The U.S. Soccer Men's Team badge during the national anthem prior to a match against Slovenia at Toyota Field on January 20, 2024, in San Antonio, Texas (Alex Bierens de Haan/USSF/Getty Images) ...

To understand how Team America came to be, consider the state of American soccer in 1983. The NASL’s halcyon days of Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff were a distant memory.

Though teams from outside South America have regularly been invited to Copa America, none have ever won the tournament, with Mexico’s pair of final appearances in 1993 and 2001 accounting for ...

NPR's Rob Schmitz talks with Paul Tenorio, soccer writer with The Athletic, about the Copa America soccer tournament, in which the best teams from North and South America will compete in U.S. cities.

The United States men's national team played its first tournament match last Sunday in Dallas, defeating Bolivia 2-0. Traditionally, Copa America is the national team championship for South America.

Soccer, which the rest of the world mistakenly calls 'football,' is a game created in England in the Middle Ages, long before the invention of fun. It was viewed as an alternative way to be bored.

On the Team America concept: Durgan: “I had come to the Cosmos when I was 17 so I had already had four years of involvement and I really enjoyed what I was doing.

NPR's Rob Schmitz talks with Paul Tenorio, soccer writer with The Athletic, about the Copa America soccer tournament, in which the best teams from North and South America will compete in U.S. cities.

NPR's Rob Schmitz talks with Paul Tenorio, soccer writer with The Athletic, about the Copa America soccer tournament, in which the best teams from North and South America will compete in U.S. cities.