DC Summer of Sports: The Summer We Fell in Love with Soccer

Thoughts From The Editor...

BY DC CUEVA      

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All Pictures: Me

For so very long since my days in elementary school, sports has been in my blood... whether it's those spending time with my late dad watching games on TV with him, going to games in person across the major sports to watch our favorite teams, or in the past two years taking the train up to fan festivals surrounding two of our country's biggest annual sports events. But perhaps the most avid part of my own personal sports fandom doesn't even involve rooting on the Warriors, 49ers or any Bay Area sports team... but something even bigger than just regional loyalties that are at the root of our sports culture.

Whenever a last digit of any given year ends with an even number, it also means the coming of a biannual or quadrennial sports event that brings different countries of our complicated world together, all in the name of sport, fierce competition and the glory of national pride and honor with a gold-plated prize at stake. Ever since I first discovered it as a fan back then (but who was quite literally born with a love of it when I got baptized during one of those), the Olympic Games have become the most vivid example of my sports fanaticism -- from the nineteen straight days of binge-watching the action on TV and streaming, to being engaged in the kinds of sports most of us don't ordinarily follow but somehow have become the kinds of sports which I now follow quite a bit in between Olympics.

But for thirty-nine days over the course of the summer of '26, that passion for the kind of sporting events that only come around once every four (or two) years and captivate the world grew considerably. This time, it was for the other big global event on our calendar that, not long ago, didn't really strike a cord with most Americans outside of just a small handful. But a series of notable events in the last four decades turned the tide for the world's most popular sport to finally take over our country, and in the midst of a milestone commemoration of our 250th anniversary of independence led to the summer we all fell in love with soccer... and it was all thanks to a little tournament known as FIFA World Cup 2026.