Christian Pulisic sits at a dining table, Bible open, pencil in hand. A friend holds up a camera. "It is what time?" the friend asks. "Bible time," Pulisic responds, his cross necklace visible. The scene, captured in a docuseries about the star player, encapsulates a striking shift in how America's national soccer team projects itself to the world.
For decades, the USMNT existed in a kind of public neutrality on matters of faith. Players may have harbored deep convictions, but few aired them. Clint Dempsey gave one interview about his beliefs to a Christian media outlet. Tim Howard belonged to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes but rarely discussed it. Jozy Altidore mentioned being raised a Jehovah's Witness late in his career but moved on. The names of most legendary USMNT players remain unattached to any public statement of faith.
That calculus has inverted entirely.
Weston McKennie's Instagram bio reads: "All glory to God." His profile picture shows him pointing skyward, diamond cross earrings catching the light. Chris Richards has spoken openly about Bible studies with Crystal Palace teammates before matches. Goalkeeper Matt Freese, upon joining the national team, casually mentioned having already met Pulisic at a Bible study session. Even coach Mauricio Pochettino, a practicing Catholic, wears a bracelet depicting a patron saint and once hiked seven and a half miles to a religious shrine in Spain to pray his struggling club would survive relegation.
The 2022 World Cup roster amplified this visibility further. Walker Zimmerman, the son of a pastor, used his platform to proclaim his own faith. Yunus Musah fasted during Ramadan even on match days. DeAndre Yedlin, a practicing Buddhist, led barefoot post-match meditations with teammates on the pitch in Qatar.
This represents a fundamental rupture with how the USMNT has conducted itself in the public sphere. Whether at home or abroad, national teams operate under different rules of engagement than club franchises. US Soccer once banned kneeling during the national anthem on the theory that representing your country demands a different standard. Religion, equally, sits in murky territory: the visibility granted by a World Cup is immense, and its use for any form of expression carries weight beyond the personal.
The timing of this shift cannot be divorced entirely from political context. A governing party openly empowers Christian nationalism and seeks to steer the nation toward overt Christian identity. That these athletes are sincere in their convictions appears genuine, yet their visibility also signals a generation of American athletes emboldened to express themselves in ways their predecessors would have considered risky.
Previous instances of athletes layering national identity with personal ideology have misfired spectacularly. The Team USA baseball squad's forced embrace of militarism at the World Baseball Classic rendered them the only joyless team in the tournament. Whether the USMNT's faith-forward positioning will resonate or alienate remains an open question.
What seems certain is that when the nation watches the men's national team in the coming competitions, it will encounter a roster far more willing to be themselves on the world's biggest stage. The USMNT has historically underperformed at humanizing itself to the American public, often appearing distant or guarded. If greater authenticity closes that gap, the merits may outweigh the complications.
Author James Rodriguez: "The team is finally letting Americans see who these players actually are, faith and all, and there's something refreshing about that transparency even if it makes some people squirm."
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