The 5 Biggest Non-World Cup American Soccer Stories in 2026 | OneFootball

From the “Rodman Rule” in the NWSL to the preparation for pro/rel in the USL, these are the biggest non-World Cup storylines we’re looking forward to most in 2026. 

2026 will surely be dominated by the World Cup, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of other things to look forward to in the world of American soccer. We break down five of the biggest headlines we’ll be paying attention to this year.

Is it Really MLS’s Final Spring-to-Fall Season?

Chronically-online MLS fans love to mark the development of the league the same way that computer systems are named: MLS 1.0 was the initial version of the league, with its clock that counted down and penalties that mimicked ice hockey. MLS 2.0 saw massive expansion across the North American continent and the rise of soccer-specific stadiums that teams could actually fill on a weekly basis.

With the final spring-to-fall season in MLS’s history, it’s the dawn of a new era which the league has dubbed, you guessed it, MLS 3.0. Since its inception, MLS has always marched to the beat of its own drum, eschewing common European tendencies to do things a slightly more American way. What fun it always was to kick off the season while the other big leagues were winding theirs down, to enjoy consequential regular season matches at a time of year when the massive European clubs bemoaned the doldrums of international breaks.

Now, MLS’s charming idiosyncrasies have been whittled down to a nub, with the lack of a promotion and relegation system one of the only things keeping MLS from resembling an ersatz English Premier League.

Summer nights at the local MLS park became traditions for many, and while Don Garber and company promise us that there will be many more to enjoy, the calendar certainly won’t feel the same without the warm nights and stadiums packed with kids enjoying their school breaks. The southern teams will be happy and the northern teams will struggle to sell tickets to those 7 p.m. kickoffs in November, but this is all part of the league’s maturation process, so it goes.

There’s plenty to look forward to with the calendar change, from warm-weather playoffs to easier transfer windows to the silly little mini-season that we’ll get before the change is fully implemented in 2027.

Alas, join me in raising a glass to the final MLS season in a string of 31 that runs from the spring to the fall! Some day I’ll muse to my grandkids about the time I saw Thierry Henry play in a cold-weather playoff game in New Jersey, and they’ll tell me “Sure, Grandpa. Let’s get you to bed.”

Will the Rodman Rule Bring Back Top Talent to the NWSL?

Photo by Claudio Villa/Getty Images

It’s no secret that the National Women’s Soccer League has been steadily losing some of its top players to European rivals in the last few years. England’s Women’s Super League and France’s Arkema Premiere Ligue have seen owners splash the cash on attracting new talent as the women’s game continues to capture more and more eyeballs across the pond.

United States women’s national team regulars like Naomi Girma, Alyssa Thompson, and Emily Fox have already made the leap, and while the NWSL is still stacked with high-profile talent, these moves have signified a massive shift in the hierarchy of top women’s leagues. The NWSL world nearly came to a grinding halt when its brightest young star Trinity Rodman mused in a March 2025 interview with ESPN that “I’ve always thought about playing overseas at some point in my career. I think I would kick myself if I retired and hadn’t done that.”

As Rodman’s contract ran out after the 2025 NWSL season, the league was understandably desperate to keep her. European clubs were reportedly lining up massive bids to try and tempt her away from the Washington Spirit. Even the DC Power, who play in the USL Super League, offered Rodman a lucrative deal that the Spirit couldn’t match at the time.

Rodman moving to Europe for more money would come as a massive coup for whichever rival league managed to poach her, and raise the profile of the UEFA Women’s Champions League as a competing media property to the NWSL. It would also signal to the world of women’s soccer that the NWSL, hamstrung by the distinctly American practice of salary-capping its clubs, would be unable to compete for not only top international players, but the top players that it produced.

With just days left until Rodman hit free agency, the NWSL announced the new “High Impact Player Rule,” which allows clubs to surpass the salary cap by a cool million smackeroos to be able to sign high-profile players. Potential signings must qualify for one of eight criteria provided by the league in order for clubs to make use of this extra cash.

High Impact players must have at least one of the following: A spot on top women’s footballer lists in the Guardian or ESPN; a certain number of appearances for the USWNT; a Ballon d’Or nomination within the past two seasons; or a nomination in either the NWSL Best XI or MVP race within the past two seasons.

Some are lauding the so-called “Rodman Rule” as the equivalent of the Designated Player Rule of its day. On the other side, critics, especially those in the NWSL’s players’ union, have derided the new rule as unfair, alleging that it circumvents the players’ collective bargaining rights in that it was issued unilaterally without the consent of the union.

It remains to be seen if NWSL can drag back some of its missing superstars from hither and yon with the promise of riches beyond what the European giants can offer. With FIFA recently confirming that the inaugural Women’s Club World Cup will be held early in 2028, an arms race of sorts between top North American and European sides in the buildup to the tournament would come as no surprise.

Will an MLS Team win the CONCACAF Champions Cup?

The Vancouver Whitecaps went on a real “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” all the way to the CONCACAF Champions Cup Final in 2025, but then, according to Canada men’s national team coach Jesse Marsch, they were all given food poisoning by Cruz Azul supporters and lost in embarrassing fashion to the denizens of Mexico City. (The Whitecaps have since denied Marsch’s accusations.)

Which MLS side will come the closest to having their gastrointestinal fortitude tested in this year’s edition?

Inter Miami and the Seattle Sounders, as winners of the MLS Cup and Leagues Cup respectively, have been granted byes in the second round of the five-round knockout competition. Lionel Messi and his gang of “willing-to-take-a-pay-cut-to-live-in-South-Beach” friends will be eager to notch another high-profile trophy, but Seattle is the most recent MLS club to have actually won this thing, having defeated Pumas UNAM in 2022 to qualify for the Club World Cup.

They are joined in the North American federation’s preeminent competition by an impressive six other MLS outfits. The aforementioned Whitecaps qualified twice over by claiming the Canadian Championship and also finishing high up in the Supporters’ Shield table. Other table qualifiers include FC Cincinnati and LAFC, while the LA Galaxy, despite a disastrous 2025 season, get invited to the dance for finishing third in Leagues Cup.

The Philadelphia Union qualified by virtue of winning the Supporters’ Shield, while San Diego FC managed to qualify in their very first season by winning the Western Conference. Nashville SC won a little trophy called the U.S. Open Cup, so they’ll get to sweat it out in balmy Ottawa for their first round tie.

The first round of fixtures kicks off during the first three weeks of February, a schedule which has tended to put MLS clubs at a competitive disadvantage, given that it’s smack-dab in the middle of their preseason preparations.

This year’s final is a one-off game once again, to be hosted on May 30 by the team with the better overall record earlier in the tournament.

The MLS teams at the bottom of the bracket — Inter Miami, Philadelphia, Nashville, Seattle, and FC Cincinnati — will have a theoretically easier path to the final (read: there are fewer Mexican teams in this half of the draw), but the number of potential MLS-on-MLS fixtures makes this tournament a bloodbath waiting to happen. Vancouver plays in the tougher half, and while the club is battle-tested from its miracle run a year ago, it may have to deal with Cruz Azul, Monterrey, and Pumas on the way to the final.

Which Young Americans Will Make Moves?

The January transfer window is now open, and Fabrizio Romano will be forced to get off the couch and give us those juicy transfer Instagram stories that we’ve all been craving.

It’s always risky to upend a player’s club situation in a World Cup year. On one hand, young up-and-comers can really announce themselves by playing in a more competitive league and having success. On the other, any player making the leap to Europe risks a certain amount of uncertainty. There might be any number of snakes waiting in the tall grass, from curmudgeonly managers who don’t trust Americans, to difficulties adjusting to the culture, to competition for minutes that proves too steep.

United States men’s national team coach Mauricio Pochettino has displayed no particular reticence toward selecting MLS players in his squads. For whom, then, does it make sense to head for greener pastures?

The likes of Diego Luna and Alex Freeman have been linked with moves to the Premier League and La Liga. Their stock at present seems relatively high, so it seems unlikely that a European move that results in a reduction in playing time or poor performances would necessarily torpedo their hopes of getting on the World Cup roster.

Patrick Agyemang notably switched to the English Championship’s Derby County last summer, and has recently gone gangbusters, netting six times in the last three months of 2025.

The likelier scenario is that American players already in Europe seek some higher-profile moves in order to improve their standing in Pochettino’s beautiful mind.

Ricardo Pepi has been banging them in for PSV and now finds himself on Fulham’s radar. His Dutch side, however, has seen fit to slap a pricetag of upwards of $50 million on the Texan, so only time will tell if this transfer can get over the finish line. Fulham has a long, proud history of employing American strikers, so it just might be the perfect fit for a No. 9 who’s seeking to lead the line for the USMNT come June.

My favorite rumor of the January window, however, has to be that of Matko Miljevic (yes, that Matko Miljevic) to Inter Miami. I’ve long been a Matko truther and have oft texted my Huracan-supporting friends to wax lyrical about the chutzpah and panache of the bleach-blond Argentinean-American. His debut for the USMNT back in January felt something of a fever dream, as Miljevic looked simultaneously out of his depth while also seeming the best player on the pitch. A move to Messi’s Miami might just give his career the shot in the arm it needs to get him on the World Cup dirigible!

How Will the USL Prepare for Pro/Rel?

Graphic via traceup.com.

The United Soccer League threw down a massive gauntlet last March when it announced to the world plans for a new Division One soccer league in the United States, as well as plans to adopt a system of promotion and relegation beginning in 2028.

This shot across the bow of Major League Soccer seeks to redefine what professional soccer looks like in North America, as well as claim the mantle as the most open and legitimate competition in the region. The USL certainly has its work cut out for it, though, as myriad questions float in the ether, ranging from the small: How can promoted teams adjust to meet the stadium requirements imposed by a higher division? To the massive: just which teams are going to be in the first division, and how on earth are you possibly going to decide that?

The USL has leaned into community-based clubs as its grassroots model for success, which runs in contrast to MLS, where billionaire-owned clubs seemingly drop from the sky into gargantuan metropolitan statistical areas. This would seemingly ease the burden of potential relegations, as, according to USL President and CEO Paul McDonough: “Our concern is not where people get relegated, because it is shown over time. If you’re a community-based club, you know, we have teams that finish, are finishing towards the bottom of a league, but they’re still selling out games, because it’s a part of the fabric of the community.”

Some European leagues assist relegated clubs with a system of “parachute payments,” which allows these clubs to pay their general operating costs while offsetting the financial strain of no longer earning top-flight revenue. The USL, on the other hand, will have to figure out how to compensate their promoted clubs, which will see an overnight increase in overhead when it comes to stadium costs, travel, and roster-building while competing in a newer, higher division.

There remains precious little time for the USL to get its ducks in a row and seamlessly launch promotion and relegation in the next two years. Some have suggested that the USL’s endgame is to force some sort of merger with MLS, thereby expanding their closed system of promotion and relegation. A single country with multiple division one leagues comes across as disjointed and bickery, but as the year of our Landon Donovan 2026 progresses, we should have a clearer view as to whether the USL’s gambit is a sustainable one.