Six of the 26 players on the team, which will face Belgium in a World Cup elimination game Monday, are foreign-born. Five others were born to immigrant parents and two others have immigrant grandparents or great-grandparents. Nearly half have dual nationality<\/a>.<\/p>\n U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino jumps into the arms of his players after their World Cup win over Paraguay at SoFi Stadium on June 12.<\/p>\n (Allen J. Schaben\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Yet they all play with the U.S. flag stitched over their hearts. What could be more American than that?<\/p>\n \u201cIt is special,\u201d U.S. captain Tim Ream said of having the team together on Independence Day. \u201cObviously, doubly special because it\u2019s during a World Cup and triple special because it\u2019s here in the U.S. \u201cAs a group, with all our different backgrounds, it\u2019s a true representation of what America is. It\u2019s a melting pot of, of people, of personalities, of characters.\u201d<\/p>\n And it\u2019s led by a country-music-listening Argentine coach, Mauricio Pochettino<\/a>, who first learned to throw a baseball last week so he could perform first-pitch duties at a Seattle Mariners\u2019 game. (He threw a strike<\/a>.)<\/p>\n \u201cThat sort of stuff can only happen in America,\u201d said striker Folarin Balogun<\/a>, who grew up in England with Nigerian parents but plays for the U.S. because he was born in Brooklyn, qualifying for birthright citizenship through the 14th Amendment to the constitution Wilson helped write.<\/p>\n It would be hard for the U.S. soccer team to more closely resemble the architects who founded the country, nor the vision those architects had for their creation.<\/p>\n Eight the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence and eight of the 55 framers of the Constitution were immigrants. That\u2019s about the same percentage of immigrants on this summer\u2019s World Cup roster. Another 20 of the Founding Fathers were the sons of immigrants; again, the same percentage as the national team.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is the U.S. experience of taking different people from all over the world, the immigrant experience, and mixing it into something that the world has never seen,\u201d said Adam Sawyer, a co-founder of Relevant Research, a Baltimore firm which provides support to immigration researchers and organizations.<\/p>\n \u201cOne in seven Americans was foreign-born. Our soccer team is like one in four. I always think of soccer [as] leading society and it\u2019s pulling us with it,\u201d continued Sawyer, who recently published an analysis of the role global migration has played on World Cup success. \u201cOur sporting teams push us forward towards further integration.\u201d<\/p>\n The signers of the Declaration of Independence never foresaw a World Cup, much less an American World Cup team. But they did see immigration as such a fundamental strength, they used America\u2019s founding document to condemn King George III for endeavoring \u201cto prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners.\u201d<\/p>\n Without that naturalization, Christian Pulisic<\/a> might not be playing for the U.S.; in fact, he might not even be in the U.S. His paternal grandfather Mate immigrated from the former Yugoslavia in search of opportunity and was later naturalized as a U.S. citizen. The paternal ancestors of goalkeeper Matt Turner<\/a> became naturalized citizens after fleeing to the U.S. to escape religious persecution in Lithuania and midfielder Cristian Roldan\u2019s<\/a> parents escaped civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, then gained permanent residency through President Reagan\u2019s amnesty program.<\/p>\n \u201cThis soccer team is reflecting America at its best,\u201d said Faisal Al-Juburi, co-chief executive of RAICES, a Texas-based humanitarian aid and immigration services nonprofit. \u201cIts global roots, its shared purpose, its one jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"U.S.](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781329215_201_.jpeg\")
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