2 UC alums pursue 2026 World Cup glory

Thirty-two years after the World Cup took the United States by storm, the world's single biggest athletic tournament is back - and of course, it wouldn't be complete without players from UC.

This year's U.S. men's national team features UC Davis soccer alumnus and Fresno native Max Arfsten. A defender, Arfsten plays professionally for Major League Soccer's Columbus Crew. Most professional players get their talents nourished in soccer academies run by top teams from a young age. Arfsten nurtured his self-belief on the fields of local parks in Fresno.

"The landscapers, I guess, they never kicked me off," Arfsten told SFGATE from the U.S. team's training camp last week. "I'm thankful that they never kicked me off."

Boosted by a high school coach who thought he had the "it factor," Arfsten began to attract attention from college programs, but most did not come calling 'til late.

"UC Davis was the first college to reach out to me," Arfsten said to the Perfect Soccer Podcast. "I went with my gut and went to UC Davis." 

At UC Davis, Arfsten earned Big West All-Freshman Team honors in 2019 before being named the Big West Offensive Player of the Year and an All-Big West First Team selection as a junior in 2021. His experience at UC Davis gave him the belief he could make it in the pros. 

"When my coaches started to believe in me, and my teammates started to believe in me as well, then I really felt I can play professionally if I lock in and have the right mindset and attitude," Arfsten told the Perfect Soccer Podcast. The San Jose Earthquakes scouted him, and he eventually was drafted in the first round by by the Columbus Crew of MLS, the American league that launched to prominence from the last World Cup on home soil.

Now, Arfsten is one of just 26 players on the U.S. men's national team squad, set to kick off their first match on Friday, June 12, at Inglewood Stadium in Los Angeles against Paraguay.

UC Santa Barbara alum leads New Zealand while campus hosts training camp for Austria

Making his return to Southern California as a member of the New Zealand national team will be Michael Boxall, one of the most accomplished players in UC Santa Barbara men's soccer history.

"Playing for my country is the reason why this whole journey started," Boxall told his club, Minnesota United FC.

Boxall set a program record for minutes played at UC Santa Barbara and led them to a Big West Conference championship in 2010, netting a Defensive Player of the Year award along the way. Boxall made his international debut in 2011, but his first international goal came on March 24, 2025 against New Caledonia  - the shot that qualified New Zealand for this summer's World Cup.

UC Santa Barbara will also be playing a unique role in the World Cup as host for the Austrian National Team. Serenaded by the UC Santa Barbara marching band, the team took the field during a practice that attracted 2,500 fans.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have the World Cup in your neighborhood," UC Santa Barbara Athletic Director Kelly Barsky told the Santa Barbara Independent. "To have a team like this here training and willing to come out and meet our community is truly special. I think this is a generational opportunity, and I hope that everyone involved, regardless of age or background, has a memorable experience and forms a meaningful connection."

A blast from the past

UC programs have turned out a number of professional and national men's players over the years, including several members of the 1994 U.S. World Cup team. Former U.S. men's star and UCLA Bruin Cobi Jones is an official L.A. World Cup 2026 Community Ambassador and will be offering color commentary on several matches for Fox Sports. Jones is a legend of the U.S. men's national team and of UCLA, holding the all-time appearances record for the U.S. and the Bruins' single-season record for assists.

"All eyes of the world are on you, but more importantly, all eyes of the U.S. are on you, and the opportunity's there, as individual players, that you can be immortalized and people will be talking about you 30-some-odd years later and about what you did in the World Cup," he told UCLA Newsroom. "Every World Cup is an inflection point, where you grow the game."

A U.S. soccer legend

Jones shared his time in that World Cup with four other UCLA Bruins on the U.S. roster: Paul Caligiuri, who scored "the shot heard round the world" which qualified the U.S. for the World Cup in 1990, their first in 40 years; Brad Friedel, a goalkeeping legend who still holds the record for most consecutive appearances in the Premier League, arguably the world's top professional league; sweeper Mike Lapper, a gold medal winner at the 1992 Summer Olympics; and Joe-Max Moore, a member of the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame. Jones, Friedel, Lapper and Moore were part of the core that helped the UCLA Bruins win the NCAA men's soccer championship in 1989.

An important role to play

Even UCLA Health has a role to play in providing a high level of competition in the World Cup. As a record 1,248 players from 48 countries prepare to play matches across the U.S., Mexico and Canada, the scientists at UCLA's Olympic Analytical Laboratory (OAL) will be testing for banned substances, on the clock to provide results 10 times faster than usual.

"It's a really special thing to do something like the World Cup - to be trusted by FIFA, to be working under a time frame like that and getting them accurate results," laboratory director Elizabeth Ahrens says. "It really makes us all proud to be able to do this."

Accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the OAL is one of the biggest sports drug-testing facilities on Earth.

Founded in 1982, the Los Angeles-based lab has been trusted for decades by the International Olympic Committee and top sports organizations - including the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the National Football League and Major League Baseball - to test for the hundreds of substances WADA prohibits under its World Anti-Doping Code. OAL is part of the UCLA Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.

The leading-edge laboratory employs 35 scientists and data analysts - all sports fans and many former athletes, Ahrens says - who perform a range of tests using sophisticated analytical equipment, including 16 specialized mass spectrometers, which detect molecules present in a sample.

"There's a lot of science behind this," says Sarah Dry, M.D., chair of UCLA's Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, "and that science is important to keep sports fair for everybody." Read more at UCLA Health.