San Francisco Bay Area
Zetong Li
The San Francisco Bay Area has a rich soccer heritage and its World Cup stadium in Santa Clara will be hosting the world’s football a few months after being the venue for American football’s Super Bowl extravaganza. The Bay Area has long been one of the country’s foremost cultural and knowledge gateways to the world, and the region’s technological prowess has led the way in making the world an ever-smaller place and in bringing people closer together across borders, including when it comes to the games we play and follow. If you played the EA Sport FIFA video game growing up, joined a football fan group on Facebook, or watched Ted Lasso on Apple TV, you know exactly what we’re talking about.
As a longtime Bay Area resident who has witnessed the growth of soccer in our region, I often think back to watching the San Jose Clash at Spartan Stadium in the inaugural season of Major League Soccer and feeling a sense of pride that we had professional soccer once again to support in the South Bay. The original Quakes in the NASL had a fervent following in the decades before, yet World Cup matches having just been played at Stanford Stadium was certainly a catalyst for wider interest in the sport in the 1990s, and now we’ve come full circle with the World Cup coming back to the South Bay. All told, the Bay Area’s soccer legacy is a rich history spanning over a century as immigrant clubs brought a spirit to the region that extends to this day with true support for the women’s game, youth soccer in underserved communities and technology integration into the world’s sport. Sharing this unique Bay Area sports history is a true honor.
Laurence Scott Great Game Cities Fellow, San Francisco Bay Area