CARY, N.C.– Five months removed from the United States men’s national team missing out on the 2018 FIFA World Cup, there’s optimism about the future of the program.
While some may see Tuesday’s friendly against Paraguay as meaningless, the fans packed into Sahlen’s Stadium at WakeMed Soccer Park saw it as the starting point of the new four-year process to get to 2022.
“It’s pretty awesome. We’ve had the women here a couple of times, twice in 2011 and they just came here in 2017,” Eboni Christmas, the president of the American Outlaws Raleigh chapter, said. “For the men, they haven’t been here since 2006 so it’s a very special occasion. I’m so excited because no matter what the circumstances, it’s always an honor to host a US game. To here we got the call was amazing and I was so excited.”
When information came out that the team’s young core — Tyler Adams, Cameron Carter-Vickers and others — were playing, the mood around the game changed into an optimistic tone.
“When we got the call we thought no one was going to show up because it’s a Tuesday night game, we didn’t qualify for the World Cup and no big stars are going to be here,” Christmas said. “But I think having no stars here got me the most excited because I want to see those players actually fight and go for every 50-50 ball, and I think once that kicked in, that’s when their mindset changed and they wanted to see these guys.”
American Outlaws Durham founder and current treasurer Mattie Beason said, “At least for me, I don’t see any upside on dwelling on the fact that we’re not in the World Cup. So let’s take the opportunity to spend the next four years really trying to bring kids in and see if they can play, see if they work and make sense. And let’s get them some time on the pitch because we got time to do it, more so than we’ve ever had.”
Fans in North Carolina aren’t starved of soccer. They have North Carolina FC in the United Soccer League and North Carolina Courage in the National Women’s Soccer League, but the national team admittedly brings a different flavor to the area.
“The supporter culture is obviously different between club team and national team,” Christmas said. “It’s still the same type of passionate people no matter what.
“We just got our women’s team a year ago and they went to the championship, and now they’re back with the same core group and they’re hungry and ready to go back and win it all this time. They’re doing great and the feeling around that team is high expectations, and for the men it’s a new league — they went from [North American Soccer League] to USL — and it’s a lot of new faces. The feeling around that one is growth.”
In different areas of the Triangle, there’s a unique type of support given the wide array of college programs, including Duke and North Carolina.
In Durham, the college teams reign supreme, but the momentum gained from Tuesday’s game will hopefully be the start of a movement that gains steam toward 2022.
“I think we get a lot of college support because we’re college towns,” Beason said. “Raleigh and Durham are very different, so it’s interesting. Raleigh gets more of the NCFC crowd and also gets more of the [American Outlaw] crowd, where Durham, Chapel Hill — we have really big college followings. Plus Duke and Carolina have had a lot of success in the NCAA, both in soccer and other sports. It’s got a real sort of college feel to it, so talking people into something other than college sometimes can be difficult.”
With Tuesday presenting such a unique atmosphere and serving as the start of a new era, the fans are hoping to have memories created Tuesday night that they can look back on in four years time.
“For a lot of these people, 90 percent of the team that they brought are people they’ve never heard of,” Beason said. “Hopefully what they can do is come full circle and in three or four years ideally when we’re back on a world stage, some of these kids are playing on the stage and they can say I saw them then.”
Said Christmas: “We may not be in this World Cup, but 2022 is right around the corner too and those are the players’ names I’m going to be wearing on my back when I go to the 2022 World Cup.”