DAVIS, Calif. — Dwayne Shaffer's Thursday began the way most of his mornings do, with a workout. It ended with the longtime UC Davis men's soccer head coach at home in front of his television as the World Cup opened in Mexico City, back in North America for the first time in 32 years.
Somewhere inside the tournament he was watching, preparing for an opener of his own, is a player Shaffer recruited out of Fresno when almost nobody else was calling.
"It's just unbelievable what he's doing," Shaffer said.
When the United States opens Group D play against Paraguay on Friday at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, Max Arfsten will be there, one of 26 players entrusted with the first men's World Cup on American soil since 1994. The 25-year-old Columbus Crew defender is the lone Crew representative on the U.S. roster and one of two Big West men's soccer alums in the tournament, joining former UC Santa Barbara standout Michael Boxall of New Zealand.
Five years after his last match in an Aggie uniform, the colors have changed, the position has changed, and the stage is the biggest in the sport. The player, Shaffer says, has not.
"Not only was he talented, but he was also the hardest worker," Shaffer said. "We always hear that cliché, but he truly was."
BUILT ON THE PARK FIELDS OF FRESNO
Most players who reach a World Cup are produced. They are identified young, absorbed into professional academies and developed on manicured training grounds by full-time staffs.
Arfsten was self-made, shaped on the public park fields of Fresno, where he played until the grounds crews went home. Speaking to SFGATE from the U.S. team's training camp this month, he said he remains grateful the landscapers "never kicked me off."
The college soccer world was slower to notice. A high school coach who saw something undeniable in him helped get his name circulating, but the offers came late, and most never came at all.
"UC Davis was the first college to reach out to me," Arfsten said on the Perfect Soccer Podcast. He went with his gut and became an Aggie.
THE UC DAVIS YEARS
The fit was immediate. As a freshman in 2019, Arfsten earned Big West All-Freshman Team honors while helping UC Davis to one of the best seasons in program history. The Aggies won the Big West tournament championship on their home field and entered the NCAA Tournament seeded 14th overall, the first national seed the program had ever earned.
"He helped us win a Big West championship. He helped us get a national seed in the NCAA Tournament," Shaffer said. "We helped him grow as a player and as a person, and we put him in a position to succeed."
After the pandemic canceled the 2020 Big West season, Arfsten returned for his second season in 2021 and delivered one of the finest individual campaigns in school history, sweeping Big West Offensive Player of the Year and All-Big West First Team honors. In 39 career matches at UC Davis, he totaled nine goals and eight assists.
At Davis, the belief caught up to the talent. Arfsten has said that when his coaches and teammates started to believe in him, he realized for the first time that a professional career was within reach if he committed fully to it.
Then he was gone, off to chase it.
"YOU WILL GRADUATE"
Before he left, there was a conversation Shaffer has never forgotten.
"I remember the conversation with his mom when Max decided to go pro," Shaffer said. "She said, 'He will be back to graduate. I will make sure of that.' Max kind of chuckled, but his mom said, 'No, I'm not joking. You will graduate.'"
She was not joking. After a 2022 development season with San Jose Earthquakes II that produced nine goals in 24 appearances, Arfsten was selected 14th overall by the Columbus Crew in the 2023 MLS SuperDraft. He scored in his league debut against Atlanta United on March 25, 2023, and ended his rookie year lifting the MLS Cup.
And in the middle of all of it, with coursework still remaining on his degree, he came back to Davis and finished what he started.
"It's a credit to his parents for instilling the academic side of things into him," Shaffer said. "He represented UC Davis academically as well as athletically. He found the time to come back and graduate, which I think is so huge."
THE BREAKOUT
In Columbus, Arfsten transformed. The winger who terrorized Big West back lines was reinvented as an attacking left back and became one of the most productive in MLS at the position. He has compiled 87 regular-season appearances, 14 goals and 22 assists for the Crew, adding three goals and two assists across six playoff matches. He helped Columbus win the 2024 Leagues Cup, reached the 2024 Concacaf Champions Cup final and earned his first MLS All-Star selection in 2025.
Arfsten debuted for the United States on Jan. 18, 2025, against Venezuela, and when injury sidelined Antonee Robinson that summer, Arfsten seized the left back job at the Concacaf Gold Cup.
The defining night came June 29, 2025, in a quarterfinal against Costa Rica in Minneapolis. Arfsten conceded a 12th-minute penalty that put the United States behind. Rather than disappear, he assisted Diego Luna's equalizer just before halftime, scored his first senior international goal 90 seconds into the second half and earned Man of the Match honors in a shootout victory. The U.S. went on to reach the final, and Arfsten finished 2025 with five assists for the national team, the most by a U.S. player in a calendar year since Jordan Morris recorded six in 2019.
He enters the World Cup with 20 caps and one international goal under head coach Mauricio Pochettino, the next man up behind Robinson on the left side and an attacking change of pace built for the late stages of matches.
Shaffer's scouting report is less complicated.
"Soccer-wise, his talent is off the charts, and he's playing against the best players in the world," Shaffer said. "He gets to play in the same tournament as Messi and Ronaldo and Harry Kane and all of the greatest players in the world. What an honor for him to achieve that. What an accomplishment."
STILL WATCHING
Shaffer has not missed much of the journey. When UC Davis opened its 2023 season in Columbus, sweeping the Wolstein Classic with wins over Dayton and Ohio State, he brought the entire team to a Crew match and watched Arfsten check into the game. In March 2025, Shaffer and his family traveled to San Diego and watched Arfsten score for the Crew in the 13th minute of a 1-1 draw against expansion side San Diego FC in front of more than 30,000 fans at Snapdragon Stadium.
"I've watched all of his games online," Shaffer said. "I watched them play against Germany and Senegal in the warmups. I watch all of his games."
What strikes the coach most, all these years later, has little to do with soccer.
"As a human, Max is just a wonderful person," Shaffer said. "He's so respectful, grateful for everything that everybody ever did for him. He's complimented and thanked all of his coaches and all of his past teams."
That gratitude extends to his alma mater. "He's represented UC Davis," Shaffer said. "He talks about it in every interview."
There will be plenty more to watch. After a 3-2 send-off win over Senegal on May 31 and a 2-1 loss to Germany on June 6, the United States settled into its World Cup base camp in Irvine, California, roughly an hour from where everything begins. Kickoff against Paraguay, a side the U.S. beat 2-1 in a November friendly with Arfsten on the field, is set for 6 p.m. PT on Fox. All three Group D matches will be played on the West Coast: Australia follows on June 19 at Lumen Field in Seattle, then Turkey back at SoFi Stadium on June 25.
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT BELONGS
Shaffer is quick to list the people who shaped Arfsten: his parents, his coaches, his teammates at every stop. He is just as quick to wave the list away.
"A lot of people had a big influence on his success, but I credit all of it to Max," Shaffer said. "He worked for it. It couldn't have happened to a nicer person."
On Friday evening, when the United States walks out at SoFi Stadium for the first World Cup match on American soil in 32 years, a former Aggie will be in the middle of it, 39 college matches and one stubborn promise to his mother behind him.
"Proud to say he's an Ag," Shaffer said.
ABOUT UC DAVIS ATHLETICS: UC Davis, the No. 2 ranked public university by the Wall Street Journal, is home to 40,000 undergraduate students and 12,000 employees. Ranked No. 1 in Agriculture and Forestry as well as No. 1 in Veterinary Medicine, UC Davis is located in a true California college town nestled between world-class destinations such as the San Francisco Bay Area, Napa Valley and Lake Tahoe. Over 650 Aggie student-athletes compete in 25 Division I varsity sports, with 16 sports transitioning to the Mountain West Conference beginning in 2026–27.
