{"id":472329,"date":"2026-06-02T12:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/472329\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T12:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T12:51:08","slug":"has-the-world-cup-arrived-yet-in-the-us-it-depends-on-who-you-ask-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/472329\/","title":{"rendered":"Has the World Cup arrived yet? In the US, it depends on who you ask | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Organizationally speaking, the 2026 World Cup<\/a> began on 13 June 2018, when then-Fifa general secretary Fatma Samoura sternly instructed the delegates to cast their vote in a cavernous conference hall in Moscow.<\/p>\n

Yet mere days away from the tournament\u2019s kickoff in Mexico City, it doesn\u2019t really feel like the thing is here yet. At least, not in the US. And not in New York, the host city for the final.<\/p>\n

It can be oddly difficult to tell when and where a World Cup has well and truly started. It\u2019s not when the draw takes place; there\u2019s too much winter left, too much club soccer to be played. It also isn\u2019t the opening match, or the preceding ceremony; if anything, those seem late. The thing exists tangibly in the weeks and months before that, as the world prepares and positions itself for the impending tournament.<\/p>\n

Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie, who will probably make up much of the United States men\u2019s national team midfield this summer, were 19 when their home country was named as a co-host. That\u2019s when they knew that their nation, for which both men had made their senior debuts on the same day seven months earlier, had qualified automatically as one of the three co-hosts.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it started to feel real probably after [this past] season finished, because we had a lot of pressure at our club level,\u201d said McKennie. \u201cSo I wanted to just finish my season off with Juventus and then, after that \u2026 I think it\u2019ll start to hit me more. Obviously, whenever you get the message that you\u2019re named to the roster, that\u2019s another big moment where you realize, OK, it\u2019s starting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo days ago, I was playing against Nottingham Forest, hoping to achieve something,\u201d said Adams, a Bournemouth player in the Premier League. \u201cYesterday, [I] got off the plane and we\u2019re in Times Square. I think it\u2019ll probably hit tomorrow, when we start training properly and really start preparing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adams and McKennie were speaking at US Soccer\u2019s World Cup roster unveiling event at the swanky Pier 17 complex at South Street Seaport in Manhattan. In a bonanza of red, white and blue, the 26 players picked by head coach Mauricio Pochettino were announced one by one, trundling on to a large concert stage on the building\u2019s rooftop. They emerged to loud music and from in between blasts of smoke, clad in grey suits over knitted T-shirts and white sneakers. Then they stood about as the rapper Gunna performed in front of them.<\/p>\n

The whole thing was a bit much. \u201cThat\u2019s America,\u201d Adams wryly noted.<\/p>\n

Flags of participating countries are displayed on the Seattle monorail. Photograph: Paul Christian Gordon\/Zuma Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Yet such events exist exactly to signal that the World Cup really is here, that it isn\u2019t just a far-off notion. This remains tricky in a country where, as much as the popularity of soccer has grown, the international game is still mostly treated like the Olympics, something to get into for a few weeks every four years. The NBA playoffs are near their apotheosis \u2013 with the New York Knicks in the finals, no less \u2013 while the hockey and baseball seasons are ongoing as well. There\u2019s a lot going on, and the World Cup, for now, is just one of those things.<\/p>\n

The most evidence of the impending tournament can be found in the various businesses that sponsor the thing. Shop for a bucket of paint or a rake at a hardware chain and you may stumble on some signage, if you\u2019re paying attention. Pharmacies have plush mascots for sale among other officially licensed trinkets. \u201cTo see all the different branding and things that are being put up around the country has made it that much more real in the past couple weeks,\u201d said the US captain, Tim Ream.<\/p>\n

Weighing anticipation and the present is a tricky balance for players to strike. They are expected to live day to day, practice to practice, game to game. And for the US, absent a qualification process that stretched over a year or two, they lacked the usual signage that demarcates the cycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I kind of felt it on the horizon,\u201d said Christian Pulisic. \u201cObviously, you\u2019re focusing on what you\u2019re doing at your club, but I\u2019d say once I got here and kind of was with the team and felt these fans and support and buzz around the World Cup, is when I really started to feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Players on the bubble experienced Monday\u2019s Fifa roster deadline differently. \u201cProbably within the last month was sort of when all these players were very, very nervous and wondering what was going to happen and hoping to be there,\u201d said Gio Reyna, whose eventual inclusion felt unlikely for long stretches of the past year. \u201cComing down the last couple of weeks of the season, I think it was on everyone\u2019s mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now that the team has finally assembled, some members still don\u2019t entirely sense that the moment is here. \u201cMaybe that first game of the World Cup, being a part of that, maybe is when it will really hit; or maybe it will be a week after the entire World Cup \u2013 I\u2019m not sure,\u201d said defender Miles Robinson. \u201cIt\u2019s slow to really sink in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leander Schaerlaeckens is the author of The Long Game: U.S. Men\u2019s Soccer and Its Savage, Four-Decade Journey to the Top, or Thereabouts, which is out now<\/a>. He teaches at Marist University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Organizationally speaking, the 2026 World Cup began on 13 June 2018, when then-Fifa general secretary Fatma Samoura sternly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-472329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}