Soccer in the United States seeks a new horizon

Shortly before 11 p.m. Wednesday, a handful of fans were still in the stands at Lumen Stadium in downtown Seattle, waving flags and chanting the Sounders' win.

Almost two hours had passed since the team had beaten the Mexican Pumas in the Concacaf Champions League (LCC).

It was the first victory in 22 years for a US team in the tournament of the Confederation of North and Central America and the Caribbean, dominated for 16 years by Mexican teams.

The televisions had raised the sets and workers were sweeping the confetti from the synthetic grass.

But there was a feeling in the air that the team had reached a new level, a global market.

“I had to be there.

It was historic," Brian Kelly, a 36-year-old elementary school teacher who watched the Sounders lift their first international trophy, said Wednesday night.

The team has been in Major League Soccer (MLS) for 13 years, but its history dates back almost half a century.

The one from Seattle was one of the 24 squads that were part of the first commercial experiment of the so-called

in the country, the North American Soccer League.

Since then, the fans showed a particular pride.

Historian Frank McDonald recalls in the book

of Phil West, that the followers of the State of Washington received Pelé and his New York Cosmos in 1975 with a banner that read: “Pelé, we would be here even if you had not come”.

A year later, 58,000 people went to see a match between the Brazilian star's team and the locals.

It was one of the most important entries for a despised sport.

That contempt is now a thing of the past.

Seattle, along with cities like Columbus (Ohio), Los Angeles (California), Dallas (Texas) or Philadelphia, are bastions of soccer.

The night of the LCC final, the system that measures seismic movements in the northwestern United States registered three small earthquakes in 90 minutes.

These coincided with each of the goals conceded by Pumas.

The Concacaf title was the main goal from the start of the campaign for Garth Lagerwey, the general manager of the Sounders.

The local sports press considered the trophy the

of the executive, who came close to conquering it in 2011 when he was in charge of Real Salt Lake, of Utah.

The Monterrey of Mexico won that time.

Lagerwey arrived in the North West in 2015 and began to create the team that has achieved this milestone, which will allow them to play in the next FIFA Club World Cup.

“It will not be a game just for fun against reserves, we are going to play for a trophy.

This is why we do what we do, right?

It's unbelievable,” he told

.

The Sounders share a house with their older brothers, the Seahawks of the American football league, the most popular team in the city.

This is followed by the Mariners of baseball, the only one in the professional league that has never played in a World Series.

Both sports have more roots than football, but the sporting royalty of these teams gave the locals a push to win the international title.

Marshawn Lynch, a power running back who helped Seattle win the Superbowl in 2014, recorded a video asking the city to pack the stadium.

The Lumen registered an attendance of 68,400 people, the best attendance in an LCC match.

Ken Griffith Jr., an iconic Mariners player from the '90s, also recorded a message to warm things up.

"They say it's just a game, but this is so much more... This means everything,"

In other regions, football is becoming independent from other sports.

At the end of April, the Miami City Council finally gave in to the charms of MLS.

After several years of delays and a six-hour debate, council members finally approved plans to build a project near the airport that will house Inter Miami's new home.

The stadium will hold 25,000 people and will include a 23-hectare park with soccer fields, as well as a 750-room hotel and office buildings.

Inter has finally reached the promised land.

The franchise debuted in the league three years ago at the hands of David Beckham and the brothers Jorge and José Mas, entrepreneurs in the construction sector, of Cuban-American origin.

These ensure that the building will be ready for the start of the MLS in 2025. If the deadline is met, a promise that Beckham demanded of the Mas to enter society will finally come true.

The team had to play in Miami, due to the market opportunities that the city of Florida encompasses.

Until now, Inter plays in Fort Lauderdale, almost 50 kilometers from the city.

MLS sustains its growth.

Last year, the league had 27 teams.

This reached 28 with the addition of Charlotte FC in North Carolina.

The number 29 will arrive next year with Saint Louis City, which will play on a field located in a black neighborhood that has 200 years of history.

MLS executives are still studying which city will host the 30th team, which will likely debut in 2024. East will almost certainly bolster the West.

Commissioner Don Garber said late last year that Las Vegas is ahead of the race, but there are also talks with groups from Phoenix, Arizona, and San Diego, California.

Los Angeles Galaxy fans during a league game against Los Angeles FC on April 9, 2022, in Carson, Calif. Shaun Clark (Getty Images)

A league with 30 teams reveals the potential market for soccer in the United States.

The MLS was born in 1996 with only 10 teams and it has taken three decades to catch up with the MLB and the NBA, which have the same number of franchises.

The NFL and the hockey league, the NHL, have 32. Next year will be important because the Leagues Cup will be played, an experiment to exploit the animosity between US and Mexican soccer.

All the professional teams from both countries will compete for the trophy during the summer.

These nations, along with Canada, will host the 2026 World Cup.

The MLS seeks to climb another rung in its growth, that of its presence on television.

The passion of the league is lived mainly in the stadiums.

The Charlotte team, one of the weakest this season, debuted in March playing at home against the Los Angeles Galaxy.

He did it before 74,500 people, the best entrance in the league.

On television, however, he is still fighting for a star spot.

The meetings broadcast at the national level had a

average of 285,000 viewers in 2021, an increase of 11% compared to 2019. Executives expect to reach an average of 300,000 this year, still below the audiences recorded by other regional leagues, such as the Mexican one.

In the domestic market, soccer is the fourth most watched sport after American football, basketball and baseball.

The women's league, the NWSL for its acronym in English, has a great advantage over MLS.

Last year's final achieved an audience that exceeded half a million viewers.

In early April, a game between San Diego and Los Angeles' Angel City drew an audience of 450,000.

The championship achieved by Washington against Chicago was followed by half a million viewers.

"We want a World Cup game," Ruben Osorio, 55, said Wednesday outside Lumen Stadium, wearing a Mexico national team jersey and a Sounders scarf.

"Look at these fans, we are ready to show the world that we want important games," he said.

In 1994, FIFA passed over Seattle.

In 2026 the omission would be inexcusable.

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