Only 11 people have ever been born in Antarctica.

José Manuel Valladares Solis is No. 6.

Since birth, José has found himself in the middle, forced to choose a side. “If we think about 11 people,” he says, “if we do the math, we can put five in the left, five in the right, and in the middle we have six, which is me.”

Argentina and England will meet in Wednesday’s World Cup semifinal — marking their sixth-ever meeting in the tournament and first since 2002 — with a berth to the final on the line. It’s the latest chapter in one of international football’s most storied rivalries.

For José (whose nickname “Six” commemorates his birth order among native Antarcticans), Wednesday is a culmination of lifelong grappling with his identity, which he describes as “Native Antarctican by birth and conviction; Argentine by blood; and British through a paradox of international law.” Coincidentally, his reckoning comes on soccer’s biggest stage, where many have celebrated multinationalism this summer.

“One team,” Six says, “invented the sport that I love; the other team is the current champion.” Meanwhile, he can’t help but consider how his beloved Antarctica fits within the frame as two global soccer powers take the pitch.

ARGENTINE POLAR DOGS & A ‘MAGICAL’ BIRTH

BELIEVE IT OR not, Antarctica helps inform why Argentina-England is such a heated rivalry.

Jostling over Antarctic territory began in earnest during the early 20th century. Britain asserted the first formal claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands Dependencies in 1908. Other nations followed suit, staking their own claims.

In 1959, 12 countries, including Argentina, Chile, and the United Kingdom, signed the Antarctic Treaty, freezing existing territorial claims and reserving Antarctica for peaceful purposes and scientific research.

But Argentina and Chile felt more ambitious about the South Pole than their peers, viewing Antarctica as a natural extension of South America. In the 1940s, both countries established overlapping territorial claims — which also overlapped with Britain’s. Argentina even established civilian settlements, most notably at Esperanza Base, which featured housing and a school.

Enter Six.

In the late 1970s, Argentina began arranging for pregnant women to give birth at Esperanza Base, with Emilio Palma’s birth the first to occur there in January 1978. Argentina’s aims spurred Chile to also institute the practice.

On January 24, 1980, Six was born at Esperanza. But it took a miracle.

Six’s father, an Argentine army colonel, was one of the country’s first Antarctic explorers — no GPS, internet, or mobile communication to explore the frozen terrain. Six’s father “was very proud, very Argentinian, very patriotic.” But Six says the colonel didn’t shy away from expressing how exploration efforts posed a significant risk, noting the lack of hospitals, airports, and general infrastructure.

But higher-ups brushed aside the colonel’s concerns; those worries proved correct when a fire damaged the Esperanza Base’s facilities. Luckily, an emergency radio call reached Buenos Aires about a pregnancy complication, connecting despite wintry winds traveling over 200km/h (or ~124mph).

Six’s father, already skeptical of the Argentine junta government’s plan, was upset. He asked the president for help, but was told, “If we are lucky, the help will get there in three months.” So, the colonel improvised.

A 14-person crew flew in on two helicopters and headed toward Esperanza. A journalist who joined the trip to document Argentina’s Antarctic presence rode in a tracked snow vehicle below — but it got stuck in an ice crevasse.

Six’s father relinquished his helicopter seat to the journalist. “From the crew, the only one that have experience in Antarctica was my father,” Six says. “He got a sled — he got the Argentinian polar dogs — and with his sub officer, [he] start[ed] the way to Esperanza Base by Earth in a sled.”

While the colonel’s dogs dashed along the dangerous icy landscape, his wife went into labor early. The clock ticked.

Half an hour… 45 minutes… an hour… an hour and a half…

“My dad did not arrive,” Six says. “My mom got worried. When my father arrived, I was already born — kilo and a half, six months pregnancy. Nowadays, premature babies have a hard time to survive, and I survived in a fire base, without nothing. I mean, I think it's meant to be.”

Of the 11 born in Antarctica, Six is the only one born within the Antarctic British Territory and the only British citizen; he says that, according to British law, the other 10 native Antarcticans also were born within the same territory, but are not British citizens. All of the others were planned births that arrived on time. Six arrived early.

“It’s other 10 native Antarcticans; it’s other seven Argentinian native Antarcticans; it’s other three Chilean native Antarcticans,” he says. “But it’s only one and only British native Antarctican, which is me.”

His mother insisted that it was divine intentions for his birth to happen early, essentially, without any neonatal infrastructure.

“My mom,” Six fondly recalls. “She smiled and she said, ‘Well, I believe that Antarctica has something that it’s difficult to explain with words. Something magical or mystical.’”

“YOU TOOK MY ISLANDS, I’M TAKING YOUR GAME”

IT DOES NOT take long to realize that Six is unapologetically himself. Across each conversation, his voice rises with excitement, he double-checks for clarity (he’s self-conscious of his English, which isn’t bad at all), and smiles a bunch. “The idea,” he cheerfully says of his goal in sharing his story, “is to spread the word and try to come up with a positive message, basically.”

That optimism wasn’t always there. With his father in the Argentine military, Six’s family lived all over the country; “I only spent two months of my life in Antarctica,” he says. “They got the plane and they took me to Argentina.” Growing up, he wanted to and followed in his father’s footsteps, joining the army, too. For most of Six’s early life, Antarctica wasn’t at the forefront of his identity. It was simply the land where he’d be born.

“I would say, until I quit the army,” Six says, “I was 100% Argentinian.”

Argentine identity carries a powerful sense of national pride. It might not be unique to their culture, but it is distinctive. So it makes sense that Six felt so passionate — especially given the political climate at the time that influenced what being Argentine meant.

Two years after Six was born, the Falklands/Malvinas War broke out. Argentina’s military junta, which had seized power in March 1976, invaded the British-controlled islands roughly 300 miles off the coast of Argentina. The regime was losing control and faced mounting civil unrest and criticism, so it banked on seizing the Malvinas as a way to earn favor.

Six’s father was barred from fighting by the Argentine leadership, because, Six says, “he knew that my father will never surrender.” The British recaptured the territory and the conflict ended after 74 days, leaving 649 Argentines, 255 Brits, and 3 Falkland Islanders dead. Protests across Argentina spread in the following days, leading to the end of the junta dictatorship and Argentina restoring democracy in 1983.

But the Falklands/Malvinas War did more than restore democracy — it left a wound with a group of people that takes an exceptional amount of pride in its cultural identity.

“I understand why, because I know Argentinians — I'm Argentinian, too,” Six explains. “They feel like [they need] revenge.”

The soccer pitch is where those feelings have played out. Since the conflict, plenty of history has been written about England and Argentina’s clashes.

The first time the teams met in 1966 — the first and only year England’s men have won the World Cup — Argentine defender Antonio Rattín’s dismissal for dissent and police escort off the field helped inspire the introduction of yellow and red cards. But it was what happened in the aftermath of the Falklands/Malvinas conflict that elevated the matchup into an iconic, contentious rivalry.

During the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, only a few years removed from the Malvinas conflict, Diego Maradona scored two quarterfinal goals against England to lift Argentina to a 2-1 win: the “Hand of God” and the “Goal of the Century.” Years later, Maradona would admit, “This was revenge. We all said beforehand that we shouldn’t mix football with the Malvinas, but that was a lie — an absolute lie. We thought about nothing else. It was much more than eliminating England from the World Cup.”

That encounter was encored by a controversial David Beckham red card after a challenge on Diego Simeone in the 1998 World Cup. Then in 2002, David Beckham scored a redemptive, decisive penalty after a foul by Mauricio Pochettino on Michael Owen.

Although the English won the last head-to-head matchup, Argentina has won three World Cups (1978, ‘86, and 2022), earning more notable results than England. “As someone who grew up there,” says Six, who began playing soccer in Argentina at 11 years old, “it’s a religion.” Lionel Messi is widely considered the greatest player of all time, with no British products coming close.

The Argentines love singing “el que no salta es un inglés” which translates to: “He who does not jump is an Englishman.” Revenge — going into Wednesday’s kickoff, at least — has been sweet.

“You took my islands,” Six says of the Argentine mindset, “I’m taking your game.”

“IT IS HOW I FEEL”

AS ARGENTINA EARNED symbolic vengeance on the pitch, Six began expanding his horizons.

In 2007, Six moved to the United States because he was a member of an international student program. His father had passed away, and his solidified identity began to evolve. “I was very proud about Argentina,” Six says. “I never cared about the rest of the world. My center was Argentina, you know? I really believe I changed for better. I learned when I was 27 that the world was bigger than Argentina, start knowing that people from different parts of the globe, they were similar to me, you know? So I start changing.”

While studying at Hodges University in Fort Myers, Florida, Six’s visa was nearing expiration when he befriended a Texan man named Zach, “my American angel,” who helped him learn about a British law that, because he had been born in the British Antarctic Territory, allowed him to apply for British citizenship.

His Florida friends urged him to avoid London and instead move to Newcastle, noting Argentine defender Fabricio Coloccini played for the city’s Premier League club at the time. (Argentine striker Carlos Tevez was shining for Manchester City at this time, too.)

In 2011, Six moved to Newcastle. “Coming from a military background, knowing about the Malvinas War,” he recalls, wondering, “how the hell they are gonna be treating me? They were super friendly, super polite, and I tried to explain to my Argentinian friends. In Argentina, it’s a big deal. In the U.K., it’s not. It’s one more conflict that they have. They have a war against Argentina, against France, against — how many wars do they have?”

Upon arriving in England, he recalls playing on a pickup soccer team started by a new friend, Henry. The team featured players of Mexican, Colombian, and English descent.

“I think football, or soccer, has something mystical or magical, too,” Six says, “which is getting people together.”

He stayed in England for three months before moving to Spain. But, he says, “my connection to Britain was never about how long I lived there. It’s part of my legal identity.”

Seeing the world softened Six’s heart. It also inspired him to consider and reckon with his identity.

“I'm not half Argentinian and half British,” Six says. “I'm a native Antarctican, 100% completely native Antarctican. Also, I'm Argentinian. Also, I'm British. It's not half and half. It is how I feel.”

“Living between those two worlds,” he later adds, “shaped the way I see identity, football and even friendship.”

Six’s pride is in defiance of what governing bodies across the world fail to recognize. The Antarctic Treaty, signed in 1959 in Washington, D.C., does not address the status of Antarctic-born people because, well, it was written under the assumption that the continent had no permanent or indigenous population. They are granted no distinct political recognition, nor are they granted representation in governance over the continent — that responsibility rests with the Consultative Parties to the Antarctic Treaty.

Six, and other native Antarcticans (who each have numbered nicknames based on their birth order) have formed the Native Antarctican Foundation to raise awareness and dispute that their omission from Antarctic Treaty System leaves them unrecognized.

“Imagine that, to get citizenship, it can be by soil or by blood,” Six explains, “and Argentina and Chile send people to [be] born in a place that they don't have the sovereignty.” Essentially, he argues that the countries tried to game sovereignty rules to their advantage, leaving the resulting human beings, like Six, legally and existentially awkward.

Of course, that awkwardness and subsequent reckoning with identity has made personal life more complicated for Six than perhaps it would be if he’d just been born in Argentina. Ahead of Wednesday’s game, he shared an A.I. graphic of himself wearing a split jersey between Argentina and England.

“First one that comment was my brother, who is part of the armed forces in Argentina,” Six says. “He called me through the phone, ‘What are you doing wearing an English shirt?!’”

While he acknowledges comprehension for why Argentines are not in agreement with his split loyalties, Six’s optimism and hope for people to put aside their differences, within reasonable context, pushes through. He reflects on how inclusive the Beautiful Game is and even how Antarctica is one of the most inclusive environments in the world. He hasn’t returned to Antarctica since leaving at 2 months old. He says he simply hasn’t had the opportunity.

“In Antarctica,” Six explains, “Ukrainians and Russians are not shooting each other, [they] are cooperating. Chileans and Argentinians, or Argentinians and British people, they cooperate.”

“I'm [going to] continue trying to explain that together we are stronger,” he adds. “You know, why we need to split?”

Perhaps Six is meant to always stand within that gap. In the face of an existential paradox, that’s exactly where he seems meant to be.

“I was a baby,” he says. “I just decided to come to this world in that part of the globe. And from the 11, it's the only case that was not planned. I think maybe God put this mission on me, you know?”

^{Video courtesy of José Manuel Valladares Solis}

ALEX FREEMAN’S JOURNEY to the 2026 FIFA World Cup is a whirlwind.

A year ago, Freeman ascended from academy prospect to one of Major League Soccer’s best players, breaking into Orlando City SC’s starting XI at right back. Last June, the United States men’s national team called him up for the first time — a USMNT teammate quipped that he’d never even heard of Alex before. Less than six months ago, La Liga’s Villarreal CF acquired him in the winter transfer window, then qualified for Champions League.

Now, Freeman, 21, is set to represent his country in a World Cup on home soil. If his career continues on its current trajectory, perhaps everyone will know his name by the end of summer.

“The main thing is to take your opportunities,” Freeman told GOAL’s Ryan Tolmich in February. “You never know when you'll have one again.”

Three days before his World Cup debut, his mother and stepfather, Rochelle and Jake Hinkle, are being gracious with their morning, recounting Alex’s path before flying from Florida to Los Angeles for the USMNT’s opening match against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium on Friday night.

There’s no doubt that things have accelerated beyond comprehension.

“It does sometimes feel like I’m watching a movie and there’s people playing me and Alex and the rest of my family and everyone who’s been along this journey,” Rochelle says. “But also, a part of me has seen the hard work and the dedication — all the long rides, all the trips, missing prom, or missing high school things, and just sacrificing for his dream.”

FROM ATHLETE TO SOCCER PLAYER

THE HINKLES’ SOUTH Florida home in Plantation has caught the bug that so many Americans have over the past decade or so. Soccer is a family-wide obsession. “We watch soccer, upon soccer, upon soccer,” says Rochelle, a Liverpool fan, “in this house.”

So the significance of Freeman joining Villarreal in late January is not lost back home. Rochelle even attended the May 2 match against Levante when Villarreal clinched a Champions League spot for next season. Freeman started at right back, delivering one of his best performances since joining El Submarino Amarillo.

“The level of play is a lot higher,” Rochelle says. “You can tell by the speed of the ball, the technicality of how they play, you have to make quick decisions. That’s what Alex kept saying to me, ‘Mom, these guys play very quick. You just have to make quick decisions and be more communicative — but, in Spanish!’”

Per The Athletic’s Tom Bogert, Villarreal’s approaches for Freeman during the MLS season were rebuffed, before finally landing on a $4 million fee (which could potentially rise to more than $7 million). He’s played in nine matches (three starts) for Villarreal, whose home stadium, Estadio de la Cerámica, holds a capacity of 21,332. He was competing on of makeshift pitches inside baseball stadiums in front of 15 people not too long ago.

“It’s like he jumped onto a different train track,” Jake says. “And it hasn’t stopped yet.”

Jake, a Manchester United fan, was Freeman’s first-ever soccer coach, serving as a volunteer down in Tamarac, Florida. Not many kids could keep up with Freeman, who grew up playing central striker and right winger, in local rec leagues. Teammates gravitated to him and their parents would tell Jake that if Freeman wasn’t around, they didn’t feel like they had a chance. It’s not too surprising; watching interviews today, Freeman’s confidence is infectious and unmistakable.

Back when Freeman was 7 years old, Jake was connected with Roger Thomas, a former Jamaican national team midfielder overseeing a youth soccer system in Parkland, Florida. A step up in competition, Freeman played travel ball with Thomas, while also playing travel basketball, for a couple years. He did all of this, while also competing in other sports, like baseball and tennis.

“It was chaos,” Rochelle says, her past exhaustion palpable.

Freeman seemed gifted at every sport. Plenty of that is credited to his genes — his father, Antonio, is a one-time Super Bowl champion who played nine seasons as an NFL receiver and led the league in receiving in 1998.

“It didn’t matter,” Antonio says, laughing. “Footballs, basketballs, baseballs — he kicked it up against my furniture, and it drove me crazy. Everywhere we went, no matter what, he was kicking stuff.” American football, despite Antonio’s success, was never on Alex’s radar.

By the time Alex turned 12, soccer became his singular focus. He was invited to try out for Weston FC, one of the nation’s largest youth soccer academies, located just 20 minutes outside of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (Club alumni include Alejandro Bedoya, Aidan Morris, and Martha Thomas.)

Alex made the team, but at the first practice, was informed he would be an alternate, meaning he couldn’t play in the team’s first six games. Alex didn’t let it deter him. He saw the level of other Weston cadets and wanted to do what was needed to catch up.

He trained hard with Mirco Gubellini, a former Italian soccer player who became director of coaching at Weston in 2015. Rochelle and Jake credit him for being “the initial match” to light Alex’s “whole fire for soccer.”

“He took him from an athlete,” Jake says, “to a soccer player.”

Alex gradually earned more and more minutes. He wasn’t necessarily a standout on the team, but Weston FC invited him back the following year. Once again, he was named an alternate instead of a regular starter. But Alex kept pushing. After sitting a few times, he started the first match he was eligible for and established himself as a key player, showing a knack for making winning plays throughout the season. Alongside Noah Allen, he helped lead Weston FC to the Development Academy playoffs in California.

Momentum felt real.

THE TRYOUT

SOCCER ICON DAVID Beckham finally launched his MLS expansion club, Inter Miami CF, less than a half-hour away from Alex Freeman’s hometown of Plantation, Florida. It was the summer of 2019, and Freeman was flying off his second season with Weston. Inter planned to hold academy tryouts ahead of the club’s inaugural MLS campaign.

But Freeman didn’t get to put his best foot forward. During tryouts, Inter Miami coaches deployed him at central midfield instead of his natural positions of striker and right winger.

Inter Miami selected a handful of Weston FC players, but not Alex. Momentum felt as though it had screeched to a halt.

Even Antonio recalls that Alex was “devastated” after getting denied. “That’s what he wanted,” Antonio says. “And, as a parent, I didn’t know what to tell him, except there’ll be another opportunity.”

Rochelle remembers Alex being unhappy about the decision, but says it didn’t break his spirit.

“I feel like that was a thorn in Alex’s side,” Rochelle says. “He just saw it as another barrier that he was willing to break down. You put a door in front of him, he’s like, ‘Alright, fine. I’m just gonna break this one down, too. You’re not gonna keep me back.’”

Back with Weston, along with a few other players whom Inter Miami rejected, Alex would get some immediate revenge. The two academy squads faced head-to-head. Weston won. “Needless to say,” Jake recalls, grinning, “it was exciting for the parents.”

Then the world, and Weston’s season, paused as the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. The next step for Alex, however, was quickly approaching.

THE MOVE

JAVIER CARRILLO HAS always had a good eye for talent. Orlando City even created a brand-new role for him last year, Head of Player Development, after helping 13 academy products graduate to the men’s first team since joining the club’s staff in 2019.

Carrillo, a Lima, Peru, native who once played midfield at Florida Atlantic University, first heard about Freeman as a member of Weston FC’s U12s. Freeman was one of the academy’s kids flashing legitimate potential.

When cross-state rival Inter Miami passed on Freeman during tryouts years later, Carrillo, then Orlando’s assistant academy director and U17 head coach, was surprised. He was already luring another Weston product, goalkeeper Isaac Delgado, when Delgado’s father reached out to Jake. Would you consider sending Alex to Orlando? That led to a conversation with Carrillo, who pitched the idea of Freeman joining Orlando City’s academy — on one condition.

Carrillo wanted Freeman, who’d grown up idolizing Lionel Messi, to convert from an attacker to right back. Even before Freeman sprouted into the 6-foot-2, 174-pound man he is today, his combination of speed, size, willingness to crash the box, and smooth dribbling screamed outrageous potential.

“It was exciting, because of his physicality,” Carrillo says. “He was always going forward and creating chances, and [had] good finesse touch.”

Ultimately, convincing Freeman to give up being a focal part of the attack didn’t prove too challenging. Convincing Rochelle to let her 15-year-old son leave Plantation to live three hours away in Orlando with a host family, at the height of a global pandemic, was understandably a bit more difficult.

“I wasn’t done mothering him,” Rochelle says. “And for us to live in two locations for soccer seemed weird at the time, because we’d never been through this process — we didn’t know anyone who had — and it was all new to us. So him moving gave me a lot of discomfort.”

Freeman really wanted to make the move and pushed for it. Jake did his best to convince and woo Rochelle into letting him go. But the key to making it happen was Suzanne VanMarter, whose son initially played the same position as Freeman. She put Rochelle’s nerves at ease and willingly hosted Freeman during his time with Orlando.

“If she wasn’t there,” Jake says of VanMarter, “it probably wouldn’t have happened.”

Once everyone was on board, Freeman says he had a reckoning. If he put his mind to it, he realized, he had immense potential as a right back. Carrillo’s system emphasized rotating the ball, getting him up the pitch as an extra attacker, utilizing his goal-scoring and creativity. Suddenly, legendary defenders Cafu and Dani Alves became his new idols alongside Messi, inspiring his development into a versatile modern fullback who could attack and defend.

“I’m so happy that he listened,” Carrillo says. “Not only did he listen, he embraced it, right? He tried to work on it, he tried to understand the position, understand what we were asking from him, and the rest is history.”

Orlando City’s U17s won the MLS Next Cup in 2021. Freeman played a crucial role, scoring eight goals and adding 15 assists across 30 appearances. He describes that championship run as what’s shaped him into the player he is today.

“The combination of focusing a lot of their play on him and then winning the first MLS Next Cup at the U17s,” Jake says, “was probably the light bulb moment where you think, ‘OK… there is something more unique going on.’”

THE DEAL & THE BREAKTHROUGH

AS ALEX FREEMAN captured the MLS Next Cup, Rochelle undertook setting the table for him to go to college.

“I was making sure his grades were good,” she laughs, “getting his transcripts together, sending videos to different colleges because for soccer, you have to recruit for yourself.”

Freeman signed a letter of intent with the University of Louisville. “I was getting ready to do the Kentucky Derby, getting my hat for Mother’s Day,” Rochelle recalls. But before she could take a step towards Churchill Downs, Freeman had a message.

Orlando wants to talk to you guys.

Orlando wanted to make a deal. A few agents had suggested that Freeman should consider signing it, while Rochelle pondered the college-to-MLS path.

But Orlando displayed strong conviction for Freeman, offering what Jake says was a guaranteed four-year homegrown contract, which included a fifth-year club option. The rationale for Freeman signing made even more sense when considering that, in the worst-case scenario, he would have been 21 when his contract ran out, allowing him to go to college at a young age.

“No one has a crystal ball,” Rochelle says. “Do I believe in him? Of course, and I still do. He’s an amazing, hard worker. Every door that’s been put in front of him, every barrier, he’s been able to break down. But it is about being patient. None of this has happened overnight. It’s been a long journey. A lot of ups and downs.”

A mother’s intuition is rarely wrong. Freeman spent three seasons with Orlando City B, the club’s reserve team, making only three MLS appearances for a combined 11 minutes. On April 29, 2023, he made his MLS first-team debut in the 93rd minute against LA Galaxy.

As Jake says, though, not everyone can be a teenage superstar, like Lamine Yamal. “At the end of the day,” he remarks, “maybe those three seasons at MLS 2 gave him the ability to really hone in defensively and learn what he needed to learn there. I think his was just what he needed to get him where he’s at.”

It required plenty of patience, but Freeman finally broke into the first team in 2025. In the second match of the season, he earned his first-career start against Toronto FC. The day of the match, without letting Jake and Rochelle know, he sent out a text: Don’t be late. They were in the stadium well before he got in behind the Toronto defense and laced his first-career MLS goal.

That evening, the floodgates which seemed stuck for so long as Freeman climbed the ranks of the reserves, finally opened.

“It just seems,” Jake says, “like that fever pitch that that created that night, it hasn’t stopped.”

Freeman played 29 matches (26 starts) in 2025 for Orlando City, registering six goals and three assists. He was named an MLS All-Star, Young Player of the Year, and featured in the 2025 MLS Best XI.

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Midway through the MLS season, Mauricio Pochettino and the USMNT called Freeman up for his first cap in a friendly against Türkiye. Throughout his career, Poch has a decent track record, at least at club level, when handing young defenders cracks at the starting XI. He kept Freeman up for the U.S.’ CONCACAF Gold Cup run and started him in the final against Mexico.

“Alex is player with little experience,” Pochettino said during the tournament. “But in soccer, the desire, the capacity and the talent usually rise above experience.”

Pochettino has kept Freeman in the fold. In a November friendly against Uruguay, he scored twice. First, heading in off a corner. Later, he danced through the Uruguayan defense before firing from inside the penalty area for his brace.

A few months after the MLS season, Orlando City sold him for a club-record homegrown fee to Villarreal, who play domestically against Spanish giants Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Atlético Madrid. After finishing the 2025-26 campaign third in La Liga, Villarreal will compete in Champions League against some of the best clubs across Europe next season.

“Alex is getting to play against people that he watched growing up,” Rochelle exclaims. “Which is insane!”

All of that has led Freeman to SoFi Stadium, where he will make his World Cup debut. When the USMNT officially selected him as its youngest member this cycle, he called Carrillo. “Obviously,” Freeman tells him, “this journey couldn’t have started if it wasn’t for you.”

“I’m super happy for him,” Carrillo says. “For him to experience this, a World Cup in his country, if you ask him two years ago, he would be like, ‘You’re crazy!’ That’s the amazing thing about this. You never know what can happen because things change so fast. I think he’s gonna do great.”

Freeman seems willing to take

“I feel like for a player of my caliber that’s an up-and-coming guy who’s just trying to prove himself, I feel like you’re gonna have pressure on you no matter what,” Freeman says. “It’s about how you handle the pressure and what you can do with it and how you can put it to your advantage.”

Only 26 Americans — including six players who were not born in the U.S. — get the opportunity to represent their country on The Beautiful Game’s biggest stage. The rarity of this moment, which seemed even more unlikely over a year ago, is awe-inspiring for Freeman’s parents.

“The chances of your child actually making a World Cup roster, that’s lotto ticket and lightning all on the same day,” Jake says. “I think being there Friday will be unbelievable.”

“There are not a lot of words that I can use to articulate how I actually feel about this,” Rochelle says. “Sometimes, when you start to talk about it, you get so overwhelmed, and yeah… we’re just super excited and proud of our son.”