Fear None

As the World Cup kicks off in Qatar, meet four players at the heart of a young American squad preparing to take on soccer's superpowers. They're part of a generation with more promise than any that has come before. How far can it take them?

- By Jack Holmes

We know, we know. You've heard this one before. You've seen the headlines, endured the hype, heard that this is the year soccer becomes America's game, that our great redeemer has arrived. There was Freddy Adu, the fourteen-year-old phenom who broke into Major League Soccer in 2004 and soon found himself hailed as the American Pelé. Now thirty-three, Adu is clubless, a journeyman who's spent the better part of two decades drifting from team to team across Europe and the Americas-a cautionary tale of runaway expectations.

And yet every four years at World Cup time, we sing the tune: Is this the year the Americans, forever also-rans, break through at the biggest sporting event on the planet? Is this guy-Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, now Christian Pulisic-the new star who will ignite soccer's stateside explosion? The U.S. women's team has already won it all more than once, of course. But can the men's team finally measure up?

Success for the U.S.-escaping the group, maybe reaching the last eight, becoming contenders will not be delivered by any American soccer Jesus. Yes, Pulisic has consistently played at a higher level than any American ever, and he's just twenty-four years old. Yes, he wears the fabled number 10 jersey-traditionally reserved for a team's key playmaker-at Chelsea in England's Premier League. But Christian Pulisic alone cannot save us. That's up to all of them, this cast of young footballers who in many ways have already gone where no Americans have gone before.