· By ethan randleas
Twenty Years of This Team. This One Is Different.
My dad got me into the World Cup in 2006. I was a kid watching Italy beat France on penalties in Berlin and I didn't fully understand what I was watching, but I understood that the whole thing felt important in a way that regular sports did not. Something about the stakes. Something about knowing the whole world was watching the same game at the same time. He explained it to me and I never stopped paying attention after that.
That was twenty years ago. Every four years since, I've sat down and watched the US men's team go to the World Cup and break my heart in a different and creative way.
2010: Donovan's last-minute goal against Algeria to even make the knockout round. We exit to Ghana in extra time. 2014: Tim Howard puts up 16 saves against Belgium — a World Cup record — and we still lose 2-1 in extra time. 2018: We don't even qualify. 2022: Netherlands, Round of 16, out again.
Different years. Same result. The door opens just enough for you to see inside, then it closes.
This Team Is Different and I Am Done Pretending Otherwise
I have been careful every World Cup not to get too attached. Watching American soccer requires a particular kind of emotional discipline — you enjoy it, you root, and you keep one hand on the exit at all times because you know how this ends. That is what twenty years of following this team trains you to do.
I am not doing that this time.
4-1 over Paraguay in the opener. 2-0 over Australia in Seattle. Group D, first place, six points. The best group stage finish in the history of the program. And in the third game, with the group already won and Pochettino resting every starter he has, a B-lineup goes out against Turkey and gives them a real game before losing 3-2 on a stoppage-time goal that didn't matter to anyone with a calculator.
Six points. Top of the group. Round of 32 on July 1 against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Santa Clara.
Something is different about Balogun, McKennie, and Pulisic playing together. It isn't a vibe or a feeling or a narrative — it's visible. Flo Balogun has already scored for this team in this tournament. McKennie is everywhere. Pulisic, coming back from injury, gives this group a dimension that the previous generations didn't have: a player who makes the other teams nervous in a way that matters.
"Tim Howard made 16 saves in a World Cup match and we still lost. That was the 2014 team. This is not that team. I don't know exactly what this team is yet, which is a different problem than I am used to having."
The Connection I Keep Making
I run a hemp brand. I think about hemp constantly. So when I watch something that has been dismissed for years suddenly start performing at a level that the dismissal can no longer survive, my brain goes somewhere specific.
Hemp-derived cannabinoids spent a long time being treated the way American soccer used to be treated. The real version of the thing, the thinking went, existed somewhere else. What you were looking at was a workaround. An imitation. You want the actual experience, go somewhere else.
And then the results started coming in. Real cannabinoids at real doses producing real effects for real people who were not supposed to be getting real effects from a hemp product. The dismissal became harder to maintain. Eventually it became embarrassing to hold.
The USMNT is having a similar moment. They were supposed to be a Round of 16 story at best — make the group, lose with dignity, see you in four years. Instead they're sitting at the top of their group with the best result the program has ever produced at this stage, and the teams that dismissed them are now watching film.
When something that wasn't supposed to be serious becomes serious, there's always a moment before the world catches up. That's where the US men's team is right now. That's where hemp has been for a few years already.
July 1
Bosnia and Herzegovina. Santa Clara. Knockout round. The game where one result ends the whole thing or extends it into territory this team has never been.
I'm going to watch that game the same way I've watched every US World Cup match since 2006. With my full attention and the particular kind of hope that comes from twenty years of knowing exactly what cautious hope costs when it turns out to be warranted.
The difference this time is that I'm not keeping one hand on the exit.
My dad's going to watch too. I'll call him at halftime. We've been doing it since Berlin, 2006.
Some things you keep doing because they became a ritual before you knew they were one.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. For adults 21+ only. Hemp-derived and Farm Bill compliant.