Major League Soccer announced a record 44 active players have been named to FIFA World Cup 2026 rosters, the most in the league's 33-year history.

The captains of Argentina, Colombia, and South Korea all play in MLS — Messi, James Rodríguez, and Son Heung-min. Three top-15 national teams led into a World Cup by players based in the U.S. The league has also passed Liga MX to become the biggest World Cup supplier in the Western Hemisphere. Outside the top five European leagues, it ranks second. The call-up count puts MLS in that tier.

Forty-two of the players at the tournament came up through the MLS pathway — an academy or MLS NEXT Pro. Alex Freeman, Rayan Elloumi, and Esmir Bajraktarević are the first ever to go the full route: MLS NEXT, MLS NEXT Pro, first-team debut, World Cup roster.

The host-nation numbers are the clearest signal. Of the U.S. and Canada rosters, 79 percent have played in MLS, come through an MLS academy, or both. Half came through the academies.

The 44 players come from 21 clubs and 17 countries, spread across 11 of the 12 groups. LAFC leads with four call-ups; eight clubs have three. The U.S. and Canada have eight each — close to 40 percent of the total.

For U.S. fans, watch Sebastian Berhalter of the Vancouver Whitecaps: six goals and seven assists in 14 league games, played his way onto the roster on form, started the recent win over Senegal.

The tournament is on home soil, and several matches are in MLS stadiums — Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Seattle's Lumen Field, Vancouver's BC Place. The league gets to make its case in its own backyard in front of its biggest audience yet.