Pfannenstiel's world: football

Y

- that was the saying with which Barack Obama went to catch votes.

In the USA.

That was in the 2008 election campaign.

- that is the motto that probably best describes the current mood in US football.

We are on the way.

And huge.

I am allowed to use “we” because I am part of the awakening, the start-up of the football brand.

The 2026 World Cup will take place here in five years, and Major League Soccer (or MLS for short) is repositioning itself.

I've been living in St. Louis, Missouri, for almost a year. My job is to develop the St. Louis City Soccer Club, to get it ready for the MLS in 2023. We really fired up for this project, not 12 or 14 hours a day - more, much more. We started with a blank sheet of paper.

How do you build a professional club

, from zero to one hundred, so to speak? Our stadium is now 60 percent and our training grounds 50 percent. It will be world-class facilities, the highest Bundesliga standard. A mixture of Wolfsburg, Hamburg, Leipzig and Hoffenheim and a few

from Manchester City. I got advice from Bernhard Peters and Pep Guardiola. And I experience first hand what is possible in the USA. And above all: at what a rapid pace!

For years old stars from Europe played in the MLS.

They were something like the start-up funding for the soccer project in the USA.

But now the young Americans are entering the league, who can already play at a high level in the MLS Next, comparable to the youth Bundesliga.

American football is getting better at a rapid pace, and I don't see this kind of development in any other part of the world at the moment.

There is a spirit of optimism.

All over.

Lots of outstanding talents

Did you know that soccer is now the most played game among children and teenagers in America? Even before football and basketball. Now it is a matter of ensuring that these young footballers do not disappear from the system. A child in the USA today doesn't just want to become a basketball or ice hockey professional - football is rapidly increasing in importance. And that's what we work hard for. At St. Louis, we are currently intensively building up our youth training center.

- even if you compare it with world market leaders from Europe.

The American national team has never had so many outstanding talents as it currently does. Many already play in top European clubs. Christian Pulisic won the Champions League with Chelsea, Giovanni Reyna (Borussia Dortmund) is a rocket, Weston McKennie has prevailed at Juventus in Italy, plus Tyler Adams (RB Leipzig), Sergino Dest (Barcelona) and Zack Steffen (Man City) and Brenden Aaronson (Red Bull Salzburg). The men are gradually getting to the level at which women have long been: world class. And in doing so, they prepare the ground for the next generation.

So far, soccer in America has been comparable to tennis and golf in Germany. If you let your child play in an academy, you have to spend thousands of dollars a year for it. In a way, these academies are money printing machines. But not everyone can afford that. That is why we are now working on making football more inclusive and diverse; children from the poorer strata of the population should also be able to afford to work at the best level with really good coaches.

- this saying should also apply in the USA. Especially with us in St. Louis. The bigger clubs have 25 U-12 teams alone - that really comes together. A huge pool of talent.

Nevertheless, this can only be the beginning. For the Americans, the goal must be to build the best league in the world outside of Europe. And at some point you have to be at the level of the Bundesliga, Serie A, the Premier League. That's a high standard, and yet it's not crazy. Soccer has to get into the minds of the Americans, he has to build an emotional relationship with this sport, with the respective club in his city. We're working on that in St. Louis too. And I think we are on the right track: We have started advance ticket sales for the 2023 season - within a few minutes we have sold tens of thousands of tickets. For soccer games that will kick off in just under two years!

I think that when the World Cup comes to the USA, the familiar balance of power in football will be turned upside down. Because a new great power is growing up here. Soccer, as the American says, is really going through the roof. I am experiencing an insane boom, which of course has to do with the 2026 World Cup, which the USA shares with Mexico and Canada. Anyone who knows the Americans knows exactly what that can lead to:

. Nothing is impossible. The world title for the United States of America - a conceivable scenario? The answer is above:

Lutz Pfannenstiel has played on all continents in his professional career: 25 clubs in 13 countries, read in "Unsustainable - My adventures as a world goalkeeper". He is currently preparing St. Louis City SC as sports director for the start of the MLS from the 2023 season. Previously, he was responsible for scouting at TSG Hoffenheim and was the sports director at Fortuna Düsseldorf. Pfannenstiel, 48, also works as a TV expert for ZDF, BBC and DAZN. He was an international expert at the DFB and a trainer instructor at FIFA. Pfannenstiel accompanied the European Football Championship (June 11 to July 11) for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper as an expert.