Taha Arfsten: From World Cup Glory to Championship Challenge
The World Cup is over. The anthem still echoes. And for Taha Arfsten, the next chapter starts an ocean away.
When the USMNT scattered after that draining loss to Belgium in Seattle, players disappeared in 26 different directions. Some straight home. Some to beaches. Some to the anonymity of a quiet week off.
Arfsten’s compass pointed to California.
“I spent like a week at home with my family,” he says. “I went to the beach for a little bit. I just took a little mental break.” Then the pause ended. “Then, I came back to Columbus, started training, and I just played in a couple games.”
Just like that, the World Cup was gone. No parade, no soft landing. One of the biggest moments of his life, and then…regular season again.
“It kind of just ends, and you have to move on, but it was such a massive moment that it's kind of hard to move on.”
From an anthem to an airport
The obvious memories come first. They always do.
“The national anthem,” Arfsten says, smiling. He didn’t just see it. He lived in it. “Whenever people ask me, I always say that just because they let everybody go out there, so I was out there every game. You're singing the national anthem at the World Cup, and the world's watching. In that moment, it seems like everyone is watching."
That’s the image that survives on television. The anthem, the flags, the noise.
The ones that live with him now are quieter.
“The stuff you remember most is the relationships you make,” he says. “For me, me and a group of like five other teammates, we'd play cards every single night on the balcony at the hotel in Orange County. We'd just look at the ocean, play cards. That was like such a fun time because you just talk about stuff. You learn a lot about people."
Cards on a balcony. Ocean in the background. A month-long sprint to a World Cup, slowed down for an hour a night.
Now comes a different kind of unknown. Not a tournament. A life.
Middlesbrough is a long way from Orange County and farther still from Fresno, where the winger/wingback first started to believe this sport could carry him. Yet this move has been sitting on his personal to-do list for a while.
Back in January, speaking to GOAL, he set himself two targets for 2026. Make the World Cup. Get to Europe.
The first box is checked. The second is about to be.
From the outside, it looks smooth. College standout, MLS, national team, World Cup, move to England. Neat steps on a tidy ladder.
Arfsten rejects that idea instantly.
“My whole journey, it feels like ups and downs and going through a lot of hurdles just to get to Columbus,” he said in January. “To be where I am now, I feel like I'm just learning as I go. All of this is new to me. I feel like the one thing I want people to understand is that this isn't linear."
He’s right. It hasn’t been.
He broke through at UC-Davis, then watched his sophomore season vanish when COVID-19 shut everything down. After his junior year, he signed with San Jose Earthquakes II, hoping to climb into MLS in San Jose colors. Instead, the route bent again: Columbus picked him in the MLS Draft.
Before his USMNT debut in the January 2025 camp, he had no youth national team caps. No long résumé in red, white and blue. He was not one of those names circled early by federation scouts.
Nothing about this has been preordained.
New league, familiar faces
Now he heads to Middlesbrough, to a club that at least won’t feel entirely foreign. USMNT teammates Sebastian Berhalter and Aidan Morris are already there, familiar voices in a new dressing room, a bridge between the World Cup and the Championship grind.
There won’t be much time for nostalgia.
The Championship season kicks off on August 15. Before that, Boro open their EFL Cup campaign against Wrexham on August 7. Arfsten won’t be eased in. He’s stepping straight into a squad sharpening itself for competitive football, into one of the most unforgiving leagues in the game.
Before boarding that flight, though, he allowed himself one last week in MLS colors.
One last moment as a Columbus Crew player. One last showcase as an MLS All-Star.
He played 44 minutes in the All-Star Game, helping MLS edge Liga MX in a 4-3 shootout. The football was fun. The week around it, even more so.
Because in the middle of the festivities, the World Cup found its way back into his life.
Tim Ream and Matt Freese, his USMNT teammates, were there too. That trio had shared a month and more together this summer, then splintered after Belgium. For a few days, they were back on the same side again.
“It's super cool to see them,” Arfsten says. “Obviously, this summer, that's like your family for over a month, almost two months, and you're with them every single day, training with them, battling with them. You go through all those emotions together, so it's definitely a special bond and it's always fun to see them."
Ream, who has seen this all before, felt the same pull.
“It's been a whirlwind for all of us,” he said. “And I think we're all trying to get back to normal, but it was amazing to see those guys and catch up and talk about the World Cup and how amazing it was."
A veteran’s warning, a rookie’s resolve
Ream knows this path. Once upon a time, he was the late-rising college defender who turned MLS form into a move to England, who tried to transplant his game into a league that tests you twice a week.
So when he was asked what he’d tell Arfsten and Freese, he kept it simple.
“Just be yourself,” Ream said. “You don't have to change. You don't have to change anything. You've gotten to this level and gotten to the World Cup by being yourself and doing what got you there. I think that's the key of going through a career. We all know there are ups and downs, that it's no different than anything. It's the same as going through life, but if you can be the same person, no matter if you're doing well or struggling, then you're going to be okay."
Ups and downs are coming. They always do when an American steps into the Championship, a league that chews up reputations and spits out tired legs. The fight for promotion is relentless. The schedule is merciless. And for Arfsten, there’s another battle running alongside it: staying in the USMNT picture as a new World Cup cycle begins, with roles, hierarchies and perhaps even the head coach all up for grabs.
At the start of a cycle, nothing is guaranteed. Not minutes. Not call-ups. Not status.
Arfsten is choosing to meet that uncertainty head on.
“I think scoring goals, getting assists, making noise wherever I'm at, it's just making it hard to not select me,” he says. “At the end of the day, that's what it's about. I feel like we can talk about who plays where, who does what, but like I feel like if I'm just always making noise wherever I'm at and just making it hard to not select me, that's my job as a player, and that's what I'm going to try and do."
The anthem is behind him now. The balcony in Orange County, the card games, the ocean view — all filed away.
Next up is a different soundtrack: cold nights in the North East, packed grounds in the Championship, and a young American trying to be loud enough that his name can’t be ignored when the next World Cup roster starts to take shape.
