The home World Cup moment has finally arrived for USMNTs golden generation and the chance to change soccer here forever

Tyler Adams was standing in the bowels of Soldier Field, six days away from a World Cup that will be the most important competition of his career, talking about the moment when the story of this U.S.men’s national team began.Still a month away from his national team debut, he watched it on the couch with his stepdad, Daryl Sullivan.Trinidad and Tobago 2, USA 1.At some point, he said, Sullivan turned to him.

“You could help this team,” Sullivan told him.Adams was 18 years old, starring for the New York Red Bulls, still a few months away from moving to Germany to play for RB Leipzig.A 19-year-old Christian Pulisic scored the only U.S.

goal that night and cried on the field when the devastating result confirmed that the USMNT would miss the 2018 World Cup in Russia, failing to qualify for the first time since 1986.“I was knocking on the door, I feel like, for my first call-up at that point,” Adams said.“Maybe if they would’ve qualified, I would’ve gone to that World Cup.

Obviously we didn’t qualify, and I got my foot in the door right after that.”A month later, Adams and Weston McKennie made their national team debuts on the same night in a 1-1 draw against Portugal.The next time Pulisic was in the squad, a friendly against Bolivia in May 2018, the starting 11 included McKennie, Timothy Weah, Antonee Robinson and Josh Sargent.

The process of hiring a new coach — Bruce Arena had been fired over the failure to qualify — included identifying talent that was 15-17 years old at the time and would be in their primes in 2026, when it was confirmed over that summer that the United States, Canada and Mexico would be co-hosting the World Cup.“That was the core group of guys,” Gregg Berhalter, who got the job and managed the U.S.through the last World Cup cycle, told The Post.

“It was Christian, Weston, Tyler.Timmy Weah was one of them.

Sergiño [Dest] was a guy that was starting to be talked about.[Joe] Scally was a guy.

Mark McKenzie, anothe...