Soccer in the United States has a varied history. Research indicates that the modern game entered the country during the 1850s with New Orleans' Scottish, Irish, German and Italian immigrants. Some of the first organized games, using modern English rules, were played in that city.

Men's Soccer

Early versions of football were played in the present-day United States as early as 1685, and freshmen at Harvard University in 1734 were asked to provide "foot-balls". This resembled modern soccer only in kicking activities, and was often violent. Several sets of rules began to be codified by the 1860s, such as the "Boston game" a combination of rugby football and soccer.

Club soccer

Timeline of several known soccer leagues:

Oneida Football Club and other teams

The Oneida Football Club was established in 1862 by Gerrit Smith "Gat" Miller, a graduate of the Latin School of Epes Sargent Dixwell (a private college-preparatory school in Boston). Oneida is regarded to be the first organized team to play any kind of football in the United States.History of Professional Soccer in New England by David A. Litterer at Sover.net (archived, 22 Feb 2008)No Christian End! The Beginnings of Football in America By PFRA Research (Originally Published in The Journey to Camp: The Origins of American Football to 1889 (PFRA Books))THE BOSTON GAME article by Michael T. Geary at academia.eduWere the Oneidas playing soccer or not? by Roger Allaway at sover.net (archived) The game played by the club, known as the "Boston game", was an informal local variant that combined association and rugby football

The team consisted of a group of Boston secondary-school students from relatively elite public (state) schools in the area, such as Boston Latin School and the English High School of Boston. Organization served the club well, and it reportedly never lost a game or allowed a goal.

There were no formal rules for football games, and different schools (and areas) had their own variations. This informal style of play was often chaotic and violent, and Miller was a star while attending Dixwell. He tired of the disorganized games, however, and organized other recent preparatory-school graduates in the first organized football team in the United States.

Football at universities

The 1869 Princeton vs. Rutgers football game is often cited as the birth of intercollegiate American football and soccer in the United States, and was played with rules based on the Football Association's (FA) first set of rules. Although American football began to take hold at eastern universities such as Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, "socker" became popular at Haverford, Columbia, Cornell, and Penn; enthusiasts arranged for English teams to tour the United States to generate interest in the sport in 1905, 1907, and 1909. However, American football became the primary sport at most schools.

The earliest known organized soccer game in the United States was played on October 11, 1866, in Waukesha, Wisconsin, under the 1863 London Football Association laws between Carroll College and Waukesha Town. Carroll won 5–2, and each goal was referred to as "game".

Immigrant communities Soccer was popular in communities with large immigrant populations. The West Hudson, New Jersey towns of Kearny and Paterson had textile factories established and staffed by British companies, and residents founded the National Association Football League in 1895.

The Fall River, Massachusetts region also had textile companies and many immigrants from England. Its Bristol County League played in 1886 and the Southern New England League played in 1914.

In St. Louis, the Catholic Church introduced soccer into its recreational programs. The St. Louis League was founded in 1886, and modified the FA's rules; so did the St. Louis Soccer League, which was founded in 1903. Other cities where soccer was popular were Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Attempts at a governing body

Before the creation of the United States Soccer Federation, soccer in the U.S. was organized at the regional level with no governing body. The country's first non-league organizing body was the American Football Association (AFA), which was founded in 1884. The AFA sought to standardize rules for teams competing in northern New Jersey and southern New York. Within two years, the AFA broadened to include teams in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

The American League of Professional Football (ALPF) was established by the owners of several National League of Professional Baseball Clubs teams in 1894 to generate revenue during the winter months, when their ballparks were empty. The AFA, displeased with the idea, banned any player who signed a contract with an ALPF team. The ALPF failed to generate much interest despite their financial backing, and the league folded after only 17 days.

USFA vs. AFA; FIFA membership

Within a year of its founding, the AFA organized the American Cup: the first non-league cup in U.S. soccer history. Clubs from New Jersey and Massachusetts dominated its first twelve years. Due to economic conditions and labor unrest, however, teams in the Fall River area (many of whom were sponsored by textile companies) were forced to withdraw in 1894; players who had signed with ALPFB teams were also banned. The AFA suspended the American Cup in 1899; it did not resume until 1906, resulting from interest generated by an English tour the previous year.

In October 1911, the American Amateur Football Association (AAFA) was founded. The association quickly spread beyond the Northeast, and created the short-lived (two years) American Amateur Football Association Cup in 1912.

The AFA and AAFA applied for membership in FIFA, soccer's international governing body, in 1912. Drawing on its position as the older organization and the status of the American Cup, the AFA contendeded that it should be the nationally recognized body. FIFA refused to recognize either group, ruling that only one organization could represent the United States.

In 1913, several AFA organizations moved to the AAFA. The AAFA reorganized as the United States Football Association (USFA) on April 5, 1913, and FIFA quickly granted it provisional membership; the National Challenge Cup was established that fall. That cup quickly grew, overshadowing the American Cup; however, both cups were played simultaneously for the next decade. Declining respect for the AFA led to the withdrawal of several associations from its cup in 1917, and the USFA created the National Amateur Cup in 1924. The last American Cup season was 1924.

Soccer wars

Near the end of the 1920s, "American Soccer Wars" began: internal conflicts within the American Soccer League and their affiliated clubs participating in the National Challenge Cup. The debate, revolving around whether the United States Football Association or the American Soccer League was the chief organization of American soccer, negatively impacted the sport's reputation and popularity. The ASL collapsed, and the first golden age of American soccer ended.

The initial issue with the ASL had been the scheduling of the National Challenge Cup, which had been burdensome for the ASL season schedule. The cup had typically been played during the ASL off-season, making it difficult for ASL clubs to participate; the ASL boycotted the 1925 Challenge Cup, ostensibly due to scheduling conflicts and lack of cooperation by the USFA. According to American soccer historians, however, the real issue was the ASL's desire to be the premier soccer body in the United States.

In 1927, the conflict intensified as ASL clubs were accused by FIFA of signing European players who were under contract to European clubs. Due to the conflict and apparent ASL corruption, USFA president Andrew M. Brown traveled to Helsinki for the 1927 FIFA Congress in the hope of removing penalties imposed on the ASL and USFA. ASL owners wanted to run their soccer clubs like major-league baseball teams (since many of them owned both), and saw FIFA rulings and the National Challenge Cup as restrictive.

Hoping to break away from the National Challenge Cup, New York Nationals owner Charles Stoneham proposed that the ASL create its own championship tournament to determine the top American soccer club (an early form of playoffs ending a regular season). Stoneham also proposed expanding into the Midwest to include clubs in the Ohio Valley and St. Louis regions, creating a new division for those clubs. His plan involved having the two divisions compete in a regular season, and the top clubs in each division playing in the ASL championship tournament. Before Stoneham's proposal, the National Challenge Cup was seen as the ultimate title in American soccer; most professional leagues were regional, not national.

The American Soccer League, however, operated under a closed-league model with a fixed number of franchises. Unlike the National Challenge Cup, which was open to any USFA-affiliated team, the new tournament (or playoffs) would permanently cap the number of participating clubs. Three teams (Bethlehem Steel, the New York Giants S.C. and the Newark Skeeters) rejected the proposal, played in the 1928 National Challenge Cup, were suspended from the league and fined $1,000. The USFA then suspended the ASL, beginning the "Soccer Wars".September 25, 1928 The Globe Bethlehem Steel, the Giants and the Skeeters did not play in the 1928–29 American Soccer League, joining local semi-professional leagues which were combining to form the Eastern Professional Soccer League.

Support for the USFA from other national federations and the ASL's financial disadvantage as an unsanctioned league eventually convinced the latter that it could not win the "soccer war", and the dispute was settled in early October 1929. The ASL had already begun its 1929–30 season, which was suspended during the settlement; reassembled, it played the rest of the season as the Atlantic Coast League.November 4, 1929 The Globe

Great Depression and World War II

Two weeks after the United States Football Association and American Soccer League settlement, the stock market crashed. The Great Depression drastically affected the spring 1930 ASL season; several clubs defaulted, and the clubs played an unequal number of matches. The ASL's struggles did not initially affect its stronger clubs, and the Fall River F.C. completed the double by winning the 1930 season championship and the National Challenge Cup.

As the Depression intensified, the ASL folded after the fall 1932 season (its 15th). Several surviving clubs revived the ASL the following year, but the league could not field teams with the financial means or interest in attracting foreign players. The National Challenge Cup became obscurity.

Despite the decline in soccer's overall popularity, it was still played by ethnic groups and expatriates in several parts of the country (primarily New England and the heartland and the New York City and St. Louis metropolitan areas). Most clubs participating in the Challenge Cup during the late Depression and World War II years were top amateur teams or semi-professional clubs, who hosted a handful of international matches.

Second professional age

Rise of the original NASL

In 1967, two professional soccer leagues began in the United States: the FIFA-sanctioned United Soccer Association (which consisted of European and South American teams which were brought to the U.S. and given local names) and the unsanctioned National Professional Soccer League. The NPSL had a national television contract in the U.S. with CBS television network, but the match ratings were unacceptable even by weekend daytime standards and the agreement was canceled. The leagues merged in 1968 to form the North American Soccer League (NASL), which lasted until 1984.

Pele and the New York Cosmos