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The immigrants who brought soccer to Kansas City

Kansas City will be the smallest city in North America to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup. But it may not have embraced the sport at all, if not for the efforts of immigrants who fought for the beautiful game — before there were even soccer fields to play on.

In less than a year, Kansas City will welcome the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and hundreds of thousands of soccer fans. This moment is helping cement the city as an international soccer destination, but it wasn’t always this way. From the podcast “A People’s History of Kansas City,” Suzanne Hogan reports on the city's soccer beginnings.

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Kansas City Today is hosted by Brian Ellison. It is produced by Byron Love, Carter Galloway, and KCUR Studios, and edited by Madeline Fox, Emily Younker and Gabe Rosenberg.

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As a host and contributor at KCUR, I seek to create a more informed citizenry and richer community. I want to enlighten and inspire our audience by delivering the information they need with accuracy and urgency, clarifying what’s complicated and teasing out the complexities of what seems simple. I work to craft conversations that reveal realities in our midst and model civil discourse in a divided world. Follow me on Twitter @ptsbrian or email me at brian@kcur.org.
As an on-demand producer, I am focused on using my skills and experiences across multiple digital applications, platforms and media fields to create community focused audio, video and on-demand products for KCUR Studios. The media that I produce aims to inform, entertain and connect with the Kansas City metro area as we continue to learn from each other. Email me at byronlove@kcur.org.
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