How the US men's national team values diversity, even in the Trump era

The Guardian

5 hours ago

Los Angeles will be in the spotlight during the 2026 World Cup. It's where the US men's national team will begin their World Cup campaign, and it's where they'll wrap up the group stage. It's a city in the news lately due to the Trump administration's deployment of Ice and the national guard, but it's also a metro area synonymous with diversity. This US men's national team, more than ever, reflects that diversity.
'It's not that there's a record or anything of how many minorities have been on the national team before, but I feel like this has been the most diverse generation of national team,' said center back Chris Richards, who is poised to be a leader along the backline for the US next year.
During most periods of the USMNT's modern history, Richards saying this would be a political non-factor. But today, as the Trump administration openly discourages talk of diversity in public life, it means something. Against the backdrop of polarization at home and mounting pressure to make a deep run at the World Cup, a team mostly based abroad has been careful about commenting on social and political issues in the United States.
Diversity, though, remains foundational.
'When we had Gregg [Berhalter] as the coach, and we had to pick our anchors for our team, and we talked about picking 'diverse' as one of those anchors, we started to look around the room, and you really start to realize how every single person on our team comes from such a completely different background,' said midfielder Tyler Adams, who captained the US at the 2022 World Cup. 'It was the first time I started to realize, 'Wow, we just have a very, very diverse team.''
Adams and others mean 'diversity' in the truest sense of the word: Age, race, culture, birthplace; it is seemingly all there, in one roster.
'This team is a microcosm of what the United States is,' said Tim Ream, who at 37 is the oldest player by far on an otherwise young and mid-career team. 'It's representative of the entire country. So many backgrounds, different cultures, different ways of doing things, different beliefs, and that's OK, and we all get along just fine.'
Adams, who is black, wasn't really thinking about diversity as a kid growing up in Wappingers Falls, New York. He's biracial, raised by his mother (who is white) and eventually his stepfather (who is also white) along with his three stepbrothers, who he refers to as his father and brothers. Looking back, Adams said he had a lot of black friends and a reasonably diverse school, but his youth soccer environment was different.
'A lot of white kids play soccer in the neighborhoods I grew up in,' said Adams, who noted that youth national teams provided an early, eye-opening experience.
'A lot of the kids that were getting called in from California obviously have a Latin [American] background. And right away you could tell how diverse just America in general is,' he said. 'It was a really cool thing. You become friends with people that on the west coast that you may have never met through the game, and you start to understand a little bit of the culture and why they fall in love with the game, why you fall in love with the game, and how your geography kind of dictates that.'
St Louis, the New York area, and California are historic hotbeds of soccer in the US. Former US defender and notoriously opinionated pundit Alexi Lalas recently reiterated his view that the men's national team could be better served by being more 'exclusive' and concentrating player development resources on such hotbeds.
But to do so would be to exclude Birmingham, Alabama – Richards' home town. The Crystal Palace defender says he was typically the only black player on his team growing up before he joined the FC Dallas academy. During 2022 World Cup qualifying, he noticed how much the national team had changed.
'I remember at one point it was Antonee Robinson, Mark McKenzie, myself, and Sergiño Dest, and I was like, 'Oh, this is like an all black back line,'' he said. 'Zack Steffen was in goal … Weston [McKennie] was playing in the midfield, we had Timothy Weah on the wing, Yunus [Musah] was playing. So that's eight starters right there that are black, and we were just like, 'This is kind of crazy.' Me personally growing up, I never saw it. I know Yunus probably did because he grew up in London, but for me, it was really rare. I never experienced something like that until playing with the national team.'
Richards didn't really think about the diversity of the national team when he was younger. Today, hesaid it gives inspiration to his little brother, and his best friend.
'His dad was like, 'You have no idea how big this is, not just for kids in Birmingham, but kids of color in Birmingham,' Richards said. 'It's something that they never had seen on TV and something that they never really aspired [to] because they'd never seen it before.'
When it comes to political expression, November 2020 was a turning point for the US men's national team. After the Covid-19 pandemic had precluded the full squad from convening for a year, much of its emerging, European-based talent was on display in a 0-0 draw against Wales. So too was the team's diversity: ten out of the 11 starters were black or Hispanic, with four born and raised abroad.
Their participation in the social justice movement was also beginning to emerge. In their first game since the murder of George Floyd and ensuing protests that prompted messages of social justice solidarity throughout the sports world, the players and coaches wore jackets emblazoned with the words 'Be The Change' across the front. On the back, they had the space to send their own personal message.
'Whether you supported what was going on or not, it was the time to stand with your principles,' Richards said. 'So some people put different messages on the back of their jackets, and whether it was a Black Lives Matter quote, whether it was just an equal rights thing, we all have something that we stand for.'
Eighteen months later, under the banner of the 'Be The Change,' the team sent a very direct message to Congress regarding gun legislation and wore orange armbands in a friendly against Uruguay to raise awareness.
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Weighing in on a social or political issue like this is the product of extensive dialogue and consensus, but with the spotlight on soccer in the US shining brighter and overlapping more with politics, it will be more challenging for American players to keep their distance or calibrate their response. On Wednesday, Weah and McKennie were among the members of Juventus invited to the Oval Office on the eve of their Club World Cup opener in Washington DC (Weah later told reporters that he had no choice but to go). With McKennie, Weah and others as a backdrop, Trump answered all sorts of questions from the press. At one point, he turned to them to ask if a woman could play for Juventus – a reference to the culture war surrounding the battle over transgender rights. None of the visitors took the bait.
'I was kind of like, I just want to play football,' said Weah, whose father is the former president of Liberia and Ballon D'or winner.
Ream and Adams both underlined that the US team isn't having deep discussions about politics at the dinner table during their limited time together. If commentary is to come from the team, they said, it can't be counter-productive, engendering awkwardness or discord.
'If I'm going to say something, I'm going to say something because I feel like it can bring people together and bring people closer,' Ream said.
And while athletes today have their own megaphone at their fingertips, sharing their opinion or engaging with others on social media carries plenty of risk.
'It's gonna get misconstrued one way or another so there's no point,' Adams said.
Adams also stressed that ultimately, technology can only compensate so much for physically being on the other side of the Atlantic, where he and other players spend most of their time during the club season. There's a disconnect from the reality back home that is increasingly difficult to digest.
'It's an interesting time we're living in,' he said. 'A lot of decisions that are made almost seem like they just happened in a blink of an eye. It's hard to fathom sometimes exactly what's happening and have a complete understanding.'
The US men's national team's naming of diversity as one of its pillars didn't seem out of the ordinary in 2020. Now, five years later, the backlash to diversity, equity and inclusion, accelerated by a second Trump administration, has changed the landscape. It is intertwined with the administration's immigration policy, built by Trump's deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
To him and others in the administration, the concept of diversity as a strength on its own is a political statement – the very thing the team tries to avoid without full buy-in and a lot of thought and collaboration among the group.
'Within the last few years, particularly the last year, it's been a very tough time for the country. With change, with the new president, with things like that,' Richards said. 'I felt like we were moving forward with certain things, with uplifting minorities. And I feel like in the last few months, it's felt like it's gone backwards.'
At the moment, the US appreciate their diversity but don't feel the need to celebrate it publicly. In camp they're curious to learn about each other's lives, and let their performances elicit pride in their identity.
'When you play well, you're like, 'Look at that team. Look how diverse.' You take so many positives away from what our team stands for,' Adams said. 'So that's important as well, and we'll get back to that way, because that's what makes us great.'