IRVINE, Calif. — Compared with what it was like playing in his first World Cup in 2022, this year’s version will be a “slightly different experience,” U.S. midfielder Cristian Roldan said this week.
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That’s an understatement.
Four years after the U.S. men advanced to the round of 16 in Qatar, half a world away from their families and fans, the team will open the tournament Friday in Inglewood, California, just 14 miles from where Roldan starred in high school. When the U.S. plays its second group-stage game in Seattle a week later, it will be in the same stadium where Roldan plays professionally for Seattle’s MLS team.
“You can feel that energy, you can feel that support, and now it’s about translating that energy, that support, that pressure, into something good for our games coming up,” Roldan said. “For me in my backyard, and my adopted city, to be able to have three group-stage games in the cities that I spent my whole life, I mean, it’s a beautiful story, honestly.”
But what will be the ending of that story?
Since it finished third in the first World Cup in 1930, the men’s national team has never advanced past the quarterfinals, and it got to them only once, in 2002 — before five current team members, including right back Joe Scally, were born.
Many on the U.S. roster got a preview of that home-soil spotlight two years ago when the U.S. hosted and played in Copa América, the tournament that crowns the best team from North and South America. The U.S. didn’t advance to the knockout stage, a result that swiftly led to coach Gregg Berhalter’s firing.
“I think a lot of us experienced that pressure and kind of that feeling of what it means to play for the fans, so for us we’re kind of taking that experience and gonna build off it,” Scally said. “And of course it’s nice to be in America.”
