TRUE DREAM TEAMERS

U.S. soccer squad heavy on players with foreign roots embodies the Founders' vision

- BY KEVIN BAXTER

JAMIE SQUIRE Getty Images AMERICAN captain Tim Ream, waving to fans at a Mariners game, said the U.S. team is "a true representation of what America is."

James Wilson, one of just six men who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, never could have imagined how grand the country he was founding would become. But he knew how it could get there.

Wilson envisioned a steady stream of foreigners coming to America every year, reinvigorating the energy and vitality the nation needed if it were to survive, much less thrive. Which is why Wilson, who moved to the colonies from Scotland at 22, argued against barriers on immigration that would "deprive the government of the talents, virtue and abilities of such foreigners as might chose to remove to this country." What Wilson had in mind, then, is something such as the U.S. men's national soccer team, which gathered to train Saturday morning, on the country's 250th birthday.

DAVID M. BARREDA Los Angeles Times CHRISTIAN PULISIC, right, is among players descended from immigrants.

Six of the 26 players on the team, which will face Belgium in a World Cup elimination game Monday, are foreign-born. Five others were born to immigrant parents and two others have immigrandparents grant or great-grandparents. Nearly half have dual nationality.

Yet they all play with the U.S. flag stitched over their hearts. What could be more American than that? "It is special," U.S. captain Tim Ream said of having the team together on Independence Day. "Obviously, doubly special because it's during a World Cup and triple special because it's here in the U.S. As a group, with all our different backgrounds, it's a true representation of what America is. It's a melting pot of people, of personalities, of characters."