When the United States men’s national team takes the field for its Round of 32 match at the World Cup on Wednesday against Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country should be having one of those rare, uncomplicated sports moments.
The flags are out, the bars are packed and the casual fans are in.
This is what American soccer has wanted forever, right?
UNITED STATES SHATTERS WORLD CUP VIEWERSHIP RECORD IN FIRST MATCH VS PARAGUAY IN LOS ANGELES
It begged for more people treating a USMNT game like a national event instead of something only for soccer diehards who have spent years insisting everyone else just doesn’t understand “the beautiful game.”
Well, congratulations.
America cares.
And some of American soccer’s gatekeepers don’t seem very happy about it.
Sound familiar?
It should, because the WNBA is going through the same thing with Caitlin Clark.
For years, the WNBA asked the country for more attention, more coverage, more respect and more casual sports fans. Then Clark showed up and delivered all of it almost overnight.
She brought Iowa fans, men, women, families and gamblers. She made the WNBA a topic on sports debate shows and news programs. She helped convince people who had never watched a WNBA regular-season game in their entire lives to give the league a chance.
Essentially, she brought the mainstream.
And a lot of people started acting like someone had opened the wrong door. That included players in the league, team owners, coaches and media members.
Hell, just this week talking head Emmanuel Acho actually said out loud that the WNBA “would be better off without Caitlin Clark.” There have been a lot of terrible takes about Clark’s impact on the league. That one was, without question, the worst.
But Acho’s comments sound a lot like what we’re hearing from some members of the soccer media.
It’s not that the WNBA and the USMNT are the same. Obviously, they aren’t.
However, both exposed the same gatekeeping instinct from certain types of people.
For years, the WNBA and members of the American soccer media claimed they wanted, and deserved, growth. But that’s not the whole truth. What they really want is approved growth. Growth from the right people, with the right politics and using the right language.
The WNBA wanted new fans until Clark brought the “wrong” fans.
Now American soccer is learning what happens when the “wrong” Americans show up for the World Cup.
The USMNT’s first knockout game should be a dream moment for the sport in this country. Not only is Team USA into the second stage of soccer’s biggest event, but the Americans are favored to advance to the Round of 16. And this is all happening on U.S. soil.
This is the kind of moment that turns casual fans into real fans. Just look at the impact Team USA hockey’s Olympic gold medal had on the sport in the United States. The 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs boasted some of its best television ratings in history.
Yet, the same people who begged for this opportunity for years suddenly want to police the moment.
The Guardian made that very clear with its ridiculous piece on Fox’s World Cup coverage, framing Thierry Henry vs. Alexi Lalas as “the World Cup’s most compelling battle,” while calling Henry a “French aristocrat” and Lalas an “all-American idiot.”
The article labeled Lalas a “MAGA hack” and argued that Fox’s loud, patriotic, American approach to covering the tournament clashed with what soccer supposedly is in the United States.
And what is soccer in the United States, according to The Guardian?
A sport for “migrants, urban liberals” and people “too scrawny” for other American sports.
Translation: soccer belongs to them.
Not to you.
Not to the casual fan or the Fox viewer. And certainly not to the American who hears the national anthem and feels pride in the country instead of disgust.
And The Guardian wasn’t alone.
USA Today columnist Nancy Armour wrote before the tournament that the United States had “already lost” the World Cup because of its “greed and hostility.”
MS NOW turned a Department of Homeland Security post celebrating the USMNT into another immigration and nationalism lecture. The Athletic asked who, exactly, this World Cup is for.
This is the same attitude the WNBA exposed during the Caitlin Clark explosion.
The league wanted relevance. It wanted to be discussed like a major American sport.
Clark brought exactly that.
And suddenly everyone discovered that major American sports discourse is loud, tribal and impossible to control.
Were there bad actors in the Clark conversation? Of course.
Every fan base has idiots and every popular athlete attracts trolls. There are always going to be people who say dumb things online and should probably touch a little more grass.
Nobody has to defend that.
But too many media members and league-adjacent voices took the worst people online and tried to use them to discredit the entire new audience.
Clark fans weren’t just passionate. They were toxic.
Now American soccer is facing a version of the same test.
The USMNT’s World Cup run is bringing in people who don’t usually watch soccer. Some of them won’t know all the rules. Some of them won’t know most of the players.
They’ll just know the United States is playing and they’ll want the United States to win.
That’s enough.
Or at least it should be.
But gatekeepers hate that because it means they lose control of the room.
The Independent ran an article with the headline, “Are you rooting against the US at the World Cup? You’re not alone.”
It included this line: “Sports have a way of fueling nationalistic passions, and I fully expect plenty of people who don’t care much about soccer to channel their patriotic sentiments into the tournament.”
See what we mean?
The sport no longer belongs only to the people who were there when nobody else cared. The league no longer belongs only to the (very few) fans who watched before Clark arrived. The national team no longer belongs only to the people who understand “soccer culture.”
That’s what mainstream popularity does: gives everyone a “seat at the table.” Isn’t that what the left is always asking for in every other context?
The NFL doesn’t get to choose its fans. Neither does college football, the NBA or Major League Baseball.
If American soccer wants to be mainstream, it doesn’t get to choose either.
Neither does the WNBA.
The Caitlin Clark boom should have been treated as a victory for the WNBA. She proved there was an audience for women’s basketball when the right star came along. She proved people would watch, buy merchandise and care enough to argue.
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American soccer should see the USMNT’s World Cup moment the same way.
If casual fans are showing up for group stage games, good.
If people are chanting “USA!” too much, good.
If they call it soccer, good.
If they watch Fox News or vote Republican, good.
That means the sport reached people outside the bubble.
Isn’t that what everyone said they wanted?
