Travis Kelce's tweets from 2010 ⚽
Ruminations on opportunity in public perception as the US prepares to host World Cup '26
In two short years, the US will co-host the 2026 World Cup with Canada and Mexico. With the schedule officially announced last week, I took a moment to consider the opportunity before us, which could either curve toward glory, or look like Travis Kelce’s tweets from 2010.
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Back in November, we were doing all kinds of different things as a country. Our remit is wide and our focus moves fast.
This is ostensibly a newsletter with a sporting focus. So, if you’ll allow me to jog your mind in that direction:
The Texas Rangers had just won their first World Series title. Major League Soccer had launched a new playoff format, and it would take six weeks to reach its end. Gotham FC claimed their first Championship in franchise history. The beleaguered USWNT elected the esteemed Englishwoman, Emma Hayes, to lead them forward.
Other sporting stories were just setting out. The NBA launched its 78th season. And the Eagles looked capable of running it back, ending the month with a league-dominating record of 10-1.
Out in the uncertain world beyond courts and fields and diamonds of good old American baseball dirt (where the uncertain world of course bleeds in), wars erupted or raged on. The seeping sense of “things” unraveling, which continues now, accelerated then.
But inside the familiar fond hum of things like expected goals or quarterback ratings, we were safe from everything except the collapse of Jim Curtin’s trophy aspirations, or the inundation of relentless commentary regarding America’s newest, most famous couple. You know who I mean.
As this new coupledom unfolded every Sunday in NFL, something glorious happened. Collectively (thanks to the Swifties), we discovered Travis Kelce’s tweets from 2010:
And me, as this happened? I was in Budapest, watching the US Men’s National Team lose to Trinidad and Tobago at 3 AM.
The tweets
Now, unearthing dormant tweets has long been tied to controversy. Many a public figure has met ire from the masses when somebody finds their old tweets.
But the younger Kelce brother’s off-the-cuff commentary from a decade back reads like inside the mind of a puppy. They harken us back to a simpler time, when social media wasn’t a potential method of civilizational collapse, filled with inevitable rhetorical warfare on any surfaced topic.
Instead, they’ve fossilized for all time a bygone era when people made accounts to post earnest updates, like: “I’m having pizza for lunch!!”
Try as the Swifties might, the most controversial part of Travis Kelce’s tweets was that he did not then, and perhaps does not now, know how to spell things like “squirle” or “Findland”.
His tweets about food generally, and “Chipolte” specifically, are perhaps only surpassed by mention of naps, making him eminently relatable:
Now, how Miss Americana went from a six year relationship with an austere English actor whose male-pal group chat is called “The Tortured Man Club”, to dating Ohio’s golden retriever of tight ends is a topic for another day.
Today’s topic is the bad boy below.
Initially, some among the commenting class presumed the above tweet to be a lighthearted rebuke of our nation, perhaps inspired by a recent socio-political happening of the time.
But then the soccer-verse set in. And that underestimated corner of the America-webs we know so well (possessing a few sleuths as sly as a Swiftie) was quick to point out that in fact, Travis sent this tweet right in the middle of the US Men’s National Team group stage clash with Slovenia during the 2010 World Cup.
More specifically, University of Cincinnati’s then tight end fired off this tweet just before halftime, when the US was losing 2-0. Though unconfirmed, it seems likely given the timing that Kelce may have sent his dismay sailing across the internet right after Gent’s forward from Ljubljana, Zlatan Ljubijankić, slotted this goal past Tim Howard in the 42nd minute of the game.
Before we continue, please pause to consider the plight of bandanna-wearing Americans mouthing, “What’s going on??!” on the broadcast at timestamp 0:29:
From Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg, to the couch of Travis Kelce, frustration was the vibe for Americans at halftime.
The US mounted a mighty comeback in that second half, though, reclaiming two goals via Landon Dononvan and Michael Bradley, and nicking a draw from their Jo’burg affair with Slovenia. They went on to beat Algeria 1-0 in extra time of their next match, making it out of Group C in first place ahead of England, with what is probably my favorite USMNT goal of all-time. The chills still pervade me.
But Travis Kelce didn’t know that yet.
A flat pancake of a year
The discovery of this incredible tweet happened just as the United States was floundering through two Trinidad matches last November. For reasons I’ll soon extrapolate, it’s stayed with me.
But first: a throat clear.
To me, the regurgitated refrains naming high-ceilings and generational talent still ring true. The potential for this team remains where it has been for years, as the USA’s modern-era redeem team took hold of high-stakes at a young age, and returned the national team to the World Cup for the first time since 2014.
With the “veterans” among them just 24, and some starters as young as 18, the USMNT spent 2021-22 flying from pressured-filled club scenarios at the height of Europe, to hostile environments across North America, Central America and the Caribbean, in an arduous sporting attempt to make amends for what happened in Couva in 2017.
About once a month over the course of seven, they ran out before proud, thunderous crowds in El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Jamaica, Canada, Mexico and Costa Rica, tasked with winning games while developing a newfound team identity, then flying back to face individual battles in England or Italy or Germany or across North America the day following.
It was no easy feat, but they did achieve it. The US qualified for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, then fielded the youngest starting lineup in the tournament. After beating Iran and escaping their group, they lost to the Netherlands in the Round of 16, more or less departing where the US had historically. But overall, they’d impressed in Doha with how they could play.
All of this is commendable in context. But the public is ready for what’s next, especially if the team is to meet its own lofty vision. But what came next instead was a flat pancake of a year.
If you care to imagine it, there I was in Budapest, short on sleep, tallying the year’s gains and gaffes inside a travel-worn notebook at two in the morning, observing Sergino Dest have a bizarre meltdown against Trinidad and Tobago, leaving the USA’s last match of 2023 on a strange note for all of us, as he got sent off with a red card at minute 39. (His second match of the year, mind you, where he collected both an assist and a red card in the same game.)
Playing with 10 men, Matt Turner made an error on Trinidad’s go-ahead goal, thus losing 2-1, ceding Couva as a cursed placed in US soccerdom for all time.
With that, the team started the year in controversy and ended with a loss.
They worked through two interim managers (both of whom did a fine job), then settled on the same coach from the last cycle. The squad played eighteen games, won ten, lost three, and drew five of them. (For the record, losing to Panama on pens in the Gold Cup counts as a draw).
The crowning highlight of the year was the Nations League in Vegas, where the team looked sleek, beat Canada and Mexico en route to a trophy, and made sure everyone’s adrenaline still worked in that semifinal.
But if what you wanted, or viscerally craved, was evidence of upward trajectory, there was little to hang your hat on.
The US played Trinidad twice that week in November, the very same week the Swifties unearthed all those tweets from their favorite singer’s new boyfriend.
They won 3-0 in Texas, with all three goals coming in the final ten minutes. “Took you a while to score,” noted an observing European, when I requested an opinion on the performance. Indeed.
Four days later they lost, ending the year by looking silly in Couva.
With a home World Cup so close that Kim Kardashian has already been called in to promote it, I ended 2023 in the middle of the night across the sea feeling that, actually, it might not go well.
Because there I was at three a.m., imagining that I was unalone in feeling like Travis Kelce:
The schedule, the mantra, the opportunity
But a new year is upon us! A new slate is at hand. Form is forming for myriad young lads, who play their football in exotic places called things like Coventry and Norwich. The Serie A saga is soaring. Hope springs eternal, so they (or Alexander Pope) say.
As FIFA confirmed the official schedule and host city designations last Sunday, we were reminded once more of the opportunity before us.
Speaking to the media from Zoom, Gregg Berhalter reminded us of that opportunity himself, an opportunity which he’s boldly articulated before the public as this cycle’s official slogan: “Change soccer in America forever”.
Berhalter, outlining that objective last Sunday:
“The objective is always to perform really well and go as far as you can. You always want to do great. We wanted to do great in 2022. And when you look at it, you know we performed well, but there's better levels to reach. And now on our home soil, we know how much home fans can help, and how home fans can push the home team.”
Berhalter mentioned the power of the home crowd, and fans getting behind them, a few times in the press conference. It’s worth noting here that given the breadth of fandom in the United States (not to mention the people who may travel here for the tournament), depending on the opponent, it can hardly be assumed the USMNT will benefit from a “home” crowd atmosphere, at least inside the stadium. The momentum he cites may need to be earned and fostered in the lead up, built by their performance at major events beforehand. This summer will be pivotal.
Berhalter continued:
“So you know for us, it's about making our nation proud. When I think about the dreams that our players had growing up and playing at their local clubs, and now they're at some of the biggest clubs in Europe. And now it's about… coming back and uniting and trying to grow the game. And one way to really grow the game, and to change soccer in America forever, is to perform well and do something that no US team has ever done before.”
That last part is the key. Berhalter and every player on the team knows it. They may feel its weight as the tournament approaches.
In an interview with ESPN last week, Matt Turner talked about the excitement (and expectation) building toward ‘26. How much would be enough? To really make a mark, and achieve the objective?
Turner: “The final, I feel like… and then if we make the final, it’s winning, you know,” he said laughing. Turner continued:
“... I think, you know, the fans. We have a really strong team. We have really strong players. And tournaments aren't always perfect. But I think the fans have a level of expectation that's been growing over the years and I think it's coming to… its boiling point, when the World Cup is here in ‘26. We have a young team that won't be so young the next time around, with World Cup experience under our belts. So, we're looking forward to that for sure. But we still have two tournaments to go before we get to that point. So…. a few trophies up for grabs that we want to be able to lift for our home fans.”
Those looming tournaments Turner mentions, which most immediately and notably includes this summer’s Copa America, followed by the Olympics, may be the dividing line between lofty hopes and reasonable expectations. It could also, or perhaps should also, impact the longevity of Gregg Berhalter’s second tenure.
Talent and potential will need to meet results. Otherwise we may find ourselves hurling further toward a home World Cup that fails to meet this cycle’s ambitious mantra, and looks more like an entire country of newly tuned-in soccer fans tweeting away like 2010-era Travis Kelce.