United States

The United States call the game by another name, but the history runs deeper than it looks: there was a third place at the very first World Cup, in 1930, the miracle of Belo Horizonte in 1950, when a band of amateurs beat England, and the NASL of the seventies, which put Pelé, Beckenbauer and Cruyff in the same league. The 1994 World Cup still holds the attendance record and gave birth to MLS, which grew until it convinced Messi, while the women's national team became the most dominant in football history, with four world titles. And the corner where the game is closest to religion lies in the northwest: Portland and Seattle, the Cascadia of the Timbers and the Timbers Army, where even the second teams fill stands. In 2026 the World Cup came back, now shared with the neighbours.