Frank Lebouef won the 1998 World Cup on home soil with France. So when he talks about what that feels like, it’s worth listening. But the former Chelsea defender isn’t just handing the USMNT a free pass to success just because they’re hosting this year’s tournament alongside Mexico and Canada.
Lebouef sat down with Clutchpoints, presented by World Cup Betting, and laid out exactly what the U.S. team has going for it and what still worries him. The good news? Playing at home is a real edge. The French team proved that in ’98, riding a wave of crowd energy all the way to the trophy. “It’s always an advantage when you play at home. You have the fans with you,” he said.
The less comfortable part? He’s not sure those fans will show up the way they should.
Where’s the soccer culture?
Lebouef’s concern isn’t about talent. It’s about the country’s relationship with the sport. “My concern about the US is that soccer, as they call it, is not their main sport, and it’s not part of their culture,” he said. That’s a blunt assessment from a guy who lived in Los Angeles for a decade and has seen American sports culture up close.
Still, he hedged a bit. He pointed out that the U.S. is a nation of immigrants, and plenty of those immigrants come from places where soccer is everything. “People are coming from South America as well, so you have that culture,” he said. During his time in L.A., New York and Seattle, he said he saw the kind of passion that could turn into real support. “Hopefully the USMNT will be supported by their fans, and they’re gonna find the 12th man, as we say, as we did during ’98. We would have never won the World Cup without the fans. I wish for the US to find the same happiness.”
MLS is growing, but is it growing fast enough?
The league has attracted big names late in their careers — Messi, Beckham, Ibrahimovic. Griezmann is heading to Orlando City. Lebouef sees that as a good sign, but not the final step. “All the players that you just named are players at the end of their careers, but they can bring a lot,” he said. The real leap, he argued, will come when players in their mid-20s who could play in Ligue 1 or the Premier League start choosing MLS instead.
He’s not saying the league has stalled. But he is saying it needs to push harder. “Everything that has been done has been done in a good way. But they have to accelerate the process.”
What’s realistic for this U.S. team?
The USMNT opened their World Cup prep with a 4-1 win over Paraguay. They’ve got Australia and Turkey coming up later this month. The squad is young and talented. Lebouef thinks reaching the quarterfinals would be a success. Anything more would be a surprise, though not necessarily an unwelcome one.
But he also said something that stings a little. “It’s unacceptable to me that a big country like that is not capable of having one of the best teams in the world.” He compared the U.S. to Brazil and Mexico, where soccer is woven into daily life. Around 24 million people play soccer in the U.S., according to NBC. France has about 2 million registered players and has made four World Cup finals in seven tournaments. So the math is weird.
Lebouef thinks part of the problem is access. “Right now, it’s a sport for almost rich people. That’s the problem. You have to create something different to go and find pearls like Maradona, Zidane, Shearer. Those players, they don’t come from Beverly Hills.”
The U.S. team has the talent to make some noise this summer. Whether they get the home crowd they need — and whether the country ever builds the kind of soccer foundation Lebouef is talking about — are two different questions. And both are still wide open.
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