Farewell to Team USA's World Cup run. This diehard fan in LA will root for you again next time

L.A. resident Jeff van Hoy is setting aside his jerseys and hanging up his scarves after Team USA's brutal 4-1 loss to Belgium last night.

"It feels like Halloween is over," said the diehard American soccer fan, who's been rooting for the national team since it last played on home soil in 1994. "That holiday that you so look forward to celebrating, it's all come and gone. … You have to say goodbye to that aspect of joy for a while."

Van Hoy's team — that eternal underdog, American men's soccer — had a good run. It beat Paraguay in the opening match at SoFi Stadium, making it all look so easy to a local audience more groomed for American football or baseball at Dodger Stadium. The U.S. men came out of the group stage on top, even after a last-minute loss to Turkey, also here in Los Angeles.

Then, they beat Bosnia and Herzegovina. But all that momentum came to naught. The team looked ragged in the Round of 16, bamboozled by a more experienced European team. The moment was further soured after FIFA allowed U.S. striker Folarin Balogun to play despite a red card in the previous match, following an intervention by President Donald Trump.

Watching from Los Angeles, van Hoy was saddened by the loss. But surprised? No way.

"I'm so used to dealing with disappointment," he said in a phone call Tuesday morning. "I try to make sure that I allow myself the joy of hope and excitement when the team is doing well, but I'm always ready for the wheels to come off."

Such is the life of an American soccer fan. With low hopes of seeing the U.S. reach the final, for van Hoy, the World Cup is about his bottomless love of the game — and the buffet of experiences and celebrations that come with the tournament.

Not his first World Cup

A soccer player himself, van Hoy first attended the World Cup when the U.S. hosted the tournament in 1994. He joined his dad at the opening U.S. match against Switzerland in Detroit, which ended in a 1-1 tie. The U.S. went on to defeat top contender Colombia at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, before getting beat in the knockout stage of the tournament.

Van Hoy was enamored. Since then, he's attended four more World Cups, from Germany to South Africa to Brazil and now back in the U.S. again. Along the way, he couch surfed in Kaiserslautern, Germany, where he watched the U.S. tie Italy 1-1 in 2006. He saw a sports journalist wrestle to get his backpack back from a baboon in South Africa in 2010 on his way to the Cape of Good Hope. He was in the crush of fans at a massive fan party on Copacabana Beach in Brazil in 2014.

This World Cup, his first in more than a decade, he went to four matches. Two he attended in Inglewood, just a short trip from his home in Mid City. But seeking that storybook feeling that marked his last few tournaments, van Hoy and his son also took to the road to support their other favorite team, the Netherlands. They drove 22 hours each way to Houston to dance with a sea of Dutch fans clad in orange and watch the Netherlands play Sweden. Then they drove to Tijuana and caught a flight to Monterrey, where they saw the team take on Morocco and lose.

Why he has hope for a future championship

At home, he also enjoyed seeing Los Angeles outside of the stadium, where Angelenos got to experience some soccer madness at city watch parties and fan events, whether they were fans of the sport or not.

Now that the U.S. is out, van Hoy is already looking forward to the next World Cup in 2030. Will the U.S. stand a chance then?

"I thought this was a little too early for us to win the World Cup," he said. "But in five or 10 years, I think we should have a team that's good enough to compete."

In the meantime, he'll be cheering for LAFC here in Los Angeles. There's always the next soccer match.