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Thousands of Chicago soccer fans were disappointed when the injured Lionel Messi, the Argentinian soccer superstar, did not appear at Soldier Field in October with his new domestic MLS team, Inter Miami.
But you know who was most disappointed? Anyone who had been at Soldier Field on June 11, 2016, when the same Messi scored a true stunner of a hat trick, part of a 5-0 Argentinian defeat of Panama in the Copa América. He achieved this beautiful feat in the beautiful game even though he did not even enter the match until well into the second half. He scored three goals within 19 minutes.
It was a warm Friday night, as we recall, and there had been no greater single soccer performance ever seen in Chicago or, arguably, the United States. None has been remotely comparable since.
“He’s a monster,” the resigned Panama coach Hernán Darío Gómez told this newspaper at the time.
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Any soccer fans who were there that night knew this was most likely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Messi had never before played a game in the U.S. where the stakes were more than friendly. This one was important: The Copa América is the closest equivalent on this continent to the European Championship across the pond. Only the World Cup is a bigger deal.
But 2016 was eight years ago, and the Copa América is back in the U.S. this summer with tickets on sale this week. But there will be no Messi at Soldier Field. In fact, none of the teams in the tournament will be there, even though 16 teams will square off across 14 stadiums and 13 host cities.
As you’d expect, games are scheduled for the New York area, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Dallas. But soccer fans will also be entertained in Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; Las Vegas; Orlando, Florida; and .... Kansas City, Missouri, the only venue in the Midwest.
What is Chicago, the 15th largest city in America?
Actually, this is a huge hotbed of soccer fandom, especially when it comes to fans with roots in Central and South America, the beating heart of the Copa América.
This isn’t the first such slight, either. The 2026 FIFA World Cup (Messi’s Argentina is the defending champion) is being hosted by three North American countries: Canada, Mexico and the United States. Dallas, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Boston all are hosting games. But the closest Chicago’s soccer fans will be to the action is .... Kansas City?
When 2026 World Cup hosts and venues were being decided in 2018, Soldier Field was one of 32 potential stadiums on an initial list released by a “joint bid” committee vying to bring the 2026 tournament to the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Chicago was very likely to get some of the games, given that Soldier Field had hosted the opening game and four other matches during the 1994 World Cup, the only time the U.S. previously had hosted the tournament.
But then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel (no soccer fan, he) pulled our bid after he decided there was too great a risk of “cost overruns” for Chicago taxpayers, an issue that clearly did not so trouble Kansas City.
It was a shortsighted call, not just for how it ignored the economic upside, but because it signaled to FIFA, U.S. Soccer and the other global soccer superpowers that this city was no longer a player.
In September, the U.S. Soccer Federation announced it was leaving Chicago after more than 30 years and relocating its headquarters to suburban Atlanta, where it said it found more philanthropic and facility support and planned to develop a $228 million headquarters. At the time, Fortune magazine quoted Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp as saying, “Georgia is proud to welcome U.S. Soccer’s new headquarters and looks forward to working alongside them to build a new home for American soccer players and fans.”
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“It’s another sign that the sport has gotten a strong footing in the South over the past decade,” National Public Radio reported, noting, of course, Messi’s arrival in Miami.
It’s relevant, of course, that Soldier Field now appears to be losing its major tenant, the Chicago Bears, an exit that was not widely anticipated in 2018. Wherever the Bears may or may not go, Soldier Field is well suited for top-level soccer. It’s absurd that Chicago, the capital of the Midwest and the home of hundreds of thousands of Latino and European soccer fans, would sit out these major global events, which also draw international media to the city.
International tourists have come back to competing markets in greater numbers than they have returned to Chicago and global soccer tourism is a major motivator, especially since the World Cup expands in 2026 to 48 teams from the prior 36 nations. Copa América has grown, too. The 2024 tournament will involve 16 teams, including such soccer powerhouses as Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.
It’s too late for local soccer fans missing out on next summer. But this needs correcting by City Hall before the next big opportunity, which could be as soon as the Club World Cup in 2025, also hosted by the United States. Chicago long has fashioned itself a global city, and we believe it is. This is the globe’s biggest sport, and Chicago should be one of its stages.
Messi is 36 years old now. He won’t be in the game forever.
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