Soccer in the United States is governed by the United States Soccer Federation,
commonly known as U.S. Soccer. The organization governs all levels of
soccer in the country, including the national teams, professional
leagues, and the amateur game. With over 13 million Americans playing
soccer in the United States, soccer is the third most played team sport in the U.S., behind only basketball and baseball/softball.
The popularity of soccer in the U.S. has been growing since the 1960s
and 1970s, and received a significant boost when the United States
hosted the 1994 World Cup. In the United States, the sport of association football is mainly referred to as "soccer", as the term "football" is primarily used to refer to the sport of American football or its other gridiron-based variants.
The highest professional soccer league in the U.S. is Major League Soccer (MLS), which began play in 1996. MLS initially fared poorly, leading to MLS folding two teams in 2002 for financial reasons. MLS has since rebounded, and grown to 19 teams today (16 in the United States and 3 in Canada) with further expansion planned. With an average attendance of over 18,000 per game, MLS has the third highest average attendance of any sports league in the U.S., and is the seventh highest attended professional soccer league worldwide.
Soccer fans also follow the U.S. national teams, in particular the World Cup, which is held every four years. The World Cup has become increasingly popular with U.S. TV audiences, with the 2010 World Cup final game drawing 24 million American viewers. The men's national team has played in every World Cup since 1990, and the women's national team has twice won the World Cup.
Beginnings and decline: 1860s - 1930s
Oneida Football Club has been named as the first association football club in the United States but there is still discussion on what rules the club used, and it broke up within the space of a few years. According to Encyclopædia Britannica, the club is often credited with inventing the "Boston Game", which both allowed players to kick a round ball along the ground, and to pick it up and run with it.The first U.S. match known to have been inspired by FA rules was a game between Princeton University and Rutgers University on November 6, 1869, which was won by Rutgers 6-4. The FA rules were followed in the Princeton-Rutgers contest: participants were only allowed to kick the ball and each side had 25 players. Other colleges emulated this development, but all of these were converted to rugby by the mid-1870s and would soon become famous as early bastions of American football.
The Fall River Rovers were among one the few clubs to win both the National Challenge Cup and the American Cup.
Within a year of its founding, the AFA organized the first non-league cup in American soccer history, known as the American Cup. For the first dozen years, clubs from New Jersey and Massachusetts dominated the competition. It would not be until 1897 that a club from outside those two states won the American Cup. Philadelphia Manz brought the title to Pennsylvania for the first time. Due to internal conflicts within the AFA, the cup was suspended in 1899, and it was not resumed until 1906.
Early soccer leagues in the U.S. mostly used the name "football," for example: the American Football Association (founded in 1884), the American Amateur Football Association (1893), the American League of Professional Football (1894), the National Association Foot Ball League (1895), and the Southern New England Football League (1914). Common confusion between the terms "American football" and "association football" eventually led to a more domestic widespread use of the term "soccer" to regard association football. Originally seen as a British slang term for "association", the use of "soccer" began appearing in the late 1910s and early 1920s. A noticeable example was the American Soccer League (ASL), which formed in 1919. The governing body of the sport in the U.S. did not have the word "soccer" in its name until 1945, when it became the United States Soccer Football Association. It did not drop the word "football" from its name until 1974, when it became the United States Soccer Federation, often going simply as U.S. Soccer.
In October 1911, a competing body, the American Amateur Football Association (AAFA) was created. The association quickly spread outside of the Northeast and created its own cup in 1912, the American Amateur Football Association Cup.
The conflicts within the AFA led to a movement to create a truly national body to oversee American soccer. In 1913, both the AAFA and AFA applied for membership in FIFA, the international governing body for soccer. Drawing on both its position as the oldest soccer organization and the status of the American Cup, the AFA argued that it should be the nationally recognized body. Later that year, the AAFA gained an edge over the AFA when several AFA organizations moved to the AAFA.
What is now the United States Soccer Federation was originally the United States Football Association, formed on April 5, 1913. On April 5, 1913, the AAFA reorganized as the United States Football Association (USFA), presently known as the United States Soccer Federation. FIFA quickly granted a provisional membership and USFA began exerting its influence on the sport. This led to the establishment of the National Challenge Cup, which still exists as the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, that fall. The National Challenge Cup quickly grew to overshadow the American Cup. However, both cups were played simultaneously for the next ten years. Declining respect for the AFA led to the withdrawal of several associations from its cup in 1917. Further competition came in 1924 when USFA created the National Amateur Cup. That spelled the death knell for the American Cup. It played its last season in 1924.
During the days of the American Soccer League, the league was seen as widely popular, and considered to be the second most popular sports league in the United States, only behind Major League Baseball. However, the "soccer war" between the USFA and ASL, combined with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, led to the demise of the ASL in 1933, and the demise of the sport in the United States, entering a prolonged time of obscurity.
Re-emergence and growth: 1960s - 2000s
The prominence of college soccer increased with the NCAA sanctioning an annual men's soccer championship, beginning in 1959 with the inaugural championship won by St. Louis University.Two professional soccer leagues were started in 1967, the United Soccer Association and the National Professional Soccer League, which merged to form the North American Soccer League in 1968. The NASL enjoyed a significant boost in popularity when the New York Cosmos signed Pele to play for three seasons from 1975-77. The Cosmos drew large publicity throughout the late 1970s. Between 1977 and 1980, the N.Y.Cosmos drew crowds of more than 60,000 on ten occasions, and over 70,000 on seven occasions. The NASL declined during the early 1980s and disbanded in 1984.
In 1967 there were 100,000 people playing soccer in the US; by 1984, that number had grown to over 4 million.
Girls high school soccer experienced tremendous growth in playing
numbers throughout the 1970s and 1980s—from 10,000 in 1976, to 41,000 in
1980, to 122,000 in 1990.The 1970s and 1980s saw increased popularity of the college game. Women's college soccer received a significant boost in 1972 with the passage of Title IX, which mandated equal funding for women's athletic programs, leading to colleges forming NCAA sanctioned women's varsity teams. A match between Saint Louis University and SIU-Edwardsville drawing a college record 22,512 fans to Busch Stadium on October 30, 1980. By 1984, more colleges played soccer (532) than American football (505).
The soccer matches for the 1984 Summer Olympics were well attended. Five matches drew over 75,000 fans, and two soccer matches at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California, drew over 100,000 fans. These high attendance figures were one factor that FIFA took into consideration in 1988 when deciding to award the 1994 World Cup to the United States.
The NASL also ran an indoor league in the latter years. Indoor soccer was a success in the 1980s and 1990s, in part due to the effort of the NASL.When the NASL (both outdoor and indoor) folded, other leagues, including the Major Indoor Soccer League stepped in to meet the demand. Twenty-five years hence, the latest version of the MISL folded, and was replaced by the National Indoor Soccer League, the Professional Arena Soccer League, and the Xtreme Soccer League.
Interest in soccer within the United States continued to grow during the 1990s. This growth has been attributed in significant part to the fact that the FIFA World Cup was held in the United States for the first time in 1994. This won the sport more attention from both the media and casual sports fans. The tournament was successful, drawing an average attendance of 68,991, a World Cup record that still stands today. The 1994 World Cup drew record TV audiences in the U.S.
As part of the United States' bid to host the 1994 World Cup, U.S. Soccer pledged to create a professional outdoor league. That effort culminated in the launch of Major League Soccer in 1996, which helped develop American players in a way that was not possible without a domestic league. Many of these players competed in the 2002 FIFA World Cup, where the United States reached the quarterfinals, its best result in the modern era.
The growth of the women's game during the 1990s helped increase overall interest in soccer in the United States. The number of women's college soccer teams increased from 318 in 1991 to 959 in 2009. Both the 1999 and 2003 FIFA Women's World Cups were held in the United States. The crowd of over 90,000 at the Rose Bowl for the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup Final remains the largest crowd in the world to witness any women's sporting event.
Soccer in the United States today
Certain soccer matches in the United States have drawn large crowds. The 2009 CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinal matches drew over 82,000 to Cowboys Stadium. Between 2008 - 2011, the US played three times in East Rutherford, NJ, drawing over 78,000 fans each game.The United States and Mexico national teams have been playing in front of crowds in excess of 60,000 in the U.S. in recent years. The 2011 Gold Cup final between the U.S. and Mexico at the Rose Bowl drew over 93,000 fans, a record high for a soccer match other than the World Cup or Summer Olympics.
In recent years, many top-division European clubs—such as English giants Manchester United and Chelsea FC, and Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona—have spent portions of their pre-season summer schedule playing matches in the United States. These matches have been highly attended events for U.S. stadiums. The 2009 World Football Challenge drew large crowds around the country, and Chelsea's four-game stint in the United States drew record crowds for a visiting foreign team.
Major League Soccer
The professional first-division league in the United States is Major League Soccer (MLS), which as of 2013 has 16 teams in the U.S. and 3 in Canada, with MLS expansion adding New York City FC as the league's 20th team in 2015. With careful cost controls, soccer-specific stadiums, and limited expansion, some MLS clubs became profitable for the first time in the mid-2000s, and Forbes magazine found that three clubs were already valued at $40 million or more, with the Los Angeles Galaxy worth $100 million.The league's 2007 and 2009 expansion to Toronto and Seattle, respectively, have proven highly successful, with league-leading ticket and merchandise sales, capped by a sold-out attendances for friendlies against Real Madrid of Spain and Chelsea of England.Although MLS is also much younger than most other countries' first divisions, and has 19 teams in 2012, it is already the 12th most-attended premier division in the entire world. In 2006 MLS broke its all-time record for attendance at a regular-season match, which saw 92,650 spectators fill the Los Angeles Coliseum on a Sunday in August; although that claim is somewhat misattributed to the MLS game as it was one of two games played that night, the second being a match between two very popular clubs from the Spanish-speaking world: Spain's Barcelona and Mexico's Guadalajara. On August 1, 2009, a friendly match between the Los Angeles Galaxy and Barcelona at the Rose Bowl, drew a crowd of 93,137 fans. The last time a soccer match drew that many people in the United States was during the 1994 FIFA World Cup.
Since 2007, with the arrival of international superstars such as David Beckham and Thierry Henry, and the Mexican idol Cuauhtémoc Blanco, attendance records for specific MLS teams and stadiums continue to rise.
Men's national team
The United States men's national soccer team, often referred to as the USMNT, represents the United States of America in international association football (soccer) competitions. It is controlled by the United States Soccer Federation and competes in CONCACAF (the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football). The team is ranked 22nd in the world according to the FIFA World Rankings, and 20th in the World Football Elo Ratings. They have appeared in the last six FIFA World Cups and hosted the 1994 edition.
The men's national team competes in the FIFA World Cup and the FIFA Confederations Cup, in addition to the CONCACAF Gold Cup and other competitions by invitation. They achieved a CONCACAF-best when they reached the Semi-final in the 1930 World Cup, finishing 3rd. After qualifying for the 1934 World Cup, and withdrawing in 1938, the next World Cup participation came in the 1950 tournament, causing an upset by beating England 1–0 in their second group match. After 1950, the USA didn't qualify for the World Cup again until 1990.
After the 1990 World Cup, the USA qualified automatically as hosts in the 1994 World Cup, losing to Brazil in the round of sixteen. From then on, the team has qualified for every World Cup since, up to and including the 2010 World Cup. The national team improved in international level, reaching the final of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup, eliminating top ranked Spain in the semi-finals before losing to Brazil 3–2.
College
1880s to 1940s: Early history
The 1916 US soccer team.
In the 1930 World Cup, the U.S. finished third, beating Belgium 3–0 at Estadio Gran Parque Central in Montevideo, Uruguay.
In the next match, the United States earned a 3–0 victory over Paraguay. For many years, FIFA credited Bert Patenaude with the first and third goals and his teammate Tom Florie with the second. Other sources described the second goal as having been scored by Patenaude or by Paraguayan Ramon Gonzales. In November 2006, FIFA announced that it had accepted evidence from "various historians and football fans" that Patenaude scored all three goals, and was thus the first person to score a hat trick in a World Cup finals tournament.
Having reached the semifinals with the two wins, the American side lost 6–1 to Argentina. Using the overall tournament records, FIFA credited the U.S. with a third place finish ahead of fellow semi-finalist Yugoslavia. The finish remains the team's best World Cup result and is the highest finish of any team from outside of CONMEBOL and UEFA, the South American and European confederations, respectively.
Due to FIFA not wanting interference with the newly founded FIFA World Cup no official tournament was fielded in the 1932 Olympic Games. FIFA claimed the tournament would not be popular in the United States, so it would not be cost efficient to assist in the running of the tournament during struggling economic times. As a result, an informal tournament was organized including local rivals with the United States finishing first, followed by Mexico and Canada. The Olympic Tournament was reinstated in the 1936 Olympic Games.
1950 FIFA World Cup
The 1950 World Cup was the United States's first World Cup appearance since 1934. The USA lost its first match 3–1 against Spain, but then won 1–0 against England at Independência Stadium, in the city of Belo Horizonte. Striker Joe Gaetjens was the goal scorer. The result is considered one of the greatest upsets in the history of sports. Months before the famous World Cup loss to the USA, England had beaten an all-star "rest of Europe" side 6–1 in an exhibition match. Sports Illustrated and Soccer Digest have called World Cup upset by the Americans in 1950 the "Miracle on Grass," a reference to the Miracle on Ice. In USA's third game of the 1950 tournament, a defeat to Chile by a 5–2 margin saw the U.S. eliminated from the tournament. It would be four decades before the United States made another appearance at the World Cup Finals.1950s to 1980s: The decline of American soccer
After the enthusiasm caused by the creation and rise of the North American Soccer League in the 1970s, it seemed as though the U.S. men's national team would soon become a powerful force in world soccer. Such hopes were not realized, however, and the United States was not considered a strong side in this era. From 1981 to 1983, only two international matches were played.To provide a more stable national team program and renew interest in the NASL, U.S. Soccer entered the national team into the league for the 1983 season as Team America. This team lacked the continuity and regularity of training that conventional clubs enjoy, and many players were unwilling to play for the team instead of their own clubs. Embarrassingly, Team America finished the season at the bottom of the league. Recognizing that it had not achieved its objectives, U.S Soccer cancelled this experiment, and the national team was withdrawn from the NASL.
U.S. Soccer made the decision to target the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California and the 1986 World Cup as means of rebuilding the national team and its fan base. The International Olympic Committee provided what appeared to be a major boost to the United States' chances of advancing beyond the group stage when it declared that Olympic teams from outside Europe and South America could field full senior teams as long as those senior players had never played in a World Cup, including professionals. U.S. Soccer immediately rearranged its Olympic roster, cutting many collegiate players and replacing them with professionals. Despite this, the U.S. finished 1–1–1 and failed to make the second round.
By the end of 1984, the NASL had folded and there was no senior outdoor soccer league operating in the United States.As a result, many top American players, such as John Kerr, Paul Caligiuri, Eric Eichmann, and Bruce Murray, moved overseas, primarily to Europe.
The United States did bid to host the 1986 World Cup after Colombia withdrew due to economic concerns. However, Mexico beat out the U.S. and Canada to host the tournament, despite concerns that the tournament would have to be moved again because of a major earthquake that hit Mexico shortly before the tournament.
In the last game of the qualifying tournament, the U.S. needed only a draw against Costa Rica, whom the U.S. had beaten 3–0 in the Olympics the year before, in order to reach the final qualification group against Honduras and Canada. U.S. Soccer scheduled the game to be played at El Camino College in Torrance, California, an area with many Costa Rican expatriates, and marketed the game almost exclusively to the Costa Rican community, even providing Costa Rican folk dances as halftime entertainment. A 35th minute goal by Evaristo Coronado won the match for Costa Rica and kept the United States from reaching its fourth World Cup finals.
In 1988, U.S. Soccer attempted to re-implement its national-team-as-club concept, offering contracts to national team players in order to build an international team with something of a club ethos, while loaning them out to their club teams, saving U.S. Soccer the expense of their salaries. This brought many key veterans back to the team, while the success of the NASL a decade earlier had created an influx of talent from burgeoning grass-roots level clubs and youth programs. Thus U.S. Soccer sought to establish a more stable foundation for participation in the 1990 World Cup than had existed for previous tournaments.
1990s: The rebirth of American soccer
In 1989, FIFA named the United States as the host of the 1994 World Cup, but it did so under significant international criticism because of the perceived weakness of the national team and the lack of a professional outdoor league. This criticism diminished somewhat when a 1–0 win against Trinidad and Tobago, the U.S.'s first away win in nearly two years, in the last match of the 1989 CONCACAF Championship, earned the United States its first World Cup appearance in 40 years.For the 1990 World Cup in Italy, two of the team's more experienced players, Rick Davis and Hugo Perez, were recovering from serious injuries and unavailable for selection, and manager Bob Gansler selected many inexperienced players and recent college graduates. The U.S. lost all three games to Czechoslovakia, Italy and Austria.
In March 1991, the United States won the North America Cup, tying Mexico 2–2 and beating Canada 2–0. This was followed in May by a 1–0 victory over Uruguay in the World Series of Soccer. The national team then went undefeated in the 1991 Gold Cup, beating Mexico 2–0 in the semifinals and Honduras 4–3 on penalty kicks after a 0–0 draw in the final. In 1992, the U.S. continued its run of success, taking the U.S. Cup with victories over Ireland and Portugal, followed by a draw with Italy.
Having qualified automatically as the host of the 1994 World Cup, the U.S. opened its tournament schedule with a 1–1 draw against Switzerland in the Pontiac Silverdome in the suburbs of Detroit, the first World Cup game played indoors. In its second game, the U.S. faced Colombia, then ranked fourth in the world, at the Rose Bowl. Aided by an own goal from Andrés Escobar, the United States won 2–1. (Escobar was later murdered in his home country, possibly in retaliation for this mistake.) Despite a 1–0 loss to Romania in its final group game, the U.S. made it to the knockout round for the first time since 1930. In the group of 16, the U.S. lost 1–0 to the eventual champion Brazil.
In the 1998 World Cup in France, the team lost all three group matches, 2–0 to Germany, 2–1 to Iran, and 1–0 to Yugoslavia, and so finished in last place in its group and 32nd in the field of 32. Head coach Steve Sampson received much of the blame for the performance as a result of abruptly cutting team captain John Harkes, whom Sampson had ironically named "Captain for Life" shortly before, as well as several other players who were instrumental to the qualifying effort, from the squad. It emerged in February 2010 that Sampson removed Harkes from the team due to Harkes allegedly having an affair with teammate Eric Wynalda's wife.
2000s
2002 World Cup Cycle
The United States won the 2002 Gold Cup to set up the team's best performance since 1930 in the 2002 World Cup, where the U.S. team reached the quarterfinals. The team reached the knockout stage after a 1–1–1 record in the group stage. It started with a surprising 3–2 win over Portugal, followed by a 1–1 tie with co-host and eventual fourth place finisher, South Korea. It then lost its third and final match 1–3 to Poland but still qualified for the second round when Park Ji-Sung of South Korea stunned Portugal with the eventual game-winning goal.This set the stage for a Second round face-off with familiar continental rivals Mexico. Although the teams had played many times in both friendlies and in qualifying, they had never met in the World Cup. The U.S. would win the game 2–0. Brian McBride opened the scoring early in the match and Landon Donovan scored a second goal from a header off an Eddie Lewis cross. That victory advanced the team to the quarterfinals, where they met Germany. The team lost 1–0; after being denied a penalty when Torsten Frings handled the ball to prevent a Gregg Berhalter goal. Germany went on to finish runners-up, losing to Brazil in the final.
2006 World Cup Cycle
The United States followed up this success by winning its third Gold Cup, and second out of three, in 2005.In the 2006 World Cup, after finishing top of the CONCACAF qualification tournament, the U.S. was drawn into Group E along with the Czech Republic, Italy, and Ghana. The United States opened its tournament with a 3–0 loss to the Czech Republic. The team then drew 1–1 against Italy, thanks to an own goal from Zaccardo, ending up being the only opponent together along with France the Italian side failed to defeat in the tournament (officially, according to FIFA, France and Italy drew 1–1, although Italy won the tournament after a penalty shoot out). The United States was then knocked out of the tournament when beaten 2–1 by Ghana in its final group match, with Clint Dempsey scoring their only goal in the tournament.
2010s
2010 World Cup Cycle
After failing to maintain his 2002 success at the 2006 World Cup, Bruce Arena was eventually replaced by his assistant with the national team and Chivas USA manager, Bob Bradley, whose reign began with four wins and one draw in friendlies.In the 2007 Gold Cup, hosted by the United States, the U.S. won all three of its group stage matches. With a 2–1 win over Panama in the quarterfinals, the U.S. advanced to face Canada in the semifinals, winning 2–1. In the final, the United States came from behind to beat Mexico 2–1. This victory in the 2007 Gold Cup meant that the United States qualified for the 2009 Confederations Cup. The team's disappointing Copa América 2007 campaign, fielding what many considered a second-tier team, ended after three defeats in the group stage to Argentina, Paraguay, and Colombia.
The highlight of summer 2009 was the 2009 Confederations Cup, where the U.S. was drawn into Group B with Brazil, Egypt, and Italy. After losing 3–1 to Italy and 3–0 to Brazil, on the final day of group play the United States beat Egypt 3–0. This meant that the United States finished second in the group and reached the semi-finals. In the semifinals, the U.S. defeated Spain 2–0. At the time, Spain was atop the FIFA World Rankings and was on a record run of 15 straight wins and 35 games undefeated (a record shared with Brazil). With the win, the United States advanced to its first-ever final in a men's FIFA tournament; however, the team lost 3–2 to Brazil after leading 2–0 at half-time.
After the Confederations Cup, the United States hosted the 2009 Gold Cup. Because the U.S. had just played in the Confederations Cup, Bob Bradley chose a side consisting of mostly reserves. The U.S. began group play with victories over Grenada and Honduras and a draw against Haiti. In the quarterfinals, the United States defeated Panama 2–1 after extra time. In the semifinals the U.S. defeated Honduras 2-0. In the final the United States was beaten by Mexico 5–0, surrendering its 58-match unbeaten streak against CONCACAF opponents on U.S. soil. It was also the first home loss to Mexico since 1999.
2010 World Cup Qualification
- Qualification:
- The United States qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
The U.S. began the Fourth round by beating Mexico 2–0, a loss that extended Mexico's losing streak against America on U.S. soil to 11 matches.Next, the United States made a late rally to earn a 2–2 draw away to El Salvador. Four days later, Jozy Altidore became the youngest U.S. player to score a hat-trick, and lead the United States to a 3–0 victory over Trinidad and Tobago. Next, the U.S. travelled to Costa Rica, where they were defeated 3–1. The United States rebounded three days later when they defeated Honduras 2–1. Near the end of the summer of 2009, the United States suffered a 2–1 loss to Mexico at Estadio Azteca. A few weeks later, the United States came from behind to defeat El Salvador 2–1 at home. The next week, the U.S. beat Trinidad and Tobago 1–0. On October 10, 2009, the United States secured qualification to the World Cup with a 3–2 win over Honduras. Four days later, the U.S. secured first place in the Fourth round with a dramatic 2–2 draw against Costa Rica.
2010 FIFA World Cup
After drawing against England (1–1) and Slovenia (2–2), in which a potential game-winning goal against Slovenia was disallowed without explanation, the US defeated Algeria through a Landon Donovan stoppage time goal, the first time the USA had won its group since 1930. In the round of 16, the US was eliminated by Ghana, 2–1.
On July 13, 2010, FIFA released their post tournament ranking of World Cup teams, and the USA finished in 12th place.
2014 World Cup Cycle
Main articles: 2014 FIFA World Cup, 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONCACAF), and 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification - CONCACAF Fourth Round
The US team got the cycle underway with a 2–0 defeat to Brazil in the New Meadowlands Stadium. In preparation for the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup, the U.S. played three friendlies; a 1–1 draw to Argentina, a 1–0 loss to Paraguay, and a 4–0 loss to Spain.The United States hosted the 2011 Gold Cup, and was drawn into Group C with Canada, Panama, and Guadeloupe. The U.S. advanced past the group stage with a pair of victories over Guadeloupe and Canada, despite losing to Panama 2–1. This was the first defeat for the U.S. in a Gold Cup group stage match, and its first ever loss to Panama. In the quarterfinals, the United States defeated Jamaica 2–0. In the semifinals the U.S. avenged their group stage defeat with a 1–0 victory over Panama, and advanced to its fourth consecutive Gold Cup final where the team faced Mexico in a rematch of the 2009 Gold Cup final. The United States was beaten by Mexico 4–2, despite leading 2–0, extending Mexico's winning streak against the U.S. to three matches. It was also the second consecutive loss to Mexico on American soil. Following the loss, Bradley was relieved of his duties as coach.
On July 29, 2011, Jürgen Klinsmann was named by Sunil Gulati to be Bradley's successor as the national team's head coach. After their first six matches resulted in only a win and a draw against four losses, the U.S. embarked on a five-game winning streak. On February 29, 2012 the team won 1-0 in Italy, the first ever win for the USA over Italy.
In 2012 the team began their World Cup qualification, and topped their third round qualification group with four wins, one draw and one defeat. On June 2, 2013, the US played 2nd-ranked Germany in its Centennial celebration match at a sold out RFK Stadium in Washington D.C. The US won 4-3. This was the USMNT's first win over a top 2 ranked team since the 2-0 victory over top-ranked Spain in the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup. On June 6, 2013 the US beat Jamaica 2-1. On June 11, the US beat Panama 2-0 at CenturyLink Field in Seattle in front of almost 41,000 fans, the seventh largest crowd to date to watch the team play a World Cup Qualifier on US soil. The game also drew the second largest TV audience on ESPN for a US World Cup Qualifier in history. On June 18, the US followed with a 1-0 victory over Honduras at Rio Tinto Stadium. The US then played a friendly on July 5 against Guatemala in preparation for the 2013 CONCACAF Gold Cup, which the US won 6-0.
soccer
In the United States, college soccer is featured in many collegiate athletic associations including NCAA, NAIA, the NCCAA, the USCAA, and the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association for schools without collegiate programs, but have a collegiate club team. Many top American college soccer players play for separate teams in the Premier Development League (PDL) during the summer.The NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Championship, the semifinals and finals of which are known as the College Cup, is an American intercollegiate college soccer tournament conducted by the NCAA, and determines the Division I men's national champion. The tournament has been formally held since 1959, when it crowned Saint Louis University as the inaugural champion. The tournament's current format involves 48 teams, in which every Division I conference tournament champion is allocated a berth. Since its inception, Saint Louis (10 titles), Indiana (8 titles), and Virginia (6 titles) have historically been the most successful Division I schools. Indiana has appeared in more College Cups (18) and has a higher winning percentage in post-season play (.768) than any other school in Division I soccer.
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