"I might be the last one," Cristian Roldan said. He wasn't being dramatic. He was being accurate.
The Seattle Sounders midfielder is the only player in the 2026 U.S. World Cup squad who spent all four years playing public high school soccer. When the Americans played their opener in Inglewood — 45 minutes from his childhood home in Pico Rivera — Roldan became a living symbol of a pipeline that's almost entirely shut down.
In 2002, when the U.S. reached the World Cup quarterfinals — still their best-ever finish — 18 players on that squad had come through high school football. By 2022, it was one. Roldan. And at 31, he's the third-oldest man on the current roster.
The academy system didn't just grow — it crowded out everything else
MLS academies and Elite Club National League programs now demand year-round commitment from teenagers, effectively forcing kids to choose between playing with their friends at school or chasing a professional pathway. When the best players started opting for academies, everyone else followed. The high school game didn't fade — it got squeezed.
That has a cost beyond nostalgia. Academy programs carry real financial barriers: travel expenses, training fees, parents who need to be available to drive. For families where that isn't possible, the pathway simply doesn't exist. The result is talented players who never get seen by the right people at the right time.
"We're losing a ton of kids who never get seen," said Dominic Picon, who coached Roldan at El Rancho High School. "There's a lot of kids that just get lost in the shuffle."
Roldan himself wasn't supposed to make it through this route. Despite scoring 54 goals and 31 assists in his senior season — leading El Rancho to a CIF Southern Section title and winning the Gatorade national player of the year award — he had almost no firm college offers. His height (5-foot-7) put scouts off. Playing at a public school kept him off the radar. He only got his University of Washington scholarship because his mother Ana happened to sit next to the Huskies' coach at a showcase and told him to go watch her son.
A story that runs deeper than football
Compare that to Haji Wright, Roldan's teammate who grew up just 30 miles away in Culver City. Wright joined the LA Galaxy academy at 14 and signed for Schalke in the Bundesliga at 18. Same generation, same city, completely different journey. Both ended up at the same World Cup — twice, as it turns out.
That contrast says everything about where American soccer is heading. Wright's path is the template now. Roldan's is the exception that the system no longer has room for.
- 18 players on the 2002 World Cup squad played high school soccer
- By 2022, only Roldan remained as the sole player with four years at a public school
- Roldan scored 54 goals and 31 assists in his senior season at El Rancho
- He went on to win two MLS Cups with Seattle Sounders across 12 seasons
His brother Alex followed a similar path — nearly ending up at a junior college in Arizona before a late offer from Seattle University changed everything — and went on to captain the Salvadoran national team. Their older brother Cesar is now an athletic trainer with the Galaxy.
Roldan says he doesn't regret the road he took. But he's clear-eyed about what it cost him in exposure and opportunity, and what the shift in American soccer's development structure means for kids in similar positions today.
Paul Caliguiri, who played in two World Cups and remains one of the most-capped players in U.S. history, put it plainly: the slow death of high school soccer guarantees talented players will be missed. "There are a lot more qualified players that choose the path of high school soccer," he said. "The issue is that many of those players that don't go to full-time academies... is likely due to transportation."
Roldan will likely feature in Seattle on Friday when the U.S. face Australia — a city where he spent two years at university and 12 seasons as a Sounders icon. The reception will be loud. But the path he walked to get there? Probably gone for good.
