Eighteen years ago this week, Bruce Arena’s team started their campaign. They would change how American players were perceived at home and abroad
On 7 October 2001, the US men’s national team carried the weight of a nation’s grief on their shoulders. The crucial 2002 World Cup qualifier with Jamaica was the first national sports event since the 9/11 attacks. And the galvanizing feeling of responsibility that the players shared that evening would prove a crucial ingredient in the team’s eventual run to the World Cup quarter-finals eight months later.
This is the story of an unlikely group – largely written off and ridiculed – who not only delivered an unforgettable accomplishment but exorcised some long-lasting tournament trauma, properly announced the team as a competitive force on a global stage and may have saved North America’s flailing domestic league from extinction.
Related: Great Satan 1-2 Iran: the most politically charged match in World Cup history
I remember thinking, ‘Man, I haven’t seen this in MLS’
Related: An oral history of USA at Italia ’90: the World Cup that changed US soccer
