Taha Arfsten's Journey from World Cup to Championship
The World Cup was over in an instant. The USMNT had lost to Belgium in Seattle, the squad scattered, and the glare of the tournament lights faded almost overnight.
For Taha Arfsten, the next stop was not Europe, not yet. It was California.
He needed the reset.
“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, I came back to Columbus, started training, and I just played in a couple games.
“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.”
He’s talking about the World Cup, of course. Six weeks that felt like six minutes. Goals, wins, celebrations – the obvious snapshots that live forever on highlight reels.
But when Arfsten thinks back now, his mind drifts somewhere else.
The moments no one saw
“The national anthem,” he says, and there’s a smile before the words. “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 big stage. The image every kid dreams of.
The ones that stick with him most, though, played out in near silence.
“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.”
Those card games are gone now. The ocean view replaced by something very different.
Because the next stop for Arfsten is Middlesbrough.
From Orange County to Teesside
Boro is a long way from Orange County, in every sense. Grey skies instead of Pacific sunsets. The grind of the Championship instead of camp life with the national team.
Yet for Arfsten, this move has been building for years.
Back in January, speaking to GOAL, he laid out two clear targets for 2026. First: make the World Cup. Second: get to Europe.
One box is already ticked. The other is about to be.
On paper, it looks like a neat, upward curve. College standout, MLS breakthrough, World Cup, European move. A tidy arc.
He rejects that idea outright.
“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. Nothing about his route screams “inevitable.”
After breaking through at UC-Davis, his sophomore season vanished when COVID-19 shut everything down. After his junior year, he signed with San Jose Earthquakes II, but never truly broke through with the Quakes. Instead, the Fresno-born winger/wingback arrived in Columbus via the MLS Draft, hardly the glamorous path for a supposed future international.
Before his USMNT debut in the January 2025 camp, he had zero national team experience. No long youth résumé. No “next big thing” label.
Nothing came particularly easy.
A new chapter, familiar faces
Now comes the leap. Middlesbrough. The Championship. The weekly scrap for points and position in one of the most unforgiving leagues in the world.
At least he won’t be walking into a completely cold room.
USMNT teammates Sebastian Berhalter and Aidan Morris are already at the club, giving him a couple of familiar faces in a new dressing room. The comfort ends there. Boro’s Championship season starts on August 15, with an EFL Cup opener against Wrexham on August 7. There is no soft landing, no slow integration.
He will arrive and be thrown straight into a squad already tuned for competitive football.
Before that jump, though, he had one last week in MLS colors, one more chance to soak up Columbus and the league that helped launch him.
He spent it as an MLS All-Star.
Arfsten played 44 minutes in the All-Star Game, helping MLS edge Liga MX in a 4-3 shootout. The match itself was entertainment; the week around it was something else entirely.
One of the highlights came away from the cameras, with two familiar World Cup teammates: Tim Ream and Matt Freese.
That trio had gone through the World Cup together, then scattered after the loss to Belgium. The All-Star week brought them back into the same orbit for the first time since.
“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, the veteran who has seen this movie before, felt the same.
“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.”
Advice from someone who’s lived it
Ream knows exactly where Arfsten stands now. Years ago, he was the late-rising college defender who used MLS as a springboard, then crossed the Atlantic to test himself in England.
So when he was asked if he had any advice for 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.”
It’s a message that fits Arfsten’s entire journey. No shortcuts, no hype machine. Just steady work, setbacks, and another step forward.
Now the steps get steeper.
The Championship is relentless. Two games a week, long trips, heavy pitches, and squads stacked with players desperate for a shot at the Premier League. At the same time, a new World Cup cycle is beginning for the USMNT. Places are up for grabs. Reputations can fade quickly.
Arfsten knows he’ll be judged on output, not sentiment.
“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 beaches of California are behind him. The balcony card games are memories now. Next comes Teesside, the grind of the Championship, and a fight to prove that the World Cup was not the peak, but the starting point.
