US soccer received a much-needed jolt of positivity on Wednesday, when it was awarded the bid to co-host the 2026 World Cup with neighbors Mexico and Canada. But that fleeting high will come with a Thursday morning hangover when this year’s tournament kicks off, and the greater significance of what happened to the US in their failed campaign to qualify for Russia 2018 begins to truly, finally sink in. The 2026 World Cup will bring welcome publicity and interest in soccer in the US but in the present day US Soccer does not appear to have entirely grappled with the long-term ramifications of missing out on Russia. Most of the players involved in the Calamity in Couva, when a loss to Trinidad & Tobago doomed the US campaign, have described the experience as a waking bad dream. “The main thought that goes through your head is shock,” says midfielder Dax McCarty, who was on the bench that night. “Being a part of it, you almost have a feeling of helplessness. You’re just hoping, praying, that something, anything goes your way. When the final whistle blows, it’s a feeling of shock and awe.” The knock-on effects of the letdown continue to reverberate even up to now. The Guardian spoke to two bars in the soccer strongholds of Portland and Seattle who estimated that they will lose something like $20,000 in revenue on days on which the USMNT would have played. Elsewhere, FourFourTwo scaled back its US operation a few months later, citing advertisers who pulled out after the Trinidad loss, putting several of the country’s best soccer journalists out of work. The World Cup remains the only time soccer is front and center of the mainstream American sporting consciousness. There are one-offs, here and there. The Champions League, for example, has gained in relevance in recent years. Major League Soccer continues to improve, and crowds continue to grow even if television rankings remain comparatively stagnant. Every four years, however, the World Cup thrusts the game toward the very top of the news cycle. Players pose for magazine covers beforehand and make the late-night talkshow circuit in the aftermath. Bars fill to standing-room-only even for games the US are almost certain to lose. That shared, communal experience is impossible to replicate. Ask American soccer diehards to date the beginning of their fandom, and most will reference a World Cup year —from the 1994 edition on home soil to the USMNT’s underdog run to the quarter-finals in South Korea in 2002. All of those possibilities for connecting with new fans vanished in an instant with the 2018 qualification debacle. Despite the World Cup setback, those within the soccer bubble have mostly played down and waved off concerns about negative long-term implications. Prior to last year’s MLS Cup final, just a few months after the loss in Trinidad and at his annual State of the League address, Commissioner Don Garber insisted that the sport remains on the rise in the US. Garber pointed to increased investment in the domestic league, the gains made in player development, and soccer’s rising popularity among millennials. Garber’s not wrong, per se, but it’s also undeniable that the league has benefitted from the USMNT’s regular World Cup appearances. It is impossible to separate MLS’s gains from those casual fans being introduced to the sport every four years. The players, at least, realize that Trinidad & Tobago 2-1 United States will forever be the first line of their respective career epitaphs. For a group that likes to refer to itself as a brotherhood and which has taken pride in results that have outpaced their collective talent levels over the years, to have been the first team to fall short in 32 years has been devastating. Midfielder Benny Feilhaber recalls the silence in the locker room afterward the Trinidad game, how Arena was the only one who spoke. “’Obviously, there’s not much to talk about,’” Feilhaber recalls Arena saying. “’We didn’t get it done. That’s it.’ It was up to everybody to deal with the fact that they were part of this massive failure.” World Cup Fiver: sign up and get our daily football email The powers that be seem to have escaped a similar self-reckoning. During the US federation’s election this past February, it was president Sunil Gulati’s long-time No2, Carlos Cordiero, who was voted in to replace him, rather than any of the self-described “change” candidates such as Kyle Martino, Eric Wynalda and Hope Solo. Despite the fanfare about the new general manager position, it went unfilled for months before the hiring of Earnie Stewart from the Philadelphia Union. It remains unclear, however, whether the role is going to hold enough power to actually bring about meaningful change – that the process to fill the position took so long, and that so many of the leading minds within MLS shied away, hint that it does not. “Whatever we’ve been doing hasn’t panned out the way that we, as Americans, expect,” former USMNT defender Brad Evans said. “We always think that we’re the best at everything, and that we deserve the best in everything. We have money. Why are we not the best? That’s the mentality through every single sport. I think it’s hard for us to grasp that what we’re doing isn’t right.” Even after Trinidad, the single most traumatizing night in the modern history of the United States men’s national team, it’s unclear whether the federation has still totally grasped Evans’s point. There are those who think that any kind of drastic change would be rash, and unwise. Soccer has been on an upward trajectory for years now – why completely shift course? “You don’t make wholesale changes based on the ball being two inches wide or two inches in,” said Gulati after Trinidad, referencing a Clint Dempsey shot that hit the post in the final qualifier and could have saved the day. That argument may ultimately be proved right. It may also merely keep the federation on track for another, unseen and even more traumatizing reckoning further on down the line. Regardless, it’ll be of little consolation to the millions of American sports fans who tune into the World Cup this month and flip channels in bewilderment looking for the USMNT. And it means that the loss in Trinidad has no silver lining, that the promise of change that sustained some in the aftermath will be unrealized, and that the hollow pit in the stomach of American soccer fans this summer will have no useful purpose moving forward.<doc-sep>Last updated on .From the section Football Fifa members voted on the bids at their congress in Moscow The 2026 World Cup will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico after their joint bid beat Morocco's proposal to host it. The 'United 2026' bid was selected by Fifa member nations, winning 134 votes compared to 65 for Morocco. The 2026 tournament will be the biggest World Cup ever held - with 48 teams playing 80 matches over 34 days. "Football is the only victor. We are all united in football," US Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro said. "Thank you so, so much for this incredible honour. Thank you for entrusting us with this privilege." Of the 211 Fifa member nations, 200 cast a vote at the 68th Fifa Congress in Moscow on Wednesday, with the winning bid needing a majority of 104. Canada, Mexico, Morocco and the US were exempt, while Ghana was absent after the country's government said it had disbanded its football association amid allegations of "widespread" corruption. Three US territories - Guam, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico - were among the other member nations to not vote. Both Mexico (1970 and 1986) and the United States (1994) have previously hosted World Cups. Canada staged the Women's World Cup in 2015. The bidding process Since the 2018 and 2022 tournaments were awarded to Russia and Qatar respectively in December 2010, widespread corruption has been exposed in the global game, including allegations of bribery and payment for votes. A BBC Panorama documentary claimed Qatar spent £117m on their successful bid for the 2022 World Cup - the first to be held in winter - while former Fifa president Sepp Blatter suggested there was an agreement in place for Russia to host the 2018 tournament before the vote took place. Prominent figures, including Blatter, have since been indicted. As a result Fifa - under the presidency of Gianni Infantino - promised a "more open and transparent" vote to decide the 2026 World Cup host. It was decided that Fifa's 22-strong executive committee would no longer vote on behalf of the membership, as had occurred previously, Instead, the two bids made a final 15-minute presentation in front of congress before the Fifa member nations cast their votes. Three countries react to getting the World Cup 2026 bid The winning bid The 'United' World Cup will generate $14bn (£10.3bn) in revenue and make an $11bn (£8.1bn) profit for Fifa, says Cordeiro. Of the 16 host cities, 10 will be in the United States while the remainder will be split evenly between Canada and Mexico. Sixty matches will take place in the US, while Canada and Mexico will host 10 games each. The final will be held at the 84,953-capacity MetLife Stadium, which is home to NFL sides the New York Giants and the New York Jets. The distance between the most northern host city (Edmonton) and the most southern (Mexico City) is almost 3,000 miles, which compares to 1,900 miles at this month's tournament in Russia. The tournament will mark the first time a World Cup has been shared by three host nations. The 1994 World Cup, staged by the US, had the highest average attendance external-link in the tournament's history, while Mexico was the first nation to host the event twice. In 2017, Fifa said the host nation for the 2026 World Cup would qualify automatically and its slot would be taken from the allocation of its confederation. However, Fifa president Gianni Infantino said the issue of all three hosts - Canada, USA and Mexico - being given automatic slots is still to be decided, with discussions set to take place in the next few weeks. The 23 World Cup 2026 venues in Canada, the United States and Mexico - 10 of the 17 USA cities will be used What they said US Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro: "Hosting the 2026 Fifa World Cup is a rare and important moment to demonstrate that we are all truly united through sport. "We are humbled by the trust our colleagues in the Fifa family have put in our bid, strengthened by the unity between our three countries and the Concacaf region and excited by the opportunity we have to put football on a new and sustainable path for generations to come." Morocco Football Federation president Fouzi Lekjaa: "I wish to congratulate Fifa for the conduct of this process and congratulate the president for what he has done in order to move things towards more transparency and more inclusion. "I would like to reaffirm the determination of my country to continue to work for football and realise one day our dream to host the World Cup in Morocco." The Football Association (FA): "We congratulate the USA, Canada and Mexico on winning the bid to host the 2026 Fifa World Cup. Both bids were of a very high quality and we welcome the fact that the bidding process was both open and transparent. "We cast our vote for the 'United' bid as we believe the independent technical assessment made its advantages very clear. However, it is important to note that both bids were deemed to have met the hosting requirements and a tournament in Morocco, close to Europe and in a country that loves football, had a great deal for English football fans to be excited about." Fifth time unlucky Five times they have bid, and five times they have been overlooked - Morocco are perhaps destined to never host a World Cup. Morocco's bid faced unwanted attention when Fifa secretary general Fatma Samoura was the subject of an investigation into an alleged conflict of interest. Members of Fifa's World Cup bid evaluation task force said she had an undeclared family link with Morocco 2026 bid ambassador El Hadji Diouf. She was cleared of any wrongdoing and dismissed the claims as "laughable" and "unfortunate". The same evaluation task force later expressed concerns over stadiums, the availability of accommodation, and the travel network, despite ratifying their proposals. Nine of the 14 stadiums included in Morocco's bid were yet to be built, while the remaining five required "significant renovation or upgrading". But bid chief Hicham el Amrani said he was confident the country's infrastructure "could deliver" and made play of the North African nation's position, nine miles from the southern tip of Spain - dubbing it a "European" World Cup.<doc-sep>David Goldman/Associated Press President Donald Trump is taking credit for North America's successful bid to host the 2026 World Cup. Trump shared his sentiment on Twitter while also giving credit to New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft for giving him "excellent advice": In a vote held on Tuesday, FIFA announced the North American trio of the United States, Mexico and Canada beat out Morocco by a final vote of 134-65 for the right to stage soccer's biggest event in 2026. The United States will host 60 of the tournament's 80 matches, including every game from the quarterfinals onward. This marks the first time the United States has hosted a World Cup since 2003, when Germany won the women's title. The last men's World Cup on U.S. soil was in 1994, when Brazil defeated Italy at the Rose Bowl in the final on penalties.<doc-sep>
The 2018 World Cup is underway in Russia—congrats to the host team on its narrow 5-0 victory opener over Saudi Arabia—but that’s not what I’m fired up about right now. Nope. My mind is fixed in the future, and some local news. The U.S. men may not have made it to Russia 2018, so let’s hear it for: WORLD CUP 2026 NORTH AMERICA WOOOOOOOOOOO! Yep: after making everyone nervous about its decision, FIFA surrendered to the Americans. After the quadrennial event stops in Qatar in 2022, the United States will get the World Cup as part of a three-country continental bid with Canada and Mexico. MetLife Stadium in the Jersey Meadowlands has been proposed to host the 2026 final—if you leave now, you should be able to get through the Lincoln Tunnel and make it there in time. Phew. American soccer nuts were freaked FIFA was about to give the tournament to Morocco, which was its only competition. Who knows what kind of nonsense we had to promise FIFA to lock this down? I worry we may have to give Connecticut to FIFA. Sorry, Connecticut. Sometimes you have to make a deal. Pack your Tumi. What will 2026 be like? Who am I, Wolf Blitzer? I have no idea. It’s hard to say what life will look like in eight years. We may have a robot president. The sky should be filled with flying cars. The Washington Capitals may finally be done celebrating their first Stanley Cup. I’m sure the Journal will have replaced me with a robot by 2026 (Our new editor in chief is actually aiming to do it by August 2018), but the good news is my children will practically be teenagers. I’ll be so excited to take them in the flying car to the World Cup and…oh, who can get teenagers to do anything? I guess I’ll go by myself. Get stuck in flying car Lincoln Tunnel traffic all alone. The other big news for 2026 is that they’re bumping up the number of teams from 32 to 48. This should allow the tournament to invite the three North American countries, plus a whole bunch of others. Italy will probably make it this time. The Netherlands, too. We’ll probably see some newcomers. The Denver Broncos. The University of Maryland-Baltimore County. The Wall Street Journal company softball team. Related Video FIFA announced Wednesday that the united bid from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico has won the right to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Photo: Getty Of course, this is not the first World Cup to land in the United States. This country played host in 1994, 24 years ago. That was a momentous event, almost as momentous as those hideous denim-print jerseys the U.S. men wore in that tournament, which looked stolen out of the back of Andre Agassi’s Miata. FIFA still has warm, moneyed memories of U.S. ’94—it remains the most-attended World Cup ever. And I don’t have to tell you that soccer has grown more here since then. It’s one of the most popular participation sports in the U.S., behind basketball and screaming at each other on the internet. That homegrown soccer popularity may not have resulted in a World Cup final for the U.S. men—but that’s just the men. The U.S. women’s team is a victory machine, winners of three World Cups. At the same time, technology has allowed American fans to become more fluent in the global game than ever before. You can see it with this current World Cup, where the absence of a national rooting interest has failed to diminish a lot of people’s enthusiasm. You could tell on Thursday: The World Cup is the rare sporting event that can truly stop the global clock. We get why this is a big deal. The President tweeted it was a big deal! We don’t have as many of the ‘Who Cares About Soccer?’ cranky pants complaints as we used to. Sure, there are a few of you asking WHY ISN’T THIS A U.S. OPEN GOLF COLUMN? CAN’T I JUST READ ABOUT SOME GOLF? CAN THE ROBOT START THIS WEEK? But a soccer fan in the U.S. doesn’t have to explain the passion anymore. The 2026 World Cup will return to the U.S. for the first time since 1994. Atlanta's new Mercedes-Benz Stadium was shown prominently in the video used in the North American pitch for the bid. Photo: Associated Press I like a few other things about this bid.