A crowd of people holding flags (2022) | Jeff James / Unsplash license
On Sunday, October 26, Spain’s two powerhouse clubs, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, met once again in El Clásico, the name given to any clash between the two. Both teams command massive global followings, including in the United States, and this weekend was no exception. The match, held at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, was broadcast in the US by ESPN, the country’s largest sports-only network.
The hype was palpable. As usual, the game aired in Spanish on ESPN Deportes and in English on ESPN2 and ESPN+, ESPN’s streaming platform. But this time, there was a notable change. During the English-language halftime show, host Sebastian Salazar reported live from Stampede Houston, a bar in Houston, packed with Latino fans. In a particularly striking moment, Salazar interviewed Rivaldo, the Brazilian World Cup winner and a legend at FC Barcelona. Salazar began each question in English, smoothly switched to Spanish to translate for Rivaldo, who replied in Spanish, and then translated the response back into English for viewers.
If you weren’t watching, the exchange might have passed unnoticed. But its significance shouldn’t be. Ever since the announcement that Bad Bunny will headline the upcoming Super Bowl halftime show, debates about Latino culture’s place in American life have intensified. For some, it’s a long-overdue acknowledgment, a chance to see themselves represented on the nation’s biggest stage. For others, it signals that the NFL, long seen as a symbol of “mainstream America”—by which is meant white, English-speakers—is changing beyond recognition.
Yet the reactions point to something more profound than a pop-cultural divide. If the average American thinks a Super Bowl halftime show tests the limits of cultural comfort, the 2026 World Cup will be something else entirely. It will be a revelation, and, ultimately, a gift. The tournament will show that soccer, once dismissed as a “foreign” or “fringe” sport, has fully arrived. More importantly, it will invite Americans to see themselves as part of a broader whole: the Americas—a region that lives, plays, and, increasingly, speaks in Spanish.
The Super Bowl has always been more than just a game; it’s the grand ritual of English-speaking American life—part commerce, part communion. But as the NFL expands its reach by staging regular-season games in cities like London, Frankfurt, Mexico City, Sao Paulo and soon Rio de Janeiro, it’s clear that even the league understands the center of gravity in sports and culture is shifting: that America no longer owns the spectacle alone. There’s talk now not of if, but when the Super Bowl will be played in London. So it follows logically and for business sense that hosting the Super Bowl in a major metropolis in a Spanish-speaking country south of the border won’t seem like such a ridiculous prospect anymore. The NFL, at least, has grasped that the future of American sports is global—and also Spanish-speaking.
The harder question is whether the United States itself is ready for that future.
The NFL plays up and profits from the imagery of “diversity.” Take “Por la cultura,” a marketing campaign that leans on the heritage of Latino players, encourages Spanish-speaking high school football players to stay in school, and also includes a voter awareness campaign (“NFL Vota”). But the NFL has also aired ICE commercials during high-profile NFL games, including Monday Night Football, that take a harder line. In some of them, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem promises that ICE agents “will be all over” the Super Bowl, presumably to arrest Americans speaking Spanish. The NFL has been silent about this.
Next summer, the World Cup will come to the United States, Mexico, and Canada—the first time in history that the tournament will stretch across a continent. The bulk of the games will be played in the US, accounting for 78 of the total 104 games. It will bring the world’s most diverse audiences, accents, and rhythms into the US’s stadiums and streets. Given the short travel distances, the large diaspora here, and the fact that some of the strongest teams, including the underdogs, will come from South America, Spanish will be one of the dominant languages of the tournament.
The FIFA Club World Cup this past summer was a tantalizing glimpse of what’s coming when the World Cup lands in North America. It was an appetizer not just in football terms, but also in cultural terms. The tournament brought together clubs and fans from Latin America and beyond, including immigrants from those countries living in the US, showing the passion, rhythm, and flair that the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Americas bring to the game. From the songs in the stands to the sheer emotional commitment of supporters from Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, it reminded audiences—especially in the United States—that soccer here isn’t a borrowed spectacle but a living tradition. In one instance, Miami was taken by fans of Boca Juniors, the storied Argentine club. They staged their “Banderazo,” their form of tailgating, in the hours before the game. During their games (they got knocked out in the first round), their coordinated stomping shook stadiums. Not to be outdone, fans of Brazilian team Palmeiras and Fluminense took over Times Square in New York City.
The Club World Cup hinted at what awaits: a World Cup where the hemisphere’s love for the sport—its street-level creativity, communal joy and irreverent humor—will overflow into cities across the continent.
In the US, soccer—or football, or fútbol—has long been gated by the pay-to-play model, that is, the idea that access to competition depends on the size of your parents’ wallet. Playing soccer is a class and racial marker. Even in New York City, where Spanish speakers make up twenty percent of the residents, most youth soccer teams are predominantly white and middle-class. That dynamic doesn’t exist elsewhere. In the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the pitches of Mexico City, or the barrios of Buenos Aires, football is the people’s game. So when Americans wonder why “soccer hasn’t caught on,” they might start by asking who’s been kept out.
The same racial and class dynamics bedevil the national team, which will be the face of US soccer during the World Cup. Its most recognizable player, Christian Pulisic, once celebrated a goal by mimicking Donald Trump’s dance—a moment that captured the divide between two competing visions of the nation: one insular and fearful, the other open and plural. Former US player Alexi Lalas, now an influential pundit on FOX Sports, has also made clear his vision of who truly belongs on the team: players of white, English-speaking, and European descent. Many Spanish-speaking US players get the message. Some, especially those with Mexican roots, have opted to play for their parents’ homeland instead. The last time the US men’s World Cup roster featured a strong Latino presence was in 1994, when the country last hosted the tournament. It’s been downhill since. On the most recent official roster, for the 2025 Gold Cup, only two players—Diego Luna and Johnny Cardoso—had Latino heritage.
Even more troubling is the cozy relationship between US President Donald Trump and FIFA president Gianni Infantino. During the Club World Cup, FIFA even set up a shop at Trump Tower—a symbolic gesture that spoke volumes. And this December, the draw for the World Cup will take place at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, where Trump has already ousted the board, installed his own chair, and purged what he calls “woke” and “DEI” programming.
And yet, the tide might be shifting. Lionel Messi, who will most likely captain Argentina, perhaps the greatest player to ever live, chose to finish his career not in Saudi Arabia but in Miami, a league once considered a retirement home. At 38, he is a favorite to win MVP this season. His presence alone has transformed Major League Soccer, with stadiums packed with fans who chant in English and Spanish, knowing that fútbol is bigger than borders.
In their last census, in 2024, Major League Soccer (MLS) boasted that they are the most diverse among the top five professional sporting leagues in the US. The number of international players, many from Spanish countries and regions, had gone up by 44 percent since the MLS’s previous report on player demographics in 2014. Players from Argentina, Brazil and Colombia were among the top five nationalities represented.
The league reflects a much more diverse, plural, and open society than the one in politics.
MLS fan culture increasingly draws inspiration from South America. Supporter groups wave flags, unfurl politically charged tifos, play drums and trumpets, and march to the stadium before kickoff; scenes straight out of Buenos Aires or Rio. In Atlanta, for instance, fans have built one of the most vibrant atmospheres in the country. Their supporter group, “The 17s,” works closely with the club to create an environment where everyone feels welcome, no matter their background. It’s no coincidence that Atlanta, a city in a region where 37 percent of residents are of Latino heritage, will host one of the World Cup semifinals this summer.
The same spirit defines Los Angeles FC (LAFC). Originally conceived as a US offshoot of Mexico’s C.D. Guadalajara (better known as Chivas), LAFC inherited much of that fan energy when it rebranded. The club’s leadership recognized that the culture of Los Angeles—largely Latino, dynamic, and expressive—should be reflected in the team’s identity, especially in the North End of BMO Stadium, home to its ultras, “The 3252.”
So when Bad Bunny stood on Saturday Night Live earlier this Fall and closed his monologue with a smirk—“If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn”—he wasn’t just teasing. He was issuing a challenge.
Because beyond the Super Bowl, as the World Cup descends on North America in less than eight months, a majority English-speaking, culturally insular United States will have to decide whether it wants to simply host the world, or join it. Whether it wants to remain an island of exceptionalism, or finally accept what geography, demography, and culture have long made clear: that it belongs not to some imagined “West,” but to the Americas—plural, multilingual, mestizo.
If the average American thinks Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl will be a shocker, wait until they hear 90,000 fans in Kansas City, Atlanta, and Los Angeles singing their devotion and admiration for their teams in Spanish. The beautiful game will do what no policy or pundit can: remind Americans that they’re not apart from the world, but a part of it.
And that they’ll be better for it.
This essay was first published in the Substack Eleven Named People, on November 3, 2025. Reprinted with permission.
