Taha Arfsten's Journey: From World Cup to Championship

The World Cup ended on a Tuesday night in Seattle. Belgium walked off with the win, the USMNT walked off with regrets, and by the next morning the 26-man squad had scattered.

Some went home. Some went on vacation. Bags packed, group chats buzzing, and then silence.

Taha Arfsten’s silence came in California.

“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 it was back to Columbus, back to training, back to games. Life as a pro does not wait for anyone’s emotions to catch up.

“It kind of just ends, and you have to move on,” he says, “but it was such a massive moment that it's kind of hard to move on.”

From an anthem to an ocean

The obvious memories are easy to find. Goals. Wins. Dressing-room roars. A World Cup run condensed into six breathless weeks.

For Arfsten, one image sits above the rest.

“The national anthem,” he says, smiling. “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.”

Those are the snapshots that make the highlight reels. The ones that live on social media.

The ones he’s been thinking about more lately are quieter.

“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.”

No cameras. No anthems. Just cards, waves, and teammates who, for a month and a half, felt like family.

Now the ocean view is gone. The next horizon is very different.

From UC-Davis to the Championship

Middlesbrough is a long way from Orange County in every sense, but this move has been coming.

Back in January, speaking to GOAL, Arfsten set himself two clear targets for 2026. First: make the World Cup. Done. Second: get to Europe. That one is about to be ticked off, too.

On paper, it looks neat. College standout, MLS breakthrough, World Cup, European move. A straight line.

Arfsten doesn’t recognize that version of his story.

“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. It hasn’t been.

He broke through at UC-Davis, only to see his sophomore season wiped out by COVID-19. After his junior year, he signed with San Jose Earthquakes II, hoping to climb into the first team. Instead of becoming a Quakes regular, he ended up in Columbus via the MLS Draft, another detour that could easily have gone nowhere.

Before his USMNT debut in the January 2025 camp, he had zero national team experience. No youth caps. No “next big thing” tag. No golden path laid out for him.

Nothing came easy. Nothing came guaranteed.

Now he’s heading to Boro, a club where the dressing room will at least have a couple of familiar voices. USMNT teammates Sebastian Berhalter and Aidan Morris are already there, ready-made connections in a foreign league.

They will not have much time to reminisce.

Middlesbrough’s Championship season starts on August 15. Before that, an EFL Cup tie against Wrexham on August 7. Arfsten will land in England and walk straight into a squad already bracing for the grind of one of the toughest leagues in the world.

No gentle introduction. No easing in.

One last week as a Crew man

Before that leap, he allowed himself one more moment in MLS colors.

Arfsten’s final act as a Columbus Crew player came under the All-Star spotlight. He played 44 minutes, helped the MLS All-Stars edge Liga MX 4-3, and soaked in a week that felt like both a reward and a goodbye.

What stuck with him most wasn’t the scoreline. It was the reunion.

He spent much of the week around Tim Ream and Matt Freese, the only other USMNT players in the All-Star squad. The three had lived the World Cup together, then split after the Belgium defeat. This was the first time they had been teammates again since Seattle.

“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 felt the same pull. The veteran defender has barely stopped moving himself, juggling club duty and the chaos of a World Cup summer, then this All-Star interlude on top.

“It's been a whirlwind for all of us,” Ream 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.”

Ream knows the road Arfsten is about to take. He was once the late-rising college player who made it in MLS before testing himself in England. When he was asked if he had any advice for his younger teammates, the answer cut straight to the point.

“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.”

New league, same fight

There will be ups. There will be downs. That much is certain.

The move abroad is hard. The Championship is unforgiving, a 46-game test of depth, resilience, and how badly a club wants to sniff the Premier League.

The national team picture won’t get any kinder, either. A new World Cup cycle is beginning. Rosters reset. Roles shift. A coach may change. Standards will not.

For Arfsten, the timing is perfect and brutal all at once. He is stepping into a new league just as the race for USMNT spots begins again.

He has his own way of simplifying the chaos.

“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 World Cup anthem is over. The balcony card games are in the past. The next soundtrack is the roar at the Riverside, the grind of midweek away days, the fight to make sure his name keeps appearing on USMNT squad lists.

He wanted Europe. Now he has it.

The question is no longer how he got here. It’s how loud he can make that noise from the north of England.