美国足球的天花板：一本书揭示其漫长而曲折的崛起之路

Illustrations by Igor Bastidas When Gustav Manning, the man once in charge of American soccer, proclaimed to the New York Times that he foresaw the sport becoming “the national pastime of the win- ter,” he couldn’t have known he was setting a trend. For a guy speaking in 1913, he sounded awfully modern. More than a century later, fans constantly hear that the world’s game is the sport of the American future. The World Cup’s return to North America in 2026 has opened my eyes. The buildup to this tournament—an international bonanza already struggling with exorbitant ticket prices and anemic interest in the home team—laid bare a few truths. Soccer is already a serious phenomenon in the US. …