Ahead of 2026 World Cup, ASU event examines America’s evolving soccer story

For much of its history, the United States kept the world’s game at arm’s length. Now, as North America prepares to host the FIFA Men’s World Cup, soccer is offering a new lens for understanding how the U.S. connects with the rest of the globe.

That idea was at the center of a recent ASU event examining soccer’s rise in the U.S. and its role in shaping culture, community, diplomacy and national identity.

Hosted May 12 by ASU’s Great Game Lab, the Center for Law and Global Affairs, at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, and New America, “Celebrating 250 with a World Cup Party” featured a screening of “Gritty but Global,” a short documentary by ASU documentarian Yana Pashaeva about the soccer culture of Philadelphia, one of America’s host cities for the 2026 World Cup. 

The film was followed by a panel discussion on soccer’s cultural, political and global significance.

Panelists included Pashaeva; Andrés Martinez, ASU professor and co-director of ASU’s Great Game Lab; Rama Yade, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center and former French minister of sports; and Pjer Šimunović, ambassador of Croatia to the United States.

For Martinez, also the author of “The Great Game: A Tale of Two Footballs and America’s Quest to Conquer Global Sport,” the upcoming World Cup offers a chance to reflect on how far the United States has come in embracing soccer — and what that shift reveals about America’s changing place in the world.

“We didn’t speak the same language as the rest of the world,” Martinez said. “We had very consciously decoupled ourselves from the rest of the world when it comes to sport.”

Martinez, who moved to the United States from Mexico at age 15, said that when he arrived in the 1980s, he quickly realized that while the game he knew as football dominated the global sports landscape, the U.S. had largely built its own sports universe around baseball, basketball and American football.

That has changed dramatically. Since hosting the World Cup in 1994, the U.S. has become more connected to the global game — a shift Martinez said was fueled in part by the success of women’s soccer.

“You cannot overstate the importance of the success of women’s soccer in the U.S. to make this global game part of mainstream American culture,” he said.

The event also showed how soccer’s global appeal is attracting a local following. Pashaeva’s documentary focuses on how Philadelphia’s immigrant communities helped build the city’s soccer identity.

Pashaeva said she entered the project as an outsider — someone who did not closely follow soccer and had only been to Philadelphia once — but quickly found a story that extended far beyond the sport itself.

“Philadelphia has this enormous amount of history: birthplace of democracy, immigrant communities, very rich sports culture,” Pashaeva said. “I just decided to focus on human stories.”

One of the stories that surprised her most was the role of Philadelphia’s Ukrainian community, particularly the Philadelphia Ukrainian Nationals. 

“It’s not just about soccer that people play and watch,” Pashaeva said. “It’s about community and identity, and it’s about how soccer brings these people together and connects even people across different generations.”

That theme — soccer as both a local bond and a global language — carried into the panel discussion, where Šimunović described how sports have helped shape Croatia’s national identity and global reputation.

Croatia, a country of fewer than 4 million people, has repeatedly exceeded expectations on the world stage. Šimunović said that success is a point of national pride and an important part of how Croatia presents itself to the world.

“There may be no better way than, if not winning the World Cup in France, but at least winning the bronze, and that put us on a map,” Šimunović said. “After that, you’re not like, ‘Who are you? Where’s your country?’ Well, you’re firmly on the map.”

Yade, who previously served as France’s minister of sports and ambassador to UNESCO, expanded the conversation to the role of sports in diplomacy, public policy and national development. She said sports are often viewed as entertainment, but that view misses the larger role they can play in society.

As minister of sports, she worked not only on international competitions, but also on gender equality, disability inclusion, school sports and facilities.

“We had to work on the ground and use sports as a policy, not only as a tool for diplomatic power, but also as a social policy, economic investment, etc.,” she said.

The conversation also touched on the growing role of African nations in the World Cup. Yade noted that the tournament was once largely a European and Latin American competition, and that African nations fought for broader representation. This year, she said, 10 African countries will compete—the highest number in tournament history.

“For them, football played a very critical role in shaping the Pan-African common sentiment,” Yade said. “So having these 10 African countries, national teams, playing the World Cup in the United States will mean a lot for each of them.”

Martinez said the World Cup will also highlight the diversity of soccer fandom in the United States. In a country shaped by diaspora communities, he noted, “there are no away teams in the U.S.”

“Because of all the diasporas we have, there’s pretty much any World Cup match you can have where there’s going to be a pretty impassioned homegrown fan base,” he said.