Politics & Power Quote by Claudio Reyna

Reyna’s line is doing something athletes don’t always admit out loud: it names the cultural ladder, not just the scoreboard. By listing baseball, football, basketball, and hockey like a civic catechism, he’s pointing to the real competition soccer faces in the U.S. It isn’t another team or a tactical problem. It’s inheritance. Those sports come preloaded with family rituals, school infrastructures, local heroes, and a calendar that tells you what matters when. Soccer, in his framing, is still the guest at a crowded dinner table.

The phrase “within our own culture” is the tell. Reyna isn’t arguing that soccer lacks beauty or legitimacy; he’s acknowledging that “American” sports function as identity markers. Kids don’t just play them; they’re socialized through them. That’s why “we grow up with” carries more weight than any claim about ratings. He’s describing a pipeline of belonging: youth leagues to high school to college to pro, all reinforced by media mythology and public memory.

There’s also a subtle generational shrug in “isn’t really there yet.” Reyna, a U.S. soccer pioneer who spent years validating American talent abroad, sounds less defensive than realistic. He’s measuring soccer’s lag in emotional infrastructure: the hometown narratives, the Thanksgiving conversations, the default settings of sports fandom. The subtext is patient ambition. Soccer can rise, but it has to become tradition, not just an option.