Soccer: A Brief History
Soccer, better known as football in a majority of the world, is a sport that dates back to early human civilizations. While formally a sport for over three thousand years, rough and non-regulated forms date back to the second and third centuries BC. Taking its longstanding history alone into account, it isn’t hard to conclude that soccer has solidified itself as a staple sport, standing the test of time.
The sport’s early forms were founded all over the world, some closer to today’s game than others. Traces have been found amongst the Aztecs, Aboriginal Australians, Mesoamericans, China, Japan, Ancient Greece, and the English. From early civilization, there was a sport to pass the time, and before we even were aware that these early traces were worldwide, the sport as we know it blew up, taking over the world.
Breaking into the U.S.
As Americans, being one of the only countries in the world to call the sport “soccer,” we’ve never really ingrained the sport into our culture. We’re very stuck in creating things ourselves, marking certain things more valuable than others (i.e. American football over soccer). This sort of need to create culture ourselves, disregarding outside influence at least to a majority scale, has created, in a way, a sense of selfishness. Though not a totally bad thing, it really became clear this year, with the 2026 World Cup being hosted in North America, that the United States truly has been missing out.
All over the United States, Mexico, and Canada, people are visiting from a number of different countries, all for the purpose of competing in the World Cup. As an American, I’ve never seen the media, the people around me, or the general public talk about the sport as much as I’ve seen this summer due to the tournament being held on our continent for the first time in over 30 years. While soccer brings a sense of competition to the world, it’s truly the unity it forms that I’ve noted as the most worthwhile.
The World Cup Uniting the World
Every day there are stories being released about visitors from all over the world uniting with the North American population. In a time where our everyday life is manipulated beyond control and as we live in both political and economic uncertainty, the connections formed with people from all walks of life have begun to open our eyes.
Right now, we’re seeing humanity take form all across America. Parties in the streets, huge crowds of people wearing different flags embracing one another, music spilling from bars, and traditions shared. Boston, the American Revolution’s birthplace, has found itself a sister city in Glasgow after Scots and Bostonians connected in such a raw form. People visiting the U.S. for the first time are finding joy in what Americans typically overlook, such as in a Waffle House, at our nature sites, at a Walmart, or even in ranch dressing.
What our visitors are taking away from this World Cup, beyond the matches, is what occurs when we let our guards down and find the similarities each of us share. All over social media, visitors have become emotional about their experience in America. Viewers all over the country, despite where they’re from, have been singing the same tunes as one voice, have been sharing one another’s cultures, and have been finding the potential of what could occur when we’re brought together by a global event.
With all of this connection and our sense of pride growing, America is truly beginning to adopt the culture of the sport that the rest of the world’s already so invested in. Yes, America has been participating in the World Cup for a number of years, but the sport has never really received traction from the American public eye — that is, until one of the world’s greatest events came to us. So the question is, why soccer?
Why Soccer?
While the U.S. is a very sports-forward country, soccer hasn’t always been given the true time of day by the overall population. I think the true answer as to why soccer has grown so much in popularity is the fact that any sport has the capability to bring people together — it’s when people of different cultures unite that the true magic happens.
We put our children in sports at early ages: American football, basketball, baseball, etc., but not just for the hopes of them becoming a pro-athlete in their future. Looking past sports’ obvious physical benefits, what kids take away from playing sports as they grow up is crucial to their development. They learn to think beyond themselves, to connect with even their opponents.
They learn respect, community, confidence — even though they compete against other kids regularly, they never hold anything against them. In truth, the competition bonds each of these kids in ways big or small, and that’s evident today via the World Cup.
The U.S., while drowning in social upset, has become the epicenter of not only camaraderie, but of pure, collective joy in the world right now. People don’t show a care for cultural differences or hold prejudices, they connect with one another for the love of the game, leading Americans to, expectedly, want to tune in to the sport, even if it’s just to watch their country compete in this year’s World Cup alone.
The Real Takeaway From the 2026 World Cup
The world as we know it is, at the present moment, in an ultimate state of division — greater than anything we’re used to. Even within America alone, while we’ve been on this track for years, we’re separated into two polarizing sides. Given our current political leaders, hate, and conflict, uncertainty is at an all-time high, leaving no American comfortable in their current state of living. Wars are active and unnecessary violence is occurring at every turn, but from that, the World Cup has unexpectedly turned into a beacon of hope for all of us.
The World Cup put all eyes on North America, and with all that’s going on in our country, eyes have especially been on the United States. The rest of the world has a certain vision of the U.S., but with so many people experiencing our country for the first time, people have begun to forget about this caricature. With all this attention and all of this increase in tourism, what Americans have been finding is that purity and unity across the world is still possible; all we have to do is to come together to create it.
We’ve welcomed people from all walks of life with open arms, and as a result, humanity has been found. Connection, truth, and the beauty of life have come out of this year’s World Cup at a time we need it the most. The world yearns for a sense of community, and the World Cup has brought that to us, reminding us that it still exists despite everything going on in our political climate.