The United States had the greatest opportunity in the history of American soccer. They wasted it | USA

In the final moments of the United States’ 3-2 victory over Portugal in the 2002 World Cup, ESPN commentator Jack Edwards took a moment to remind viewers who had stayed up all night of the profound result they were witnessing. From his perch in Suwon, South Korea — where he was watching the first game of a campaign that would end in a quarterfinal that remains the high point of the modern U.S. men’s national team — Edwards delivered a monologue that cut to the heart of the profound role World Cups play not only for the U.S. men’s team but for soccer as a force in American life.

“The players from that 1950 team that beat England…this [result] “It’s about the foundation that they laid,” Edwards said in his ringing bravado as the time approached 7 a.m. Eastern. “It’s about the thousands of American families who helped this sport grow, and the people in these pockets all over the country who have stuck with the game of football. And it’s also about those seven, eight, nine year old kids, who are going to hear about this result when they wake up in the morning and run outside and hit a ball against a wall and dream of something even bigger than that.

I often found myself thinking about Edwards’ monologue during the United States’ participation in the World Cup this year. It comes to mind every time I see the streets teeming with red, white and blue on game days up and down the West Coast. It resonated every time eye-popping TV numbers dropped. I thought about it every time I saw groups of kids – aged seven, eight or nine – gathering with their parents at training facilities, stadiums and hotels, eager to get an autograph or just to catch a glimpse of their heroes.

Each time, I asked myself: when will this moment of inspiration come for these children? Who will provide it? What will it look like, what will it feel like? At no point during the tournament did I think about the consequences if the opposite happened.

What would these kids have thought of what the United States produced Monday night in its 4-1 loss to Belgium? What were the country’s soccer fans saying to their non-soccer fan friends who they had finally convinced to watch a game with them, because it was the biggest game? The families Edwards was referring to – what must they have been thinking? At some point, they are blessed with the feeling that they are on the verge of something great and that the hard work and dedication they have put into this sport might finally pay off and be accepted by the general public.

What inspiration was there in the team’s disjointed advances, in the missed defensive assignments, in the lack of poise with which the team played at almost every key moment? An alarming lack of technical and tactical resources compared to a very good Belgian team? Opponents and experts from other countries celebrating the disappearance of their national team?

We don’t yet know what the TV numbers look like for Monday’s game, but in a similar primetime slot last week, the previous U.S. record for a soccer broadcast was shattered, with around 31 million. At the very least, millions more — probably tens of millions — were tuning in Monday night for their first taste of the U.S. men’s national team. And their first impression was that of a team that was not up to par.

These people were not the longtime stalwarts of the game that Edwards was referring to. But they will have understood what a team facing a top opponent looks like. They would have noticed this if they had observed Mexico, for all its faults, struggling and struggling in search of a point of support against England. They would have noticed if they had watched any of the United States’ previous matches in this World Cup – from the dreamy 4-1 victory over Paraguay to the pragmatic 2-0 victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina in the round of 32.

The 2026 World Cup was supposed to be a harbinger of the future of the U.S. men’s national team program. And the great illusion of this tournament may well be that, for a few feverish weeks, we all thought that would be the case. Instead, we’re back where we were. Good against teams we should beat, but we’re still waiting for that extra breakthrough against teams we shouldn’t beat.

There will be a lot of time spent and ink spilled to explain why the United States failed on Monday night. I’m not convinced that any of this really matters. Instead, I am left with one unshakable and daunting conviction to consider: that the United States has just squandered the greatest opportunity for growth in the history of American soccer.

What happens when a nation of potential new supporters – the living, breathing promise of a once-in-a-generation home World Cup – is offered something worse than heartbreak: utter inadequacy?

We may be about to find out.

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