A World Cup to Remember

As the U.S. wins its first two games for the first time since the original tournament in 1930 (thus winning its group), reflections on a quick trip to see two idols of the "beautiful game."

The first World Cup I can remember was the Maradona World Cup, Mexico 1986. Canada qualified for the first time ever, so there was much excitement among the elementary-schoolers in my little town in Ontario. As well as puzzlement that this game that we’d only ever seen played by kids our age was now elevated onto a global stage. And jokes about how weird it was they weren’t playing on ice and with sticks.

But I got my passion for the World Cup from my dad, who had played semi-pro soccer in the Soviet Union. (I imagine that “semi-pro” in a communist country in the 1950s meant you were occasionally given a meal, but in any event he didn’t pursue anything athletic past his early 20s.) We’re coming up on his third yahrzeit, the anniversary of his passing, and I have brief but vivid memories of that summer 40 years ago, as he explained the history of the sport while we watched grainy footage from Estadio Azteca and other venues. I cut the tournament schedule out of the newspaper and taped it to the top of the TV, noting the scores as the games were played.

The next few World Cups reflected different seasons of my adolescence and youth. 1990 was a low-scoring affair that planted my curiosity about Italy. The United States hosted the 1994 edition, of course, but we couldn’t afford tickets or travel—in retrospect, I wonder whether I should’ve pushed my dad to road-trip to Detroit and take a chance with scalpers—and then I became busy with a formative summer in Quebec. I remember the “denim” U.S. jerseys and Roberto Baggio skying his penalty shot to allow Brazil to win, but that’s about it. In 1998, I was having a blast interning in Washington, and remember watching the final in a bar that had been taken over by Brazilians—who were sad for a moment when France won (on home soil), but then the samba resumed.

My twins—Ollie Ballie and Goalina—were born a week before the 2022 World Cup.

In 2002, I got the opportunity to go to South Korea to visit a grad-school friend and see a few games. One of those was Senegal’s stunning upset of France in the opener and another was the 3-2 U.S. upset of Portugal that heralded our run to the quart-finals. There weren’t too many Americans who made that trek, and even fewer who spoke Spanish, so I was interviewed by Telemundo (or was it Univision?) before and after the match. Then the late Grant Wahl—reporting for Sports Illustrated—and I organized an after-party at a barbecue place whose owners didn’t speak English but thankfully had pictures on their menus. (“Forty orders of chicken and fries, please, and keep the beer flowing!”) When I got back stateside, I watched games either while running on a treadmill before work as a summer associate or at one particular bar in Arlington, Summers, which had the satellite package and stayed open at all hours of the night.

And so it went every four years. The World Cup provided a nice backdrop to the early summer in a way that was simpler than the Olympics, about which I’ve written in the past.

As we’ve discovered with the European fans who’ve gone viral in discovering the real America, it’s only partly about the soccer itself, and partly about the culture of it all. There aren’t as many political narratives as with the Olympics—no matter how much left-wing sports writers want to focus on U.S. immigration policies and the like—and everybody can beat up on FIFA’s corruption and mismanagement. Although current FIFA boss Gianni Infantino aspires to greater geopolitical influence, even creating a Peace Prize to award to Donald Trump, the International Olympic Committee’s pretense about leading a “movement” for world peace and brotherhood isn’t a great fit for what’s at base a one-sport championship.

And so we come to the tri-hosted 2026 World Cup. Months ago I had signed up for the earliest ticket lottery, ultimately securing five tickets to three games. Washington wasn’t named one of the host cities, so I had to make strategic decisions on where to go. I figured I could take one of my sons to back-to-back games in Kansas City and Texas, and then would also make a solo day-trip to Philadelphia. I made these choices before the teams were assigned to groups or cities, so it could’ve been something like Cape Verde-Saudi Arabia or Jordan-Uzbekistan. Instead, I literally won the lottery, securing Argentina-Algeria (Messi!), Portugal-DR Congo (Ronaldo!), and France-Iraq (Mbappe!). But I also got the tickets before game times were set, so ended up with an 8pm game in Kansas City followed by a noon kickoff in Houston. Logistically tough, but doable. (Had I picked Dallas instead of Houston, we would’ve ended up with a better game in England-Croatia and a more forgiving flight schedule—but we would’ve missed Charlie’s favorite player, Cristiano Ronaldo.)

That trip was this past week. Highlights from the first half include seeing my soccer-mad eight-year-old attend his first World Cup match, a multistory sporting goods emporium called Scheel’s, and, of course, Messigol (actually Messihattrick). Lowlights include a long hot line to get into FanFest and having to circumnavigate Arrowhead Kansas City Stadium for 2.5 hours in less-than-crawling traffic to get to my $150 parking spot—while other fans were stranded downtown or walking for miles—which FIFA’s ergonomic consultants thought was brilliant logistics I’m sure. If only Grant Wahl were around to write about his beloved albiceleste playing on the world’s biggest stage in his hometown. (He passed away while covering the 2022 World Cup.)

Highlights from the second half of the trip include: seeing the Argentine team plane at the KC airport before we flew on to Houston; watching Ronaldo run onto the field; and swimming in the hotel pool after a hot day. Lowlights include having to wake up for an early flight after that late-night game; Portugal’s performance; and a rental car whose air conditioning just couldn’t cope with “feels like 111” heat. (Houston had a torrential rainstorm followed by a convection-oven effect.)

It was good to get home Thursday afternoon, just in time to watch Canada thump Qatar 6-0, its first-ever win and more goals than in all previous World Cups combined. And then of course yesterday the USMNT—can we come up with a better nickname?—had a convincing 2-0 victory over Australia. When Paraguay beat Turkey late last night—yes, I stayed up—it meant that we had won the group for the first time since 2010 (and won the first two games for the first time since the first World Cup in 1930).

But if you’ve read this far, you likely know all that. Now we have a whole ’nother month of soccer, culminating with a final at the Meadowlands MetLife New York/ New Jersey Stadium on July 19. As it happens, I’ll be coming back from California that day, and engineered my itinerary to have a long layover in Houston on the way back, so I can watch at an airport lounge or bar rather than risking airplane internet (which is improving rapidly, but can’t chance an outage). U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

And for those interested, here are photos from our trip. Happy Father’s Day!