Akbar Majeed takes a deep breath as he considers the legacy of the 2026 World Cup and, in particular, the effect of the US team’s collapse against Belgium for a last-16 exit.

“Unfortunately, that performance in the last game did not help at all,” he says.

“You have to be careful what you ask for, right?” he says. “You want people to watch the sport. You got the most people in America to watch that game and that is the product we put out there? It reinforced a lot of the thoughts about soccer.”

Majeed has a lot of thoughts about soccer. As the director of Can We Kick It?, a feature documentary released this summer, he has also heard the thoughts about soccer from a cast of players, coaches, administrators, parents and fans. The project explores how the sport has engaged – and often not engaged – with Black communities in the United States.

Can We Kick It? delivers an honesty often missing in conversations about soccer in the US. The film tells the story of the sport through a Black lens and with Black voices and asks hard questions about why the sport – from grassroots to elite professional levels – has struggled to cut into Black American culture.

The documentary tells the story of Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, being controversially stripped of a 1971 NCAA title but rebounding to take the 1974 championship undefeated. It reminds that American soccer’s real “shot heard around the world” was not Paul Caligiuri’s mythologized qualifying goal for the 1990 World Cup but Joe Gaetjens’s winner against England at the 1950 World Cup. Soccer, the film argues, may be the world’s game but in the United States, one community has been left out of its story and growth.

Majeed, inspired by conversations he has had for decades about the cultural, structural and economic barriers facing the game’s reach into urban America, suggests the sport’s failure to connect with urban audiences is part of a larger discussion on how the sport engages with wider American culture.

“African Americans were part of the game from the very beginning and we were at the 1950 World Cup,” he says. “I grew up playing in North Carolina in the 80s and I didn’t see a lot of people like me playing the sport – particularly as I got better.

“I didn’t see a soccer match until I was 19. We played a game that we didn’t see on TV. I had a soccer book with all the greats in it. So it was a book that got me into the game.”

Following grad school, Majeed launched a basketball academy and as an American traveling abroad discovered something present in much of the rest of the world, but not yet in the US.

“The biggest grassroots sport in the world is soccer,” he explains. “Basketball is the most grassroots sport in the US but globally it is not. There is a void in the US. Soccer is not accessible to vast parts of the community and it is not reaching parts of the community that would enjoy it.”

In 2008, driven to bring grassroots sports into communities, Majeed converted an ice skating rink in Charlotte, North Carolina, into an indoor soccer field. “That thrust me back into the conversation about what is wrong with American soccer. We excel at every other sport in the world but not soccer.”

One issue, according to Majeed, is the connection between grassroots soccer and the elite level. The US men’s team at this summer’s World Cup was more diverse than in years past, he says, but scratch the surface and glaring gaps still exist.

“There are definitely more Black faces on the team and a lot of them represent immigrant families so [the team does represent] that part of America but there is a huge immigrant population that is being left out. The population that plays soccer the most is Latino. If we were really engaged with the population that loves and engages with soccer, it is the Latino population, and the national team definitely did not represent that part of the country.

“If we talk about socioeconomic backgrounds the team definitely does not represent the [total] population. The vast majority of the Black players are coming from means and that is what you are seeing in the men’s and women’s side. There is still socioeconomic space that is being excluded when it comes to soccer in America.”

Which brings us to the three words of the moment in the post-World Cup discussion: pay-to-play. The phrase describes the established American system in which competitive youth soccer for boys and girls – and the pathway that can lead to a potential professional career or college soccer opportunities – often requires families to pay in excess of $3,000 per year to participate on a team. With travel to tournaments that require mandatory stays at expensive hotels, travel expenses and equipment, the cost of youth soccer can blow out to $15,000 per player.

No one needs to be an economist to figure out who is priced out of participating in organized youth soccer. Not everyone is opposed to the system, though. Alexi Lalas, who came to fame as a player with the US during the 1994 World Cup and is now a Fox Sports presenter, is a defender of the pay-to-play system.

“Youth soccer (youth sports) is a competitive market with businesses selling a product that obviously customers are willing to pay for,” Lalas wrote on social media earlier this month. “I’d love if soccer was free to all. But who is going to pay for all this free soccer?

“Millions benefit. It’s a business catering to a market willing to pay for the product. Soccer (like piano lessons) is not an inalienable right. Free soccer costs money. Someone has to pay. So who will pay for all this free soccer?”

Can We Kick It? dives into pay-to-play. Majeed says Lalas can be right and very wrong at the same time.

“His statement is very disingenuous and very elitist and very American arrogance and American arrogance is one of the reasons America is in the position it is when it comes to soccer,” he says.

“I don’t think pay-to-play is going anywhere. This is America. America is about the money and international soccer is trying to figure out how to do more with America. But if you are concerned about a real competitive US soccer team then that comment is foolish. If you care about continuing to make the money that US soccer is making, then I understand why you make that comment.”

Majeed believes soccer can only make the full leap into mainstream American culture by authentically embracing urban communities – and not just for marketing purposes.

“Soccer still isn’t accepted across America,” Majeed says. “It is not culturally part of American sports values. The World Cup did some work in bridging that gap, mainly because the tournament was here, mainly because of social media, and the world also did a great job coming to America and exposing America to the world.

“NBA players hanging out with soccer players is cool but then [we need to talk about] access to the game itself. Where can I play it? We do engagement very well because people put their kids in soccer at 4, 5 or 6 years old but there is clearly a perception where [soccer] isn’t competitive, so if I want to get my kids into a sport where they can go somewhere [in life] you transition them into another sport very quickly.”

The title of Majeed’s film is borrowed from the 1990 hip-hop classic by A Tribe Called Quest famed for the lines “Can I kick it? Yes, you can!” The US’s disappointing World Cup finish contradicts that optimism but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The larger legacy of the 2026 World Cup won’t be revealed for many years. Majeed believes soccer has the potential to be all-inclusive for the American population but until that happens the conversations about US soccer’s social, economic and cultural divides will continue.

“Because of that performance against Belgium, people are going to see what you are going to do [about those challenges],” he says.

“I don’t care if the coach stays or leaves. A new coach is not going to change that image of we got beat and we got beat bad, and we got embarrassed on home soil. The conversation around Can We Kick It? continues for another four years. You have to show us four years from now if anything happened. And if not, it’s going to continue that question.”