North America  From Maya Ballgames to Equal Pay

Mexico, USA, Canada: the three North American countries are jointly hosting the World Cup 2026. However, soccer has evolved very differently in each of them. From Mexico, with its millennia-old tradition of ballgames, to the big unknown that is Canada, we introduce you to the three nations and their soccer traditions.

Mexico

Around 3,000 years ago, one of the world’s oldest ballgames – ulama, or juego de pelota – was already being played on land that is now part of Mexico. In this game, players were not allowed to touch the ball with their feet. However, given the country’s millennia-old tradition of ballgames, it’s perhaps not surprising that modern soccer also proved extremely popular in Mexico. Miners from England introduced the game to Mexico in the late nineteenth century. At the time, soccer was seen as a good way to teach men skills such as discipline, team spirit, obedience and the will to win. It’s no wonder that many Mexican companies were involved in founding the first clubs. A professional men’s league was established in 1943. Today, soccer is the most popular sport in Mexico.

It wasn’t only 3,000 years ago that Mexico played a trailblazing role, however: the country also staged one of the first unofficial women’s world championships in 1971. The tournament was huge by the standards of the time, with over 100,000 fans turning out to watch the final in the Azteca Stadium. It was no coincidence that Mexico was chosen to host the championship: while women’s soccer was still banned elsewhere, it was booming there and the country had a league that received a lot of media attention. There’s been a professional women’s league in Mexico since 2017. Only in the north of the country is soccer not the undisputed number one sport – because of the region’s proximity to the USA, baseball and basketball are also very popular there.

USA

Americans are still notoriously unenthusiastic about soccer. The upcoming World Cup aims to change this attitude, with both FIFA and European clubs hoping for growth and fabulous profits.

And yet soccer has a long history in the USA, the first club having been established in 1862. A league for men already existed in the 1920s. However, soccer was never able to compete with major U.S. team sports such as American football, basketball, baseball and ice hockey. People long considered it not tough enough – and as a game primarily for women and children. It is very popular among migrants from Latin America.

There have been repeated attempts to artificially induce a craze for soccer: for example by signing stars like Franz Beckenbauer and Pelé, who both played for the New York Cosmos in the late 1970s, or by hosting the men’s World Cup in 1994. Such strategies had little impact in the medium term. U.S. billionaires, on the other hand, discovered their passion for soccer long ago: in 2023, around a third of the clubs in Europe’s top five leagues were owned wholly or partly by U.S. investors, many of them private equity companies. And their spending spree continues.

Even if the men’s game has never been really widely embraced, the U.S. women’s team certainly has taken off. One of the best in the world, it has produced top-notch global stars such as Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, players who are fully committed to feminism, LGBT rights and equal pay. The U.S. women reached a milestone in 2022 when they became one of the world’s first teams to receive the same pay as their male counterparts. The pay deal sparked a whole series of similar movements across the world, many of them successful. Clubs such as the progressive Portland Thorns, or Angel City FC that was founded by female investors, are also having a major impact. Players and officials who come to work in the U.S. often wax lyrical about the conditions there.

Canada

Canada is perhaps the big unknown among the host states. The World Cup will only be played in two Canadian states, and many fans probably don’t associate much with Canadian soccer. Though they should, as the sport has developed remarkably there over the past decade.

Soccer was long overshadowed by ice hockey and lacrosse, yet Canada has been investing heavily in soccer recently, as well as in the next generation of players. A decision that has definitely paid off: soccer now has more active players than any other sport there. There’s been a dedicated professional league for men since 2019. The country reaped the fruits of all these endeavours in 2022 when it qualified for the men’s World Cup – for the first time in nearly 40 years. Canada even has a world-class player in Alphonso Davies, who has been part of the national squad since 2017. As the country’s success in soccer grows, so too does the enthusiasm of its population. It’s the women who have really taken over the game, though. The Canadian women’s team is far more successful than the men’s: its greatest triumph came in 2021 when it scooped gold at the Olympic Games. However, it was long the case that Canada’s female players – just like those in other countries – had to put up with worse pay and conditions, so they threatened to go on strike ahead of the 2023 World Cup. Despite achieving equal pay as a result, they stress that their fight is not over yet – they are also demanding equal conditions.