Patrick Aruta, a registered nurse at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, the experience transcended any difficulties or controversies that may be associated with the World Cup. In that fleeting moment, he said, this was all there was — just enjoying the match, with thousands of other fans from far and wide.
“No matter what people say about the heat [or] the political climate, there is nothing like this. I forget who I am for a moment,” he said. “You can’t get this at any other sports game. Just the World Cup.”
America getting out of its group on American soil.
In this World Cup, that is the first goal — and the road begins Friday when the U.S. men’s national team kicks off against Paraguay (9 p.m., Fox29, Telemundo).
Paraguay is the first of three matches for the United States in Group D, where they’ll also face Australia (June 19, 3 p.m.) and Turkey (June 25, 10 p.m.).
It’s a group from which many feel the U.S. can emerge, and a recent pair of tuneup matches against Senegal and Germany provided additional validation.
Gio Reyna was the goalscorer the last time the U.S. men played Paraguay in November at Subaru Park in Chester.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Paraguay is also a team the U.S. defeated 2-1 at Subaru Park in Chester just eight months earlier, with a sizable contingent of players who qualified for head coach Mauricio Pochettino’s World Cup roster.
We’ve been watching since the beginning of qualifying cycles, which, as the host nation, the U.S. didn’t need to qualify for. Along the way, we analyzed a wide pool that over two years competed in a Concacaf Nations League third-place game and a Gold Cup final in the lead-up.
The hope and expectation around this team are mostly justified. Because of that, I’m going to be a contrarian for a moment. Dating back to the first World Cup in 1930, the U.S. men have played 37 games on soccer’s biggest stage. They’ve won just nine, lost 20, and tied eight; and they haven’t won more than one group game in a tournament since that inaugural edition.
This team doesn’t face the pressure of world powers like Argentina and England, but it still faces plenty as a co-host desperate to give the sport a lasting legacy here. Paraguay, meanwhile, loves playing defense — and will likely play even more without injured star forward Julio Enciso.
It’s good for the U.S. that they beat Paraguay last November in a friendly at Subaru Park. But this game will be a lot harder, and I’m not at all sure the home team will have a big home advantage from the L.A. crowd. I think the U.S. wins it close.
One of the great things about being so deeply entrenched in this sport is the freeing feeling that wins and losses in tuneup matches offer very little insight into how good a team is. Win over Senegal? Somewhat ecstatic. Loss to Germany? Somewhat expected.
I think it comes down to a few things, but what I mainly look for in this first match against Paraguay is who Pochettino puts out there. He beat this nation with a group largely comprised of the same guys, and has an even stronger cast in this go-around. I think this is the perfect first match to get acclimated and one the U.S. takes three points in.
Prediction: United States 2, Paraguay 0.
Medford native Brenden Aaronson (right) signs an autograph for a fan during a U.S. men’s national soccer team practice on Monday.Jonathan Tannenawld
Who will be the U.S. face of the U.S. World Cup? Easy. Christian Pulisic, Captain America, who gets America’s biggest soccer party started with a signature goal in the opener. Pulisic, whose goal in a friendly last month was his first goal for club or country in five months, brought the energy in the opening minutes of the 2022 opener before finally breaking through — and perhaps risking his future generations — for a goal against Iran.
The U.S. should win their group, and the path starts with a win on Friday. The Americans will take care of business against Paraguay and the country’s biggest soccer star will shine bright in L.A.
There’s no way that arguably the most talented team America has ever sent to a World Cup loses its first match on home soil … right? Doubts about the goalkeeper situation and the health of Chris Richards aside, this match is too big for the U.S. to lose.
Fortunately for the Americans, the U.S. will get the lowest-ranking member of Group D to start their World Cup campaign. They have already beaten Paraguay in a friendly during Pochettino’s tenure with a less talented squad, and there’s nothing that suggests that the Americans won’t be able to replicate that result on Friday on the big stage in Inglewood.
Some people might be surprised to realize that the United States has been part of the World Cup tournament since the very first edition in 1930 — and Philadelphia has been a part of that as well. The Philadelphia area has contributed players, coaches and administrators to the United States men’s national team for all that time.
Here’s a look at the World Cups the U.S. men’s team has participated in, the pepople in them with Philadelphia connections, and the Union connections to soccer’s biggest stage over the team’s history.
Uruguay, 1930
Players: A Penn graduate who played soccer and football and ran track in his time there, James Gentle signed as a striker with the Philadelphia Field Club and later coached at Haverford School.
Born in Scotland, Bart McGhee moved to Philadelphia as a child and played for numerous area teams. Against Belgium, McGhee scored the first-ever U.S. World Cup goal (the second overall World Cup goal) en route to a 3-0 win.
Goals from Bart McGhee, Tom Florie and Bert Patenaude led the 🇺🇸 to a 3-0 tournament-opening victory against 🇧🇪in Montevideo. pic.twitter.com/OTxIO4kzua
— U.S. Soccer Men's National Team (@USMNT) July 13, 2020
Jimmy Douglas, the USA’s goalkeeper, is credited with the first-ever World Cup shutout. He also played briefly for Philadelphia Field Club in his pro career.
The debut tournament of the World Cup was where the U.S. had its best-ever finish, reaching the semifinals. Host Uruguay won the tournament.
Players: Bill Fiedler was born, raised, and played his entire pro career in Philadelphia for the Philadelphia German-Americans and the Philadelphia Passon. He didn’t enter the one game the U.S. team played in the 1934 tournament.
Neither did Al Harker, who also had a long career for the Philadelphia German-Americans, playing for them for well over a decade.
Peter Pietras was born in Trento and played for five years with the Philadelphia German-Americans. He played in the game against Italy.
German-born Herman Rapp, appropriately enough, also played for the Philadelphia German-Americans when he went to Italy as part of the World Cup team, but he saw no action in the one game.
Francis “Hun” Ryan, born and raised in Philly, was the first World Cup player to have played for the still-active Lighthouse Boys Club team. He also played for the Philadelphia German-Americans and in the match against Italy.
Administration: Elmer Schroeder, who was the first American-born director of the U.S. Soccer organization, was previously the director at Lighthouse, starting at the age of 19.
David Gould, appointed as team manager by Schroeder, played for years in the area and also coached Penn soccer for 27 years.
The 1934 tournament was entirely single-elimination. The U.S. lost its one game to Italy, 7-1, which still remains a record for both countries at the World Cup, since that is the most goals Italy has ever scored in the competition. The score also remains the most goals the U.S. has ever conceded at the World Cup. Italy, the host country, went on to win the tournament.
Walter Bahr is one of seven National Soccer Hall of Famers who started at the Lighthouse in Kensington.
Brazil, 1950
Players: Walter Bahr was born, lived, and played professionally in the area with the Philadelphia Nationals. Bahr captained the team in all three group games the Americans played at the World Cup, including the stunning 1-0 upset of England. He provided the assist on the winning goal.
Sixty years later, he bridged the generations when he stood on the sideline with then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden at the first home game in Union history.
Ed McIlvenny, who briefly played for Wrexham in Wales (now owned partly by Philly’s own Rob McElhenney), was a Scot who immigrated to the Philadelphia area. He became a teammate of Bahr’s on the Philadelphia Nationals and won a league title before returning to Britain for a short stint with Manchester United.
Administration: William Jeffrey was the manager of the U.S. team. Another native Scot, he coached Penn State for 26 seasons.
The United States lost their group games against Spain, 3-1, and Chile, 5-2, and did not advance to the knockout stage. The champion was Uruguay, which claimed its second title.
Walter Bahr at his home in Boalsburg, Pa., in 2006. Bahr kept lots of memorabilia from his days as a U.S. national team player.
Italy, 1990
Players: Peter Vermes, who grew up in Delran, played college soccer at Rutgers. He went on to earn 66 caps with the U.S. men’s national team and played in every group game at the World Cup.
The U.S. lost to Czechoslovakia, 5-1, Italy, 1-0, and Austria, 2-1. The champion that year was West Germany.
United States, 1994
Players: While the Dutch American former midfielder Earnie Stewart was raised abroad, his connection to Philadelphia was established when he arrived to take on his first stateside job in 2015 as sporting director of the Union. Now Stewart serves as sporting director of the United States Soccer Federation.
In 1994, Stewart helped the American team advance from group play. He scored a goal in the team’s 2-1 win over Colombia, and played in the other group games, a 1-1 draw with Switzerland and a 1-0 loss to Romania.
The U.S. was eliminated in a 1-0 loss in the next round against Brazil, the eventual champion.
USSF sporting director Earnie Stewart previously held a similar role with the Union.
France, 1998
Players: Stewart also took part in this World Cup, where the U.S. lost to Germany, 2-0, Iran, 2-1 and Yugoslavia, 1-0. Host country France claimed the title for the first time.
A future Union player was in this tournament, 12 years before the Union launched and a decade before Philadelphia even was announced as a future expansion market. (In fact, it was just the third year of MLS’s existence.) Goalkeeper Faryd Mondragón started all three of Colombia’s group games in net.
Faryd Mondragón stands second from left in the back row of Colombia’s team photo before its 1998 World Cup game against Romiania.
South Korea/Japan 2002
Players: Stewart again participated, playing in every game of the tournament for the U.S. and helping the team to its greatest tournament success since 1930. The Americans advanced out of the group stage after defeating Portugal, 3-2, losing to Poland, 3-0, and drawing with South Korea, 1-1.
The United States then advanced to the knockout rounds and defeated Mexico, 2-0. In the quarterfinals, the Americans played a tough match against Germany, but were eliminated, 1-0.
A future Union player was one of the stars of Brazil’s championship squad. Kléberson had two assists in the tournament, including on the goal in the final that sealed a 2-0 win and the Seleçao’s record fifth title.
Kléberson (left) in action during the 2002 World Cup final.
Germany, 2006
Players: Chris Albright, born and raised in Philadelphia, also played professionally for the Union and served on the team’s technical staff. He did not play in the tournament.
Bobby Convey, born and raised in Philadelphia, a former Penn Charter student, did play in all three group games, a 3-0 loss to the Czech Republic, a 1-1 draw with Italy, and a 2-1 loss to Ghana. Convey’s free kick helped create the own goal against Italy for the draw.
Middletown native Ben Olsen, who played for FC Delco, a local soccer powerhouse, played as a substitute against Ghana after Claudio Reyna was injured.
Future Union player Oguchi Onyewu started all three games of the tournament. The centerback signed with the club in 2017, his final professional season before retirement.
The Americans failed to advance. Italy won the tournament.
Philly native Bobby Convey played multiple games in the 2006 World Cup for the United States.
South Africa, 2010
Players: Maurice Edu, who would go on to become one of the premier signings for the Union in 2015, played in the two games of the group stage following the 1-1 draw with England. He volleyed in a shot against Slovenia in the 2-2 draw that would have been the winning goal if it had not been waved off for a foul. He also played in the 1-0 win over Algeria.
Onyewu played in the first two games of the tournament.
A pair of future Union players featured for other countries: Tranquillo Barnetta for Switzerland and Kléberson for Brazil.
The United States advanced to the knockout stage but lost there to Ghana, 2-1, in added extra time.
Spain won its first title at this World Cup.
Oguchi Onyewu (left) in action at the 2010 World Cup.
Brazil, 2014
Players: Alejandro Bedoya, the Union’s longtime captain, played in all four U.S. games at the tournament. The Americans defeated Ghana, 2-1, drew Portugal, 2-2, and lost to Germany, 1-0. That was good enough to advance to the round of 16, where the U.S. lost in added extra time to Belgium.
Union centerback Carlos Valdés played for Colombia, though at the time he was on a string of loans away from the team. He’d asked for them because the Cafeteros’ coach at the time, José Pékerman, didn’t rate MLS. So Valdés tried to get elsewhere to make an impression (and he wasn’t alone).
Haris Medunjanin played for Bosnia, memorably getting Lionel Messi’s jersey after facing Argentina in the group stage. And David Myrie, who was on the Union’s inaugural season squad in 2010 (but didn’t last long), was on Costa Rica’s team.
Germany won the tournament, claiming its fourth title.
Alejandro Bedoya (left) in action for the U.S. during the round of 16 battle with Belgium.
Russia, 2018
Players: The U.S. infamously failed to qualify, which obviously put a big dent in things. But a former Union player and a future Union player took part for other countries. Gabriel Gómez played for Panama six years after his one season in Chester, and Marco Fabián played for Mexico eight months before he joined the club.
Broadcasting: Philly fans also heard a familiar voice on Fox’s TV coverage. This was the 13th World Cup of longtime Union play-by-play voice JP Dellacamera’s Hall of Fame career, including the eighth men’s tournament.
France won the title, led by Kylian Mbappé’s emergence as the sport’s new superstar.
JP Dellacamera (right) with his broadcast partner at the 2018 World Cup, former U.S. goalkeeper Tony Meola.
Qatar, 2022
Players:Olivier Mbaizo became the first active Union player to make a World Cup roster, with Cameroon. He never got on the field, though if the Indomitable Lions had advanced from the group stage he’d likely have played in the round of 16 due to a teammate’s suspension.
Union alum Brenden Aaronson made his first U.S. World Cup team, two years after moving to Europe. The Medford native was at England’s Leeds United then, his second club after initially going from Chester to Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg for $6 million. The later move to Leeds commanded a $30 million transfer fee, and the Union banked $5 million of it in a sell-on fee.
Hershey’s Christian Pulisic was also on the U.S. squad, scoring the winning goal against Iran and finally fulfilling his promise as a superstar. The Americans advanced to the round of 16, then lost to the Netherlands.
Steven Vitória played for Canada seven years after his one season in Chester.
Administration: This was Stewart’s World Cup as U.S. Soccer’s sporting director.
A coach: Ventnor City native and Ursinus grad B.J. Callaghan was one of U.S. manager Gregg Berhalter’s top assistants.
A referee: Though Kathryn Nesbitt wasn’t born in Philadelphia, the assistant ref had lived in the city since 2019 when she was appointed to her first World Cup.
Broadcasting: Dellacamera was in Fox’s booth again, while former Union captain Maurice Edu and Delran’s Carli Lloyd joined the network as analysts. Fox reporter Tom Rinaldi spent part of his college years at Penn, and was another familiar voice from plenty of trips to Philly for other sports.
Argentina won the tournament, finally giving Lionel Messi the biggest trophy and crowning him as men’s soccer’s greatest player of all time.
Olivier Mbaizo (left) on Cameroon’s bench at the 2022 World Cup.
USA/Canada/Mexico, 2026
Players: The Union’s Danley Jean Jacques and Olwethu Makhanya made the rosters of Haiti and South Africa, respectively. Jean Jacques was a stalwart of Les Grenadiers, and had the bonus of Haiti getting a group stage game in Philadelphia against Brazil. That was one of six tournament games in the city, as the men’s World Cup finally came here for the first time.
Makhanya’s inclusion, meanwhile, was surprising at the time.
Haiti’s squad also included Penn alum Duke Lacroix, who made the big stage over a decade after his college years with the Quakers.
Four Union alums made the U.S. squad: Aaronson, Wayne’s Matt Freese, Media’s Auston Trusty, and Bear, Del.’s Mark McKenzie. It was the most players from the Philadelphia region on a U.S. team since 1934. (Pulisic could count as an honorary fifth.)
Brenden Aaronson (center) made his second straight World Cup team in 2026.
Former Union midfielder Jamiro Monteiro made Cape Verde’s squad for its first ever World Cup. So did Philadelphia native CJ dos Santos, who had played for U.S. youth teams but switched to the nation of his father’s roots. He was in the Union academy for a while before leaving to Portugese club Benfica, then returning to MLS in 2022 with Inter Miami. In 2024, he moved to San Diego FC, and that was his club at the time of the World Cup.
A referee: Nesbitt was selected to her second straight men’s World Cup on the sidelines. Since 2022, she had been selected for the 2023 women’s tournament, and was part of the first American refereeing team to officiate a women’s World Cup final. (It hadn’t happened before because of how many times the U.S. made the final.)
Broadcasting: Dellacamera, Lloyd and Edu were back with Fox, this time joined by Philadelphia resident and former Independence and U.S. women’s team player Lori Lindsey. She and Dellacamera called some games together, including Ivory Coast vs. Ecuador.
Kathryn Nesbitt at the 2023 World Cup. The 2026 tournament was her third between men and women combined.
For the past year, FIFA, the governing body of international soccer, has leased an office on the 17th floor of New York’s Trump Tower that has sat all but empty. The rent goes to President Trump’s family business, but soccer officials say the space sits largely idle.
Paying rent to the Trumps was the choice of Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s president, who has made being close to Trump a top priority. He has lavished the president with praise, trophies and a medal. He has made pilgrimages to Mar-a-Lago, the Trump National Doral golf club and even the “Melania” documentary premiere.
Infantino has publicly boosted the president through impeachments and plummeting poll numbers.
It was all in service, Infantino’s supporters say, of ensuring that the World Cup, which begins this week, goes off without a hitch. Trump could disrupt the games in any number of ways. Infantino, allies say, is handling a volatile president who responds to praise and gifts.
“He’s straightforward in terms of what you need to do to manage the relationship,” said Majed Al Sahib, a soccer official from Saudi Arabia who said that Infantino was being pragmatic.
President Trump and Gianni Infantino at the White House in 2025 with a trophy intended for the winner of the Club World Cup competition. Trump kept it, and FIFA commissioned another.Haiyun Jiang / The New York Times
FIFA officials are clear about what they want from the World Cup. They want a higher profile in the United States and more growth in the world’s biggest consumer market. They also want to shed the reputation for corruption and cartoonish excess that led to Justice Department prosecutions.
Infantino failed to woo the Biden administration, former government officials said. But he found a receptive ear in Trump, who calls him “the king of soccer.” A decade ago, soccer executives were terrified to travel to the United States, fearing they’d be arrested. Now, Infantino is an Oval Office regular.
Infantino presided over the previous two World Cups, in Russia and Qatar, and drew criticism for cozying up to autocrats in both countries. His amity with Trump has him once again defending his way of operating in what is supposed to be a politically neutral position.
“I think it is absolutely crucial for the success of a World Cup to have a close relationship with the president, with the government,” Infantino said last year. “I have a lot of friends.”
This World Cup will be a test of whether that friendship pays off.
Infantino and President Trump onstage during the Club World Cup final in New Jersey last year.Haiyun Jiang / The New York Times
A top FIFA official says he believes there is an unofficial understanding that the authorities will not conduct immigration enforcement outside of stadiums. (A FIFA spokesman denied any deal and said enforcement was up to the government. The Department of Homeland Security did not address the question.)
The Justice Department also recently dismissed long-running criminal charges as part of its FIFA investigation. Prosecutors said the case “doesn’t fit within the administration’s priorities.”
And Trump seemed to defer to Infantino this spring on allowing Iranian players to come to the United States. “If Gianni said it,” the president said, “I’m OK.”
Still, Trump undercut Infantino recently by criticizing the high cost of tickets. And whatever reassurances may have been made on immigration, support staff for Iran’s national team was denied visas, along with a Somali referee.
Infantino’s coziness with the president also appears to be influencing FIFA in Trump-like ways that could outlast the tournament.
FIFA is exploring hotel deals that would license its name just as the Trump family has long done, according to three people familiar with the discussions. He has also expressed interest in launching a FIFA cryptocurrency, just as the Trumps have done.
A FIFA spokesman said the organization was paying “market rent” in Trump Tower and that the office would be used during the World Cup.
Inside FIFA, many officials privately question whether this has all been in service of Infantino himself. He has accompanied Trump on state visits, sat center stage at the inauguration and has attended diplomatic events.
What does any of that, his critics ask, have to do with soccer?
Infantino declined to be interviewed. His yearslong campaign to curry favor with Trump, and the hand-wringing it has prompted, was described in dozens of interviews with FIFA insiders and others close to the two men. Some spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
“Infantino thinks he’s the leader in the relationship,” said Sepp Blatter, the former FIFA president whose ouster at the height of the corruption scandal paved the way for Infantino’s ascension. “But nobody can lead Trump.”
Infantino meets with Trump for the first time in the Oval Office and jokes about penalty cards.Doug Mills / The New York Times
The first meeting
The men first met in the Oval Office in the summer of 2018. The United States had just won the right, along with Canada and Mexico, to host the World Cup, and the mood was celebratory.
“You’re pretty famous, right?” Trump asked. “Pretty important and pretty famous.”
“Yeah,” Infantino replied. “It looks like it.”
Infantino, a lawyer and the son of an Italian immigrant who worked on Switzerland’s railways, had secured the FIFA presidency the same year that Trump was elected.
In that first White House meeting, he presented the president with a Trump jersey and a set of penalty cards that the men joked could be used on the news media.
“You are part of the FIFA team now,” Infantino said.
It was a remarkable turnabout. Three years earlier, the Justice Department had unveiled an indictment detailing corruption in world soccer. Major brands did not renew their sponsorship deals, and the organization suffered financial losses.
But if Infantino was eager to welcome the president onto FIFA’s team, he quickly found himself on the Trump Team — a pretty important, pretty famous endorser of a president in the middle of an impeachment inquiry.
“Gianni, we’re going to have to extend my second term,” Trump said on the South Lawn in September 2019, as Infantino smiled beside him.
Months later, as lawmakers debated charges of obstruction and abuse of power against Trump, Infantino praised him before business leaders in Davos, Switzerland.
“You might wonder why the president of FIFA is introducing the president of the United States of America,” Infantino said. He joked that it had been suggested that the two of them might be the most important people in attendance.
Soon, Infantino was back at the White House, this time as an unusual guest for the signing of the Abraham Accords, which established diplomatic ties between Israel and some Arab nations. He also arranged a “courtesy visit” with the attorney general, who was overseeing the FIFA cases.
“I am fully convinced,” Infantino said after that meeting, “that the credibility and reputation of FIFA is being restored at the highest level.”
Then came the 2020 election, and Infantino’s fortunes changed.
President Trump and Infantino attended the World Cup draw at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts last December. FIFA had planned to have the event in Las Vegas but moved it to Washington.Tierney L. Cross / The New York Times
A chilly reception, and then a thaw
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. proved to be less welcoming to FIFA than his predecessor. There were no Oval Office greetings.
Administration officials said they had been wary of getting too close to a scandal-tainted organization. They saw no benefit in putting the president alongside Infantino.
“There was definitely a hands-off, keep-them-at-a-distance approach at the White House,” said Caitlin Durkovich, a former National Security Council official who helped oversee World Cup planning. She said FIFA repeatedly tried to arrange meetings with top officials.
In interviews, FIFA officials said that Infantino had been trying to raise FIFA’s profile. More practically, they said, he wanted people, when they Googled “FIFA,” to find anything but stories about bribery and kickbacks.
But even an attempt to meet formally with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar fell flat, according to three people familiar with FIFA’s efforts to arrange a meeting. Infantino’s few interactions with American officials were mostly perfunctory and private, like a half-hour meeting with the national security adviser to address security and visa wait times.
So when Trump won re-election in 2024, there was an opportunity to build on Infantino’s foundation. And Trump seemed eager to pick up where they had left off.
Days before Trump’s second inauguration, the men convened at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in South Florida, and flashed thumbs-up signs for a photo that Infantino posted to Instagram.
Trump thanked him by name at a victory rally. And Infantino had an elevated seat behind Trump at the inauguration.
Infantino eagerly promoted all of it, sounding at times like Trump’s campaign partner. “Together we will make not only America great again, but also the entire world,” he said.
Infantino, it seemed, had achieved everything he wanted: accolades, endorsements and a World Cup task force, proposed by Infantino himself, that gave FIFA a formal place among Trump’s inner circle.
But soon it was clear that such closeness had drawbacks.
‘Private political interests’
When the world’s top soccer officials gathered in Paraguay for their annual meeting in May 2025, Infantino was on the other side of the globe, tagging along on Trump’s state visit to Persian Gulf countries.
The trip had little to do with soccer, and when he finally arrived at the FIFA meeting, he was several hours late. European soccer officials walked out, protesting his prioritization of “private political interests.”
“I felt that I needed to be there to represent football and all of you,” Infantino told them.
It was then that behind-the-scenes grumbles exploded into view. FIFA is an unusual amalgam of 211 countries and territories, each with its own politics. Infantino’s closeness to Trump had impressed some constituencies and alienated others.
“It’s a matter of priorities, and at that moment Trump was the priority for Infantino,” said David Goldblatt, author of “The Ball Is Round: A Global History of Football.”
But Infantino was undeterred.
One of his signature innovations was a 32-team tournament for the world’s best professional teams: the Club World Cup. But when he plugged the event from the Oval Office, he suddenly credited Trump as a co-creator. (After Trump kept the original Tiffany & Company trophy, FIFA presented the winners with another.)
Then, on the eve of the tournament, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that agents would be “suited and booted ready to provide security for the first round of games.”
Tournament officials panicked, terrified that immigration agents would arrest fans, according to three people who participated in planning discussions. Such a spectacle could deter attendance at the 2026 World Cup and potentially lead to a global backlash against FIFA.
By then, Infantino was living in Miami, in the president’s orbit. His advisers strategized about asking Trump for a moratorium on immigration actions, both during the club matches and the World Cup.
While no one close to either man has indicated what, exactly, they discussed privately, FIFA officials said that Infantino pressed the immigration matter. Whether for that reason or not, the government’s social media post was removed and ICE raids never materialized.
Soccer officials said they believed there was a similar understanding for the World Cup. But, as is often the case with Trump, nobody can say for sure.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement, did not acknowledge any such agreement.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in coordination with D.H.S. and other agencies, is dedicated to ensuring the safety and success of the FIFA World Cup,” a D.H.S. spokesperson said.
By some measures, the club tournament represented a win for Infantino’s strategy. He got an Oval Office platform, Ivanka Trump participated in the draw, immigration agents stayed away, and Trump attended the final match.
But it was also a reminder that when there is a limelight, Trump often seizes it for himself.
Appearing onstage after the final whistle, Trump lingered longer than planned, upending meticulous choreography, confusing the winning team and standing squarely before the cameras during the trophy presentation. FIFA and Secret Service officials were alarmed, and fireworks were delayed because of the president’s presence.
It went viral, with Trump basking in FIFA’s moment.
The FIFA Peace Prize awarded to President Trump. The trophy, co-produced by a FIFA employee’s father, was spontaneously sourced from miscellany in FIFA’s possession.Tierney L. Cross / The New York Times
The FIFA Peace Prize
Oval Office visits are now routine for Infantino.
“Always happy to be here, at home, if I can say that,” he said last year.
“You are home,” Trump replied.
When Trump assembled dignitaries and business titans for a state dinner for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Infantino was there.
“I think we should all support what he’s doing,” Infantino said at a business conference in Miami. “Because I think it’s looking pretty good.”
Infantino has sought to capitalize on access to Trump allies. Under his watch, FIFA discussed with former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin an investment in a streaming service, according to a senior FIFA official. Nothing materialized, only because the venture was put on hold, according to a person who was part of the talks.
More recently, FIFA has explored hotel licensing deals with a prominent South Florida developer who is poised to develop the waterfront opposite Mar-a-Lago.
Infantino also lobbied for Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which the president has craved. When the award went to the Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado, Infantino had an idea.
Three weeks after the Nobel announcement, senior FIFA officials were told that Infantino wanted to announce a peace prize of his own. How long, they asked, did they have to work out the details — the criteria, for example, or the makeup of the nomination committee? Those questions went unanswered.
Some of the most senior officials were told straightaway whom the first honoree would be, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans, who learned about the prize and its recipient on the same day.
FIFA did not have time to consider what its prize would look like. But luckily, the father of an employee was a sculptor, and FIFA had in its collection of miscellany a miniature version of one of his pieces, according to two soccer officials. The trophy was in hand.
The FIFA Peace Prize was announced Nov. 5, with the award to be bestowed at the World Cup tournament draw a month later.
FIFA had planned to have that event in Las Vegas. But Paolo Zampolli, a longtime Trump ally serving as a presidential envoy, encouraged Infantino to reconsider.
“To move the president of the United States is a big process,” he recalled saying. Last-minute events might prevent a trip to Las Vegas, he said, but a local venue would better assure his attendance. “You know how important FIFA is for us,” Zampolli added. (FIFA said Zampolli had no influence over the choice.)
Infantino moved the event to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, teasing that the site might be called the Trump-Kennedy Center. Trump attended and, to nobody’s surprise, was the first recipient of the FIFA Peace Prize. He received a certificate, a medal and the repurposed trophy.
Trump called it “truly one of the great honors of my life.”
The award angered many soccer officials, who said that it had embarrassed FIFA and cast the organization as partisan.
Lise Klaveness, the president of Norway’s soccer federation and a human rights lawyer, said the prize breached FIFA’s rules on political neutrality. She announced that Norway would back an ethics complaint against Infantino.
Ms. Klaveness said in an interview that she recognized that FIFA needed “friendly relations” with the governments hosting World Cup games. But she said there needed to be “checks and balances,” to keep FIFA from being used for political purposes.
Infantino, though, has worn his friendship with the president on his sleeve. And his head. At one public meeting, world leaders and delegates were given red “USA” baseball caps. Infantino happily donned his, emblazoned with the numbers 45-47, signifying the Trump presidencies.
This winter, as Infantino marked a decade in the job, he celebrated with a party at a Four Seasons hotel in Miami. Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, attended.
The celebration carried into spring, when Infantino announced at a soccer meeting in Vancouver that he would run for a third term. He argued that the organization had repaired its reputation and played a slide show that included Trump.
“We have definitely come a long way these last 10 years,” he told soccer officials. FIFA, he said, was now “sitting at the top tables, in every aspect.”
With the FIFA World Cup approaching, some may hope for a new chapter of “sports diplomacy” to relieve tensions between the countries. When South Africa’s national football team takes the field this summer, it marks Bafana Bafana’s first World Cup appearance in 16 years. But U.S. visa policies initially threatened South Africa’s ability to travel. At nearly every turn, the Trump administration is sending a clear message: it is hostile to a Black-led South Africa and sympathetic to its white minority. The domestic politics of race and white supremacy, long an undertone of U.S.-South African ties, animate the current bilateral relationship.
The Trump administration’s embrace of white South Africans and the tensions with the African National Congress (ANC), the liberation movement-turned-political party that currently governs South Africa as part of a coalition, are not without historical precedent. Throughout the Cold War, Washington maintained close ties with apartheid South Africa’s white minority regime. Race was always part of the equation, but it was camouflaged in the language of anticommunism and strategic interest. Today, with the Cold War long over, racial politics are more exposed.
From the early years of the Cold War, anti-Communism and race were entangled features of the U.S.-South African relationship. For Washington, South Africa’s white minority government was a reliable ally: rich in strategically important natural resources, home to a crucial shipping route and a bulwark against the Soviet Union in southern Africa.
This relationship continued despite the formal consolidation of apartheid in 1948. The Afrikaner-led National Party systematically implemented apartheid, a draconian patchwork of racial segregation policies that stripped Black South Africans of their land and citizenship while blunting Black mobility. Despite this odious lack of democracy, Washington actively encouraged friendly relations with the white-minority-ruled South Africa. Cold War objectives overpowered moral arguments against apartheid.
But the Cold War also shaped racial politics in unexpected ways. Just as Washington tolerated apartheid abroad, it was contending with its own system of racial segregation under Jim Crow. The Cold War created a powerful incentive for the United States to manage its image on race at home and abroad. The Soviet Union eagerly broadcast U.S. racial violence to newly decolonizing nations across Africa and Asia, undermining U.S. claims to lead the free world. This exposed Washington’s liability and motivated federal policymakers, becoming a key driver of civil rights victories and landmark decisions, such as school desegregation.
These dynamics had the potential to threaten U.S. support for South Africa. After all, how could the self-proclaimed leader of the free world maintain its alliance with a government built on white supremacy? The answer, for most of the Cold War, was to turn a blind eye. And in the early Cold War years, domestic pressure campaigns to halt support for apartheid South Africa faced charges of communist subversion, severely blunting their impact and reach. While the Cold War opened the door to domestic civil rights gains, its politics in the early years also stymied avenues of resistance that could force Washington’s hand.
Yet cracks eventually began to show. The rising tide of decolonization further exposed the hypocrisy of U.S. support for South Africa. In 1960 alone, 17 African nations gained independence from European colonial rule. Another turning point was the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, in which South African police killed 69 Black protesters, shocking international opinion and placing the evils of the apartheid state on full display. In turn, African leaders frequently criticized apartheid at the United Nations, placing Washington on the defensive. South Africa faced mounting international isolation, and Washington had to decide between its Cold War alliance with white-led South Africa on the one hand and its credibility with the decolonizing world on the other.
The Nixon and Ford administrations resolved that tension by drawing Washington ever closer to South Africa’s white minority in the 1970s. Even as demands mounted from groups like the Congressional Black Caucus and the blossoming anti-apartheid movement for mandatory economic sanctions and a formal severing of U.S. ties to the regime, Washington remained steadfast. They concluded that gradual, constructive change, which they claimed to desire, could only come from white South Africans themselves not from U.S. pressure. It was an argument that conveniently absolved Washington of any responsibility to pressure Pretoria—and revealed U.S. policymakers’ views that Black South Africans were not credible leaders of their own liberation. Washington’s continued support became more exposed when, in 1974, South Africa was expelled from the United Nations General Assembly.
Following the June 1976 Soweto massacre, where South African police killed over a hundred protesting students, international opinion grew more outraged, adding urgency to calls for sanctions.Winds of change arrived, albeit briefly, when the Carter administration initially took an aggressive approach to apartheid, aligning U.S. foreign policy with an interest in promoting human rights abroad.That agenda changed in the 1980s. President Reagan rejected calls for economic sanctions, instead endorsing “constructive engagement,” the argument that crippling the South African economy would hurt rather than liberate Black South Africans. Critics such as Desmond Tutu rejected this logic, arguing that Black South Africans had repeatedly called for sanctions. The U.S. Congress was also unconvinced. On October 2, 1986, a bipartisan majority overrode Reagan’s veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, imposing economic sanctions and severing Washington’s formal ties to the regime.
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Following decades of pressure, South Africa held its first multiracial elections in April 1994, bringing the ANC and Nelson Mandela to power. Washington warmly welcomed a democratic South Africa, which it now saw as a model for a peaceful transition to majority rule. In a post-Cold War world, the strategic rationale for supporting white South Africa largely disappeared; the U.S. no longer needed its defense against Soviet expansion.
But the Trump administration’s hostile stance today is a signal that the Cold War relationship with South Africa was never purely animated by military necessity; a willingness to accept white minority rule undergirded the U.S.-South African relationship and was consistently reflected in policy. Now, those racial politics have become far more visible. The “white genocide” myth, Afrikaner refugee exception and hostility toward South African diplomats are driven by racial politics and a consistent willingness to privilege the concerns of South Africa’s white minority, unmediated by Cold War necessity.
Whether or not the U.S.-South African relationship can be improved remains to be seen. Sport, which often reaches audiences that diplomacy cannot, also serves as a potential arena for reconciliation. The history of democratic South Africa suggests that sport has, more than once, progressed more rapidly than politics. The 1995 Rugby World Cup was perhaps the most celebrated example, when Mandela used the tournament to signal reconciliation, a moment immortalized in the Clint Eastwood film Invictus.
South Africa’s first participation in the World Cup since it hosted in 2010, on American soil no less, symbolizes that potential. And yet, until Washington reckons with the racial politics driving its relationship with South Africa, both past and present, the World Cup is more likely to highlight the divide than to heal it.
Mattie Webb, PhD, is an assistant professor of history at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and a Nonresident Fellow with the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group.
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of The Inquirer.
