sporty

With the World Cup only two months away, many fans wonder how the United States' National Men's Team will perform. While the USMNT is not considered a heavy favorite, fans remain hopeful that the team is capable of making a deep run and helping usher in a new era of soccer in the US. Since the 1994 World Cup and the launch of Major League Soccer,  soccer's visibility in the United States has grown exponentially.  So, how can the USMNT make the most of this increased level of attention as host nations, and are they up for the challenge? A lot of experts consider this crop of players to be the most talented that the US Soccer has ever produced.  Current players like Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, and Tyler Adams, often dubbed as part of the golden generations,  are products of a soccer infrastructure built post 1994–an infrastructure that now develops talent capable of competing at the highest levels, even if that development is often completed in Europe. The USMN...

  When it was announced that the United States would host the 1994 World Cup, it was quite shocking. First, there was no stable professional soccer league in America.  There have been several attempts to capitalize on soccer in the US, but none of them really caught on or were poorly managed. Plus, the United States did not have a global presence in international soccer.  Before 1994,  the men's national team was nearly invisible on the world stage.  The USMNT went 40 years (1950-1990) without qualifying for a single World Cup. When it was announced on July 4, 1988, it was announced that the United States would host the 1994 FIFA World Cup. At that point, they had not qualified for a single World Cup since 1950. The US beat out Brazil and Morocco, and it only took one round of voting, with the US receiving a little over half of the votes from the FIFA Executive Committee. FIFA hoped that by granting the United States the opportunity to host the most prestigious ...