Back in the 1980s, the U.S. Soccer Federation was drastically searching for a way to rebuild the United States Men’s National Team to return to the World Cup. At the time, they were in the middle of a 30-year drought that was ripe with difficulties in developing players and getting them together to build continuity as they sought to return to the world’s greatest tournament.
Enter a zany idea: place the national team in the nation’s domestic league at the time, the North American Soccer League. They would call it Team America, and they operated out of RFK Stadium in Washington, DC, and each of the existing NASL teams would lend Team America some of their best American talent to serve as the national team.