Calle’s Resurgence: How the Revived Brand is Spreading Street Football Across the Country | OneFootball

After a 10-year hiatus, street football label Calle returned in 2022 with a renewed mission to bring street football culture and courts to communities across the United States.

Football has been in a constant state of evolution since its inception. The game today is nearly unrecognizable to what it was 30, 20, even 10 years ago. Shifts in tactics, new technology, and the myriad sport betting options have completely changed football for better and for worse, depending on who you ask.

However, an often overlooked influence on the shifting tides of football is street soccer. Whether it’s 5v5, 3v3, panna, or freestyle, the grassroots play style of different regions of the world have brought new flavors to the game. There are many different histories of how the game grew and evolved across the globe, but the pattern often starts from the streets.

The United States stands out in contrast to many countries when discussing street football, as other American sports have historically had more weight in both the public eye and in the choice of kids growing up. The culture and popularity of soccer in the U.S. has grown and gained immense popularity in recent years, but it’s mainly been through external factors such as Premier League fandom or big names coming to MLS from European leagues rather than an organic grassroots push.

Because of this, global fans point to a lack of true American soccer culture, as it hasn’t formed here like it has worldwide.

As the United States gears up to be a joint host of the 2026 World Cup, a lot has been said about the nation’s soccer culture and the oft-repeated phrase that the U.S. will never be as good as the rest, even as cities like Los Angeles, New York City, and Miami are cultural hubs with vibrant soccer communities.

But the true litmus test for the future of the beautiful game Stateside is not a matter of whether the metropolitan cities across the West and East coasts become soccer-obsessed, but instead the rest of the nation in between. America is practically a different country in each region over its 50 states. So, what is the football culture currently like in one of these smaller markets?

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To get a better glimpse into this and the future of the game, we spoke with Travis Winn, founder of Utah-based brand Calle. A lot of brands stress the importance of community and representing a wide array of demographics, but Calle literally puts their money where their mouth is by using profits from tournaments and merchandise to fund and design community street soccer courts across the country.

The brand originated in 2006 by a group of college soccer buddies playing out in the street, and the scene grew organically. They had been inspired by their experiences playing pickup footy in countries around the world.

Winn lived in Spain for a few years, and in his own words, “got humbled by 14- and 15-year-olds that had never played on an organized team.” He realized then the power of the street game and felt it was exactly what the U.S. was missing.

Winn and Calle combined street soccer influences with another urban sport of the people, bringing in skate culture from Winn’s upbringing in Southern California. The idea behind Calle was to be “the Vans of soccer,” in the way that not all SoCal kids skated but everyone still had a pair of Vans. They were not trying not be exclusive as many brands seek, but rather the opposite, and their prices reflected such.

After a 10-year hiatus, Calle was revived in the fall of 2022 with a renewed focus to build street courts through product sales and community events. Free the Game, the charitable arm of the company, was officially launched in 2023, yet work on its behalf was already underway. Collaborating with a variety of groups and releasing their own in-house apparel and line of soccer balls, the brand grew and the community has taken notice. The company headquarters in Salt Lake City is a love letter to the beautiful game, filled with jerseys, memorabilia, and of course an indoor 4v4 street court.

I had the opportunity to get a hands-on experience of street soccer with the Calle touch, playing in the second Annual SLC Open Streetsoccer Cup. Nestled in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, playing 4v4 under the shadow of skyscrapers felt like something out of a video game.

Playing with Vaqueros CF, yours truly and the squad had a rough opening match before stringing together some wins, an overtime golden goal, and finishing with a semifinal appearance in the second division. The vibes and level of play were elite, but the coolest thing was seeing the amounts of kids who pulled up and showed their talent, with a few of them even playing in the adult tournament as well. The music was blasting, and a variety of different skills, team formations, and strategies were pitted against each other to create some pretty entertaining matchups.

Perhaps the greatest and longest lasting legacy of Calle will be their work on Free the Game. For Winn, it was the entire reason behind relaunching the brand and remains a crucial part of the long-term goals of Calle to reshape football culture stateside. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit under the company’s umbrella, 10% of proceeds from all Calle products sold go to developing and designing places to play soccer for the community, with courts already being funded and played on in Utah, Texas, and Missouri.

At the SLC Open, all tournament fees and revenue are going straight to Free the Game, to the next court and the continued vision of “a street soccer court in every urban city across America.”

Calle promotes to the American audience that the best players of all time have come from the streets. From past legends like Pele and the mythical Garrincha, to modern day heroes like Lionel Messi, playing in the streets wasn’t just a necessity, but a way of life. Despite the pristine and perfectly manicured pitches of soccer’s top flight, most of the tricks and skills that amaze us were first honed and perfected on concrete or dirt.

Beyond soccer, we can see how much the culture of basketball worldwide was impacted by kids who played on courts in their local park, with players like God Shammgod and Rafer Alston playing in the NBA with moves they had originated at places like New York City’s Rucker Park.

Culture grows from the bottom upward, so some of the issues that U.S. Soccer has today can be closely related to this lack of opportunities and places for kids to play in their community. Calle seeks to change the narrative by putting these courts in accessible and underrepresented neighborhoods, so that everyone has the chance to play regardless of economic status. If one day, street soccer courts became as popular and as visible as basketball hoops are in neighborhoods from coast to coast, what would that mean for the chances of the United States men’s national team finally winning a World Cup?

Or more specifically, is the winner of the 2050 Ballon d’Or going to be a product of the Sugar House court in Salt Lake City or a kid who dominated at Marquette Park in St. Louis? It’s unlikely, but with the continued expansion and building of these areas, the chances are more favorable than before.

But even though we probably won’t see the competitive results of these projects for another five or 10 years, the short-term benefits are already massive. Kids having the opportunity to play and try out the sport for free without immediately needing to worry about team costs and high-end equipment is essential, even if they just play for fun and don’t move on to the next level. For the kids that do reach the elite levels, having a home court to call their own and play competitive soccer on is a great blessing.

We are less than a year out from the pinnacle of our sport coming to our country, and our efforts in strengthening the game will be put under an even larger microscope. But with brands like Calle, movement is happening to create something not just to rival that of other countries, but also a culture to call our own.