On this day · September 20Today
all →A website dedicated to the deep history of American soccer — starting in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1866.
- games
- 55,699
- players
- 26,116
- teams
- 4,718
- competitions
- 224
| 1980s | 1983 | 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990s | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 |
| 2000s | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 |
| 2010s | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
| 2020s | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
- 1 to 9
- 10 to 99
- 100 to 999
- 1,000 to 2,999
- 3,000 and up
Competitions
American League of Professional Football, 1894
Six baseball owners' six-week experiment — the first professional soccer league in America.
American Soccer League, 1921–1933
The first professional golden age, built on mill-town teams; the Depression ended it.
North American Soccer League, 1968–1984
Pelé, the Cosmos, and more ambition than the gate receipts could carry.
Major League Soccer, 1996–
The top flight since 1996, founded as the price of hosting the 1994 World Cup.
National Women's Soccer League, 2013–
The third attempt at a women's national league, and the one that lasted.
US Open Cup, 1914–
Open to every team in the country since 1914, as the National Challenge Cup.
Teams
USMNT — US Men's National Team
Every international on record, from Newark in 1885 to today.
Bethlehem Steel, 1907–1930
The steel company's team, American soccer's first dynasty.
Hakoah All-Stars, 1928–1933
Built from Hakoah Vienna's touring stars who stayed; 1929 Open Cup champions.
New York Cosmos, 1971–1984
Pelé and Beckenbauer at Giants Stadium; the NASL's rise and fall in one team.
LA Galaxy, 1996–
The MLS flagship: Donovan, Beckham, Ibrahimović, and more MLS Cups than anyone.
Portland Thorns, 2013–
The NWSL's standard-bearer — no city turns out for women's soccer like Portland.
Players
Archie Stark
Bethlehem Steel's goal machine — 70 in the 1924–25 ASL season alone.
Billy Gonsalves
The Babe Ruth of American soccer, a fixture in 1930s Open Cup finals.
Pelé
Three seasons with the Cosmos, and suddenly America cared about soccer.
Mia Hamm
The face of the '99 World Cup winners, and the game's biggest star of her era.
Landon Donovan
Six MLS Cups and, for a decade, the national team's all-time scorer.
David Beckham
The designated player rule was written to bring him to the Galaxy.
Et cetera
MLS Inaugural Draft, 1996
Ten brand-new teams stocking their rosters from scratch.
Starlight Park
An amusement park in the Bronx with 400 games on record, 1927–1946.
Fall River, MA
The mill city that was the capital of American soccer between the wars.
US Soccer Hall of Fame
138 inductees on record, with games, goals, and birthplaces where we have them.
1967
Two rival leagues in one season; the survivors merged into the NASL.
Spalding Soccer Guide, 1915–16
89 games sourced to a single annual — the richest of the Spalding guides here.