MLS All-Stars reflect on World Cup impact, what comes next | OneFootball

By Charles Boehm

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – It’s been a little over a week since the 2026 FIFA World Cup concluded, Spain’s tense triumph over Argentina in the championship final dropping the curtain on 39 vibrant days of international soccer across North America. And if you’re still basking in the glow of a highly memorable tournament, you’re not alone.

“Honestly, I'm still very high. It's hard to come back and in your mind, the World Cup is done,” Columbus Crew defender Steven Moreira, a mainstay of inspiring Cinderellas Cape Verde, told MLSsoccer.com on Monday as he and his fellow MLS All-Stars prepared for Wednesday’s showdown with LIGA MX at Bank of America Stadium (8 pm ET | Apple TV).

“But I'm very grateful for everything,” Moreira said, expressing his pride at being able to “put the league in the top in the world” with his contributions to the Blue Sharks’ inspiring run during their first-ever World Cup.

Competing against the best

Even before it was over, discourse quickly and understandably pivoted towards a vital question: How can MLS and the rest of the continent’s soccer landscape sustain the buzz from such a significant sporting and cultural occasion?

“It's been a successful World Cup in terms of what we witnessed, what we watched, the fans who were here, hosted in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and we want to get more people watching MLS, into football, soccer,” Charlotte FC head coach Dean Smith, who will coach this year’s All-Stars, said on Tuesday.

“After ‘94, the last World Cup in the US, MLS started from there,” he noted. “Hopefully, we can take a lot from that and move the league and football forward in this country.”

As a standout central midfielder with Vancouver Whitecaps FC since 2022, Andrés Cubas was already well familiar with North American soccer’s rise. He got a different glimpse of it as a member of Paraguay’s squad this summer, though, playing every minute for La Albirroja as they plotted a path into the World Cup Round of 16, upsetting Germany and giving mighty France a good scare along the way.

For him, nurturing the culture is a priority.

“We want to make the most of everything – all the opportunities, everything we experienced over this past month and a half,” Cubas told MLSsoccer.com in Spanish on Tuesday morning. “The support from people everywhere was incredible; you could really feel the passion for football, and that’s great for building momentum and immersing ourselves in that beautiful atmosphere surrounding the sport.

“So hopefully we keep growing, and each year brings even higher expectations.”

Path forward

Charlotte FC captain Ashley Westwood might not have originally expected to feel quite so at home in North Carolina when he arrived from English side Burnley in 2023.

That quickly changed, though, and Westwood believes others like him will be similarly charmed when they experience MLS – and life in the U.S. and Canada – firsthand.

“Even in the short space of time I've been here, the league's grown massively – and the attention it's getting after the World Cup, people are seeing not just MLS, but America for what it is,” said Westwood. “It's a great place. Listen, within two years, I sold my house in England and I set up base here in Charlotte.

“It's a special place. It's a great league that's growing, and the amount of lads I speak to back in England who want to get here is phenomenal – and it's not easy, because the bar's getting set really high.”

That was a recurring theme when MLSsoccer.com asked All-Stars for their perspectives on the path forward post-World Cup: That MLS has made real strides in its quality of play, with new arrivals from abroad pushing that process and being challenged by it in turn.

Smith and several players pointed to the upcoming calendar switch as a key step. For 2027-28, MLS will shift to the fall-to-spring schedule most commonly used across Europe’s top leagues, to better align with the global transfer market and goose what’s already become a steady flow of incoming and outbound sales.

“I do believe, and I've said this many times, that the flip in the actual fixture calendar will help us compete with other leagues,” said Charlotte's boss, who managed the likes of Aston Villa and Leicester City before crossing the Atlantic three years ago.

His MLS adventure has also exposed him to North American professional sports’ penchant for spectacle, and the World Cup certainly dialed up that entertainment factor for audiences across the planet.

“I have got used to the loud bangs and the fireworks during the national anthem; I'm ready for them now, to get my head down and close my ears to the noise,” Smith joked. “But one thing that we do over here, we do know how to put a show on. And the fans expect it, they want to see it, and you get used to it. It's part of the package.”

Sustaining success

Others emphasize the ongoing need for sustained investment at the grassroots.

Canada and Toronto FC fullback Richie Laryea walked a winding path to the pros, grinding from noted Toronto-area youth club Sigma FC to NCAA soccer at Akron and then on to Orlando City via the MLS SuperDraft, before breaking through with TFC in 2019 and eventually earning a move to English outfit Nottingham Forest before returning to his hometown two years ago.

“It is expensive for kids to play in Canada,” Laryea pointed out. “So that's also something that needs to be addressed and properly funded, hopefully by governments. We've seen the government of Canada has been able to put money into soccer, especially recently. So, I think we need more stuff like that, so every kid has the opportunity to play in our country.

“The pipeline now is definitely a lot better than when I was coming through, and even when I was coming through, it was better than what it was 10 years prior,” he added. “With where we are now as a country and what we've been able to achieve, guys in MLS, guys in Europe, the national team as a whole is going to help kids moving forward.”

Thanks World, We'll Take it From Here - MLS is Back!