​It was the Gershwin brothers who wrote the line, “They’re writing songs of love, but not for me.” You could echo that sentiment for U.S. men’s soccer now that the World Cup is nearing its end and our team, once again, is back home, glued to the couch. Yet another four-year cycle ends in a crash and burn, despite all the chatter about how strong we looked this time and how playing on home soil would supposedly tilt things in our favor. Pundits wring their hands, analysts dissect our failure, and the national debate, like clockwork at every World Cup, returns to the same refrain: the United States men have been knocked out of the round of 16 in three of their last four appearances. “Why can’t we ever advance? We’re one of the biggest countries in the world!” The questions are familiar, almost ritual.
In the wake of Belgium’s fourth goal against the United States in the knockout round, fans gathered at watch parties like the one at Campus Martius Park in Detroit, trying to process a moment that felt almost inevitable for many who follow the sport here. But here’s a reminder for the soccer crowd with the asterisked optimism: the answer to why our team hasn’t broken through remains consistent. Most of our players, much like the Gershwin brothers themselves, grew up in America. And in this country, unlike the nations still competing at the World Cup, our young male athletes place soccer behind football and basketball in popularity. They watch the U.S. professional league, MLS, less than they watch the NFL, the NBA, MLB, the NHL, golf, auto racing, or even bowling in some cases.
Our best young talents are out there shooting hoops, juking linebackers, and envisioning a Lakers jersey or a Cowboys helmet more clearly than a Paris Saint-Germain kit. It isn’t that we lack talent; it’s that we lack a certain shared dream. And, for the record—soccer elitists, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. This is part of America’s fabric, not a deficiency. Accepting this truth is the first step: it’s okay that America doesn’t win the World Cup. It doesn’t threaten our standing at the United Nations or condemn us to some eternal designation. If a player like Kylian Mbappé could make you wonder why we don’t have a star of comparable caliber, perhaps point out that such a person might have been a quarterback or point guard instead, poised to fling a football through a tire at 30 yards.
We do produce some of the world’s greatest athletes, but many of them are funneled into other sports. We can bemoan that, we can celebrate it, but we should accept it. Because this ritual, every four years, often leads to a pounding head that can feel like a concussion. And yes, that very posture is something soccer can deliver in abundance, if you let it.
On the Mbappé note, I caught his winning goal against Morocco the other day. It was a masterclass in timing and technique. He received the ball on the wing after a quick restart, pressed forward with defenders bearing down, and choreographed his feet with the precision of a virtuoso. His side-footed strike bent past the scrambling defense, arriving in a seam of space that seemed to whisper, even to an American observer, about the artistry that elevates a game beyond mere athleticism.
So here we stand, acknowledging the cultural math of American sports: we excel in many arenas, yet soccer often sits outside the epicenter of our national sporting imagination. The World Cup cycle will come again, and with it the debates, the what-ifs, and the questions about whether a home-field advantage can tilt the scales. The truth remains that the soccer ecosystem in the United States will continue to grow, not by denying the pull of football and basketball, but by embracing the reality that the country’s athletic heartbeat beats in multiple directions. And as for the global spectacle itself, it will keep delivering moments of beauty, like Mbappé’s goal, that remind us why we watch and why, sometimes, we fall a little short of the dream.