The soccer internet is a strange place, sometimes. Since I’ve started seriously following the sport, I’ve never ceased to be amazed at how many people with IP addresses follow the game so closely and know so much. Most of the time, that knowledge is fairly compartmentalized. One person may have pretty extensive experience with coaching in the youth ranks, one may have been with the Timbers Army since 2009, one might be a referee. You can learn a lot from the soccer internet.

One other thing that’s pervasive on the soccer internet is negativity. I’ve done a lot of reading about the history of soccer in the US, and there’s plenty of reason to be cynical about USSF, the national teams, the “pyramid,” “Soccerwarz,” and so on. The almost comical inability of US Soccer to effectively manage or grow the sport in this country for over a century can certainly be cause for dismay. That said, that doesn’t make USSF any worse than most other national soccer federations. It’s not like the FA, or the DFB, or FFF, or FMF, or whatever Italy’s soccer governing body is called have sterling reputations, either.

Yet, despite that, soccer is getting bigger and bigger in this country. It’s bigger now than it’s ever been. USL and MLS are the country’s only professional leagues right now, but they sport more than 60 clubs between them. USL D3 should have ten teams in 2019, as will NISA if they make the filing deadline and get their house in order. USL D3 plans to have 24 teams by 2021, just two seasons from now. It won’t be long before there are more than 100 professional clubs in the United States, to say nothing of Canada which will launch its own national professional league in 2019.

A significant number of those clubs have academies and reserve teams of some sort. All of these teams have coaches. They all are looking for and developing players. People wondering “when soccer’s gonna make it” in the US are missing it. It’s already here. It’s not necessarily attracting the money or TV contracts that the NFL or MLB or NBA are, but it’s already huge. More people will have watched a live soccer game this year in the US than ever have before, and that number will just be eclipsed next year. There’s more soccer to watch on TV and via streaming services now than there have ever been before. The future is now, and it’s here. It’s a great time to be a soccer fan in the US.