Exclusive | Andrés Cantor says America is ready for soccer’s takeover at 2026 World Cup

A World Cup in America once felt like a foreign broadcast bleeding faintly through static. Fans had to seek it out. They had to know about it. 

In 1994, when the U.S. hosted the tournament for the first time, soccer existed on the outskirts of the American sports conversation.

It was tucked behind the NFL, NBA, MLB, college football and whatever Michael Jordan happened to be doing that week. There was no Major League Soccer. The World Cup came to America like a traveling circus making its next stop. 

But now, according to legendary broadcaster Andrés Cantor, the 2026 World Cup will be more than just a passing fad. It will be unavoidable.

“I don’t think there’s going to be anybody in this country … that won’t know the World Cup is going on,”” Cantor told The California Post during an exclusive wide-ranging interview. “That is the beauty and the difference between 1994 and today.”

And nobody understands soccer’s evolution better than Cantor. His voice didn’t just narrate the sport’s rise in the United States. It was the soundtrack of it. 

For four decades, Cantor’s iconic “¡Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!” has echoed through living rooms, bars, restaurants, stadiums and households across America. It turned a Spanish-language broadcaster into a mainstream cultural figure during the 1994 World Cup, when his calls exploded beyond Univision and into late-night television, commercials and pop culture itself. 

Cantor believes 2026 will dwarf 1994 in scale, visibility and cultural reach because the power no longer belongs solely to television networks. 

Now the fans themselves are broadcasters. 

“In 1994, it was either the network that I worked for or ABC,” Cantor said. “That was the only way for people to find out about the World Cup other than newspapers or radio. Nowadays, everybody amplifies everything. Watch parties. Fan zones. Social media. Clips. Stadium videos. Fans themselves will amplify the fact that the World Cup is being played.”

A teenager scrolling TikTok in Kansas may never watch a full 90-minute match, but within seconds he’ll see a bicycle kick from Kylian Mbappé, a screaming save from Emiliano Martínez or a celebration from Christian Pulisic flooding his phone. Kids today don’t need an introduction to global stars. They already follow them daily.

Cantor sees that as the biggest difference between 1994 and now.

Back then, the United States Men’s National Team was largely anonymous outside of hard-core soccer circles. Most of the roster consisted of semi-professional players assembled last minute. 

Today, American stars play for European giants. Kids wear Pulisic jerseys with pride. They watch Erling Haaland every weekend with Manchester City. They know Declan Rice from his years at Arsenal. They follow transfer rumors the way previous generations followed baseball box scores. 

“In 1994, there weren’t many role models,” Cantor said. “Now kids can watch these players every single week. Hopefully, by the end of this World Cup, they will be as popular as LeBron James.”

And perhaps most importantly, these kids watching the World Cup stay with soccer throughout their lives. 

Most kids grow up playing AYSO but eventually abandon the sport for baseball, football or basketball by high school. MLS’ growth has helped anchor the game domestically, and the globalization of the sport has completed the transformation. Now, the world’s greatest players are playing each week on home soil. Lionel Messi in Miami. Son Heung-Min in Los Angeles. James Rodriguez in Minnesota.

The U.S. now has 30 MLS clubs, packed academies and a generation raised with the Premier League and Champions League available with the touch of a screen.

And Cantor has seen it all. Born in Argentina, he grew up in a culture in which soccer consumed everything, but it was not available on television. So he grew up listening to the sport he loved on the radio. During school recesses, he and his classmates would stuff newspaper into socks and create makeshift soccer balls. 

“Those were World Cup finals, believe me,” Cantor said with a laugh. “I did have that music in my ear because I grew up listening to that. I don’t know if it shaped me or not, but at least it helped me get through.”

He originally dreamed of becoming a print journalist and enrolled at the University of Southern California before writing for prominent Argentine sports magazine El Gráfico in the 1980s — a publication he called the equivalent of Sports Illustrated at the time. It was there that he befriended his idol, Argentina National Team superstar Diego Maradona. 

Cantor’s family moved to Southern California, and he was an attacking midfielder at San Marino High School — where he doubled as editor of the school newspaper. Once, after scoring the only goal during a championship game, he raced across campus to the editorial office where he wrote about himself on a typewriter for the paper. 

“Being so close to Diego throughout the years made me appreciate him that much more,” said Cantor, reflecting on his relationship with the legendary soccer player. “In the 1986 World Cup, he scored the most beautiful goal in the history of the game to beat England.”

One year later, a surprise audition from Univision changed his life forever. Originally hired to do color commentary, he was asked to switch to play-by-play for a second match during his first day in the broadcast booth. That’s when the 24-year-old instinctively unleashed the elongated goal call he learned in part from legendary Argentine radio voice José María Muñoz.

“So the goal happens, and immediately my boss starts looking at me,” Cantor recalled. “My call definitely caught his attention. “He gave me the job on the spot, and I became the only sole play-by-play announcer for Univision from 1987 until 2000.”

The rest became sports broadcasting history. 

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Cantor went from calling matches on Univision to becoming one of the defining voices of the World Cup era in America. He became a star after covering the 1994 World Cup and became emotional when Messi and Argentina lifted the trophy in Qatar in 2022. 

“Argentinians have been waiting in the waiting room for 36 years for Argentina to win it again,” Cantor said of that moment. “It was a roller coaster of emotions, and we had to suffer dearly to win it again. We were very happy for Messi, for Argentina, and on July 19, when I’ll be calling the final, hopefully I’ll be crying again.”

At 63 years old, Cantor is preparing to call his 12th consecutive World Cup. He’s passed the torch on to his son, Nico, who is a soccer host on the CBS Sports Network. 

Now, he believes the sport he has spent his entire life screaming into America’s consciousness is finally about to consume the entire country.

He thinks the U.S. has what it takes to reach the quarterfinals and the right mindset to perhaps go further. 

“You have to go into a major tournament thinking you’re going to win it,” Cantor said. “You can’t just set a quarterfinal goal. You have to set yourself the highest goal possible.”

If things break right, it could be Cantor’s two countries fighting it out in the quarterfinals between Argentina and the U.S. The renowned broadcaster will be on the call, the world will be watching and we know whom America will root for.