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I: The Beginnings of Organized Play (1906-1917)

Football in the United States at the start of the 20th Century would find itself recovering after its downward orientation in the 1890s. A tour by the Pilgrims, an English-based football team, in 1905, would find the earnest for the sport to return across the United States as people watched in glee to see its returns. Nearly a year after the tour as the sport slowly found itself reforming, the American Football Association (AFA) and the American Cup (organized in the 1880s) would be restored once more intent on playing the first matches with the initial teams in the northeastern United States. By the end of the decade, numerous leagues would find themselves sprouted up around major cities, such as New York City, New England, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The numerous leagues were under the modern context in an 'amateur' like state, and saw no direct entity for primary organization.

With the numerous leagues and state entities operating, all with different standards, it became paramount for the creation of a national body to organize standards and encourage cooperation among all the separate leagues. This however came to its own problems as the American Football Association had claimed to be the main national entity due to operating the American Cup and being supported by the Foot Ball Association of England, and that many people did not like the idea of the main national organization to be influenced or controlled by another nation. The numerous issues with the AFA saw debates over a 'counter' league to be formed, which would be created in October by the New York State Amateur Foot Ball League known as the 'American Amateur Foot Ball Association' (AAFA). The AAFA would immediately set themselves to work on integrating numerous state associations and leagues to ensure a standardized set of rules and procedures. In 1912, both the AFA and the AAFA would submit applications to FIFA to apply as the international entity on the behalf of the United States. After being sent up to the Emergency Committee, it would be determined to accept neither entity and to hold on until something more organized could be created. From that, both groups would begin discussions on the future, and a merger would be conducted between the American Football Association and the American Amateur Foot Ball Association, to create a new organization known as the United States Football Association (USFA) [1]. Per the creation of this new entity, the first new President of the USFA that would be elected would be G. Randolph 'Gus' Manning, a shock to many of the AFA (as he had been the representative of the AAFA to FIFA), while the first General Secretary would be Andrew M. Brown (the former President of the AFA). The immediate goals of the USFA would be to further organize the rules and standards per working with the state associations and operating 'leagues' combined with having an 'independent' picture away from England.

By the time the USFA would join FIFA in 1914, five primary leagues operated throughout the United States of some note. The National Association Football League (in Northeast New Jersey and New York City), New York State Amateur Football League, Allied American Foot Ball Association of Philadelphia, St. Louis Soccer League, and the Association Foot Ball League of Chicago were the five primary leagues spread across the United States. The National Association Football League (NAFL) was the only 'semi-professional' league operating at the time with the USFA beginning to look towards improving the semi-professional clubs by building the required infrastructure and to support the leagues. The expansion of a sixth major league in 1915, known as the Southern New England Soccer League would also showcase the need for a professional football league to be created as proposed by General Secretary Brown (inspired from baseball's own professional leagues, the American League and National League). The proposals would be heavily debated among the leadership and for how it would be worked out. As the debates raged forth among the leadership of the USFA, other events would take place with the creation of the United States National Team, and the expansion of the regular leagues in attendance and play.

The United States National Team would be assembled from clubs throughout the Northeast (with two players from St. Louis and one from Chicago) and set forth to Scandinavia to partake in their first international games. Their first game played against an all-star side from Stockholm would see them lose in the 89th minute by a second goal, ending the game at 2-1. The second game would see a game played against a full Swedish team, with a crowd of nearly 20,000 (including King Gustav V) and the game would be brought to conclusion at a tie of 2-2. The third game, played once more against the Stockholm 'All-Stars' would see a tie at 1-1. The fourth game would be played against 'all-stars' in Gothenburg, seeing a win by the USNT at 3-1. The fifth game would be brought to play in Kristiana, Norway against the Norwegian National Team, with a victory of 2-1 by the USNT. Their sixth and last game would be against the Stockholm 'All-Stars' once more, and after nearly ninety-minutes of play, the USNT would be victorious winning 3-2.

As the year 1917, everything appeared to be looking well for the growth of football in the United States and the plans for the first full professional football league appeared to be well in hand. Then, on April 6th, 1917, the United States would declare war on the German Empire, entering the First World War.

[1] That is the primary point of departure compared to OTL; the AAFA eventually managed to get support after a large amount of support from the AFA defected to them.
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