Written September 1, 2026
All photos are my own, taken at Audi Field on August 29, 2026 ©
Sitting in Section 134, the Supporters’ Section of Audi Field, is to participate in a cross-cultural sporting environment, whether or not it is conceptualized politically. Some chants are in Spanish, some in English. The stadium becomes a place where identities overlap without fully resolving. The resulting culture is not a conglomeration of different identities sitting next to one another. Rather, Audi Field becomes generative, greater than the sum of its parts. DC United is Salvadoran, Bolivian, Mexican, Latin American, US-American, and uniquely Washingtonian.
As David Faflik writes in his 2006 article, Fútbol América: Hemispheric Sport as Border Studies, borders do more than demarcate. The line drawn to separate the United States and Latin America does not merely function as a delimitation, but instead fosters contact zones between cultures and peoples. Faflik believed that the United States was entering into an era of “New American Studies,” where countries become products of border-generated conversations. Borderlands are produced by trans-national and trans-cultural movement. Through constant separation and re-integration across the Americas, languages, societies, and economies converged, with sports serving as a vessel for collective creation. He claimed that “the two trends – world football’s global growth, and Americans’ deepening cross-cultural awareness – are mutually reinforcing.”
In the two decades since Faflik’s publication, the United States has entered a renewed period of economic protectionism and cultural retrenchment. Despite MLS’s exponential growth, the outlook on fútbol as a US-American sport is dramatically jaded.
Audi Field itself functions as a borderland within Faflik’s invocation of “New American Studies.” Migration history, linguistic diversity, inherited football practice, and collective memory are coalesced into a ritualistic series of events over 90 minutes.
Faflik’s claim of “co-dependence” between American cross-cultural awareness (and acceptance) and integration into fútbol culture has not been disproven. Cross-cultural awareness has appeared through non-linear patterns of exchange, resistance, and integration. An acceptance of football comes with a decentralizing of the United States within American and global contexts. In a country whose dominant nationalist traditions have often depended upon economic and cultural imperialism, this is a radical proposition.
Major League Soccer (MLS) was founded in 1993 ahead of the 1994 World Cup. As part of its successful bid to host the tournament, FIFA required the United States to develop its Division I program and establish a professional league. MLS did not begin play until 1996, with DC United as one of the league’s ten original teams. Referred to as MLS’s first “dynasty,” the DC side won three of the league’s first four MLS Cups, with the Chicago Fire denying them a sweep in 1998. That summer, Jaime Moreno was signed from Middlesbrough. Moreno’s chemistry with Bolivian teammate Marco Etcheverry and El Salvador’s Raúl Díaz Arce was immediate and impactful. The trio would be known as DC United’s “Magic Triangle.”
Raúl Díaz Arce, for his part, is the top goalscorer of all time for El Salvador. Former Díaz Arce teammate and El Salvador international Mauricio Cienfuegos, as quoted by DCUnited.com, stated, “He is, perhaps, one of the last true center forwards produced by El Salvador.” Díaz Arce’s mythic status and presence in the United squad made him a popular figure among the city’s immigrant communities. The DMV boasts the second-highest population of Salvadorans in the United States, at 210,870. According to the July 2025 census, 13% of DC residents are Hispanic, with Salvadorans accounting for the largest national-origin group. The recent signing of Salvadoran international Nathan Ordaz from LAFC has renewed fan interest in repping El Salvador and Ordaz-specific merchandise.
MLS was formed in the same era of optimism as Faflik’s article. By the 1990s, American fútbol was embedded in transnational communities. DC United actively incorporated players who had cultural meaning to established international communities already living in the nation’s capital. Nevertheless, the outcomes were more than a marketing strategy. The supporters drawn into the league by the names on the United jerseys were the supporters who constructed the club identity. Over time, DC United became more than Salvadorans watching Díaz Arce or Bolivians watching Etcheverry. Supporters developed DC-specific practices and shared ways of belonging within transnational, diasporic communities.
To draw in Los Angeles’ large Hispanic population, MLS attempted to Americanize the most popular team in Mexican football, C. D. Guadalajara (better known as Chivas). Chivas’ particular appeal to Mexican national identity stems from their policy of signing only players eligible for, or already holding, Mexican citizenship. Chivas overtly reject a general commercialized, revenue-generating outlook. Instead, the Guadalajara side treats Mexican identity as separate from the collective American ethnoscape MLS looks to foster. Chivas USA played its first season in 2005 under MLS roster requirements with a heavy focus on signing players of Latino descent. Chivas USA folded in 2014. The club cited struggles to draw fans and develop a coherent identity while sharing a stadium with the LA Galaxy. After Chivas USA folded, MLS awarded Los Angeles a new expansion team; LAFC began play in 2018 at BMO Stadium.
