More than ever, players from international soccer and the NFL are interacting with and influencing each other. Whether it is the old soccer custom of post-match jersey swaps growing in popularity in the NFL, or European soccer stars taking a crack at different NFL skills while on summer preseason tours in the USA, the relationship between the two footballs – we’ll use soccer for the sake of simplicity throughout this article – has never been closer, especially with the FIFA World Cup 26™ less than two years away.

With the NFL season set to kick off on Thursday, 5 September, FIFA takes a look at the history and evolving relationship between the two sports and the synergy among their biggest stars.

From soccer to the NFL
NFL history is full of former soccer players who went on to become kicking legends. Garo Yepremian played professional soccer in England before being part of the famed 1972 Miami Dolphins, still the only team to have had an undefeated season and then won the Super Bowl. There was also former Danish youth national team prospect Morten Andersen, who enjoyed a decorated NFL career over the course of 25 seasons and holds the league record for most regular season games played with 382.

Fast forward to the 21st century, there is the recently retired Josh Lambo, who played primarily for the San Diego Chargers and Jacksonville Jaguars. Prior to that though, Lambo was a member of Major League Soccer (MLS) side FC Dallas and even played two matches for the USA in the FIFA U-17 World Cup™ in 2007. Nowadays, it is former Toronto FC man Brandon Aubrey who is turning heads by booming 60-plus yard field goals for the Dallas Cowboys.

It’s not all one-way traffic though. One of the most storied players in the history of the USA men’s national team, Buff Donelli, set aside his American football duties to represent his country at the second FIFA World Cup™ in Italy in 1934. Donelli accounted for all four goals in his country’s 4-2 play-off win over Mexico, before scoring the lone USA goal in the 7-1 loss to the host nation. Donelli then promptly returned to American football after the tournament and went on to become a coach in the NFL with the Pittsburgh Steelers.