The Long Game: U.S. Men's Soccer and Its Savage, Four-Decade Journey to the Top, or Thereabouts

The gripping account of the U.S. men’s national soccer team’s winding saga from obscurity to the global stage as they stand on the brink of a seminal World Cup in 2026

For almost half a century, the U.S. men’s national team existed on the fringes of world soccer—out of sight, out of mind, and, more often than not, out of the World Cup. Between 1950 and 1990, the program toiled in irrelevance, a collection of part-timers playing before empty bleachers.

Then, things began to shift, and today’s ...