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The United States male football national football will be the home team of the World Cup next year, and they could splash.
Eleven of the 16 host stadiums of the next year tournament, which starts exactly a year from Wednesday, are in the United States, with the New Jersey Metlife stadium welcoming the final.
After 1994, Major League Soccer was born and it goes without saying that the immediate rise in the popularity of football in the country was exponential.
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Landon Donovan and Alexi Lalas (Imagn; Getty Images)
But he has apparently struck a wall in recent years because the USMNT has not exactly given the Americans a chance to grasp.
The team entered the knockout stages in 2010 and 2014, but did not even manage to qualify for the tournament in 2018. The USMNT returned to the round of 16 three years ago, but could not get out of the American COPA group phase on their own home last year.
The legend of the American team Landon Donovan, however, believes that football is “safe” in the country, even if the American team disappoints, and its popularity can only go up from here.
“There will be a lot of pressure, for sure, in this team. You play a World Cup in front of your crowd, there will certainly be pressure. Is the football state in difficulty if they do not succeed well? No,” said Donovan at a conference call with journalists this week.
“There is a massive and massive opportunity [for this team]. In my world cup experiences ’02, when we have done very well, my life has changed and the trajectory of American football has changed a little. “”
But here again, Donovan has scored one of the most famous objectives in the history of football in the United States: his goal in the time of stopping Algeria has put the United States in the group phase for the first time since 2002.
“In 2010, it is that on steroids when we had an emblematic moment. So, if this team can do one of the two things, go far and / or will have an emblematic moment or two, it will catapult football through the roof in this country.”
The United States Player Landon Donovan (10) famous after scoring the winning goal in the 91st minute while the United States beat Algeria, 1-0, in a 2010 FIFA C World Cup match in Tshwane / Pretoria, South Africa. (Adam Jacobs / Icon SMI / ICON SPORT MEDIA via Getty Images)
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Alex Lasry, CEO of the Nynj host committee, has offered similar feelings, saying that world stars coming to the United States will be enough to develop sport itself.
“If this ends up not being what we hope, I do not think that this will alleviate what the World Cup means for the United States,” Lasry told PK Press Club Digital at the Liberty State Park in Jersey City, which shelters the Official World Cup festival in 2026 on Wednesday and organized an account launching party on Wednesday.
“I don’t think that will alleviate the way this 6, 7, 8 year old man [Lionel] Messi, [Kylian] Mbappe, [Cristiano] Ronaldo, [Christian] Pulisic, the sports stars here, are what will lead to this next generation of athletes saying: “I want to be part of it.” “”
The former former USMNT Alex Lalas took the other side of the medal. While agreeing with Donovan because it is enough for a special moment for the country to cling, he said that he did not leave this squad “.
“It is a generation that, in the past 30 years, everyone has worked to ensure that they have everything they need in terms of opportunities and resources they have; and with it comes from higher expectations and just expectations,” said Lalas. “The one who is finally on this field next summer, I hope they will recognize the opportunity and the responsibility to advance the game. [does that look] as? It can take many different forms. But when this final whistle for the American team, you want to leave by thinking: “It was something that I remember. It made me proud to be not only a football fan in the United States, but to be an American. ‘”
Alexi Lalas (Katelyn Mulcahy – FIFA / FIFA via Getty Images)
“You must be ready for this and seize this opportunity with both hands and get the most out of it,” he said. “I do not want to let them take down, because I think they can do things that we have never seen before. They need the gods of football to smile, but each team of the World Cup needs a little luck in the future. And in next year, they will have to work on what is going on, and I think that the attitude on the field, to ensure that they will maximize.”
The FIFA 2026 World Cup takes place in North America next year and will be presented on Fox Sports.
