Photos to go: A deep dive into KC's soccer roots
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
On the fifth floor of the downtown Kansas City Public Library last night, KCUR podcast hosts Suzanne Hogan and Mackenzie Martin walked an audience through how an underdog town became a World Cup host.
The big picture: KC will be the smallest city in North America to host 2026 World Cup matches, and the talk and a companion library exhibit lay out the local roots behind that moment.
Zoom in: Drawing on their four-part series, the duo walked through how immigrant players built the game from nothing, forming makeshift teams like Los Latinos, marking out their own fields and bringing balls up from Mexico because you couldn't buy them here.
- Hogan made it personal: her grandfather, Costa Rican immigrant José Portuguez, drove park to park, rounding up players and once talked his way up to Pelé for a handshake when the legend came to play the KC Spurs in 1968.
Zoom out: They also spotlighted the women's game, a big reason KC landed the World Cup, from girls playing here in the 1920s to CPKC stadium, the first in the world built for a women's pro team.
💭 Abbey's thought bubble: It's easy to think the World Cup just landed here, but the night made clear it's the payoff of decades of grassroots work by people who loved the game first.
Stop by: The companion exhibit, A People's History of Kansas City Soccer, is up at the Central Library through September.