Big West Alums Split One Minute and 207 at World Cup

Max Arfsten played one minute at the 2026 World Cup. UC Santa Barbara’s Michael Boxall played 207.

Both came out of Big West programs and through MLS, then ran into Belgium before they left, Arfsten in the round of 16 on July 6 and Boxall in group play on June 26. The conference had two alums on the 48-team World Cup field. The field used them in opposite ways.

One Minute Against Belgium

Arfsten, the Fresno-born UC Davis alum, made Mauricio Pochettino’s 26-man United States roster on May 26 as one of 10 defenders and the only Columbus Crew player in the group. He wore 18. He sat through a 4-1 win over Paraguay on June 12 at SoFi Stadium, a 2-0 win over Australia on June 19, a 2-3 loss to Turkey on June 25, and a 2-0 round-of-32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 1.

His tournament, and the United States’ summer, ended in Seattle. Belgium won 1-4 at Lumen Field on July 6 in front of 66,925, and league logs credit Arfsten with a single minute off the bench. Columbus later confirmed that July 6 night as his World Cup debut. He finished the finals with one game, no start, no goal, and no assist.

The hosts had topped Group D on six points, scoring eight goals, then they were gone with Canada and Mexico, all three co-hosts out in the round of 16. Weston McKennie started all five U.S. matches. Arfsten started none.

WORLD CUP MINUTES

Before Australia, Arfsten had said he wanted to play and that he could not complain if the team kept winning. The team stopped winning in the knockout bracket, and the minute still arrived only against Belgium.

Michael Boxall’s 207 World Cup Minutes

Boxall lived the other version of the same summer. The former Gaucho started New Zealand’s 2-2 opening draw with Iran on June 15 at SoFi Stadium, in front of 70,108, and started again in a 1-3 loss to Egypt on June 21 at BC Place in Vancouver. Darren Bazeley took him off the bench in the 64th minute of a 1-5 loss to Belgium on June 26, which is how a 37-year-old center back reached 207 minutes without a goal.

He became the oldest player to appear for New Zealand at a World Cup, passing Simon Elliott, who was 36 at the 2010 tournament in South Africa. After the Iran match, New Zealand Football listed him on 64 caps, level with Vaughan Coveny for fifth in All Whites history.

It was his first World Cup. New Zealand’s last one was 2010, a 16-year gap, and the All Whites have still never won a finals match across 1982, 2010, and 2026.

As a team, we’ve spoken about how we wanted to change how we play a little bit the last three, four years, and I think that was an expansive display of that tonight.

Michael Boxall, New Zealand defender, mixed zone after Iran

Bazeley, a former Colorado Rapids assistant, called that Iran night maybe the All Whites’ best performance in his long stretch with the program. They led twice, Chris Wood laid on both goals for Elijah Just, and they still left with a point. Boxall said they had been a little more open than he wanted against a side ranked 65 places above them.

Minnesota United and Portland Timbers center back Finn Surman went to the finals together. MLS posted the call-up in May.

https://x.com/MLS/status/2054702647295238643

NEW ZEALAND’S GROUP G

• June 15, Iran: 2-2 at SoFi Stadium, Boxall starts, New Zealand’s only point.
• June 21, Egypt: 1-3 at BC Place, Boxall starts again.
• June 26, Belgium: 1-5 at BC Place, Boxall on at 64 minutes, group over.

FIFA’s sheet on New Zealand’s three group matches is a 0-1-2 record, four goals for, 10 against, one point, last in the group. Belgium and Egypt went through on five points each.

How Max Arfsten Reached the USMNT Roster

UC Davis was the first college to call him. He said so later, and during the tournament he still pointed back. “Shout out to Sacramento. And shout out to Davis. My time at UC Davis was amazing,” he said in June.

Dwayne Shaffer, the Aggies’ longtime coach, recruited him out of Fresno park fields when almost nobody else did. Arfsten has said the landscapers never kicked him off those pitches. As a freshman in 2019 he started 16 of 19 games, made the Big West All-Freshman Team, and helped Davis win the conference tournament and a No. 14 NCAA seed, the first national seed in program history.

The 2020 Big West season was canceled. In 2021 he scored eight goals and added seven assists, then left after that junior year as Big West Offensive Player of the Year and an All-Big West First Team pick. In 39 college matches he had nine goals and eight assists. His mother told Shaffer he would come back and graduate. He did, finishing an economics degree while the pro career started.

ARFSTEN’S ROAD FROM DAVIS

1. 2022: Scores nine goals and six assists in 24 games for San Jose Earthquakes II after Davis does not lead to a first-team deal.
2. December 2022 / Feb. 21, 2023: Columbus takes him 14th in the MLS SuperDraft and signs him after preseason.
3. March 25, 2023: Enters in the 82nd minute against Atlanta United and scores nine minutes later in a 6-1 win.
4. 2023-24: Lifts MLS Cup as a rookie, then starts all five Leagues Cup matches in 2024 with two assists as Columbus win that trophy too.
5. Jan. 18, 2025: Debuts for the United States against Venezuela. When Antonee Robinson is hurt that summer, Arfsten takes left back at the Gold Cup.
6. June 29, 2025: In a Gold Cup quarterfinal against Costa Rica in Minneapolis he gives away a 12th-minute penalty, assists Diego Luna’s equalizer before halftime, and scores 90 seconds into the second half. The U.S. win on penalties and reach the final as runners-up. He also had two assists against Trinidad and Tobago on June 15.
7. May 26, 2026: Named to the World Cup roster with the left-back job behind Robinson and an attacking change of pace for late stages.

Shaffer watched the Crew in Columbus with his 2023 Davis team, then saw Arfsten score in the 13th minute of a 1-1 draw at San Diego FC in March 2025. “It’s just unbelievable what he’s doing,” Shaffer said before the Paraguay opener. Columbus turned a Big West winger into an attacking left back, and that conversion is what got him on Pochettino’s list.

He entered the finals as a 2025 U.S. Soccer Male Player of the Year finalist. His five national-team assists in 2025 were the most by an American in a calendar year since Jordan Morris had six in 2019. Crew records now list him at 21 caps, 13 starts, one goal, and five assists.

The Header That Punched New Zealand’s Ticket

Boxall’s World Cup started 15 months earlier, on March 24, 2025, at Eden Park. New Zealand needed a win over New Caledonia in the Oceania final to reach the expanded tournament after missing the previous three through intercontinental playoffs. More than 25,000 were in the ground, and the game was still 0-0 after an hour of wasted headers.

Francis de Vries came off the bench and swung a corner. Boxall, on his 55th cap and a day shy of 14 years after his senior debut, headed in at the back post in the 61st minute for his first international goal. Kosta Barbarouses volleyed the second in the 66th, Elijah Just added a third in the 80th, and the All Whites were through 3-0, back for the first time since 2010.

By June 2026 MLS listed him with eight goals and eight assists in 269 league games, club records in appearances, starts, and minutes, and a 2025 season in which Minnesota allowed 39 goals, third fewest in the league. Both he and Arfsten made the 2025 MLS All-Star team. The Big West path through MLS is the shared chapter. The finals were not.

A Gaucho Path New Zealand Already Knew

Boxall spent four seasons at UCSB from 2007 to 2010, 78 games, one goal, All-Big West First Team as a junior and a senior. The 2011 MLS Supplemental Draft made him the first overall pick. He has been a professional since, including SuperSport United in South Africa and Minnesota United from 2017, a run the conference called a 16-year career.

UCSB had already sent a center back to a New Zealand World Cup. Tony Lochhead, another Gaucho, played at the 2010 finals. Sixteen years later the same campus, still in the Big West, produced the starter who scored the qualifier and then played 207 minutes on this side of the Pacific.

The conference re-sponsored men’s soccer in 2001. UCSB won the 2006 NCAA title. The league has put multiple teams in the NCAA tournament 14 times since 2002, including four in 2008, and its August notebook counted 59 MLS SuperDraft selections after Zack Lillington went seventh overall to St. Louis CITY SC in 2026.

THE BIG WEST PIPELINE

• 2006: UC Santa Barbara beats UCLA 2-1 for the NCAA championship.
• 2010: Gaucho alum Tony Lochhead plays for New Zealand in South Africa.
• 2011: Boxall goes first in the MLS Supplemental Draft after 78 UCSB games.
• 2023: Arfsten goes 14th in the SuperDraft after 39 Davis games.
• 2026: The same conference has one alum on the U.S. bench and another starting for New Zealand.

That is a mid-major record, not an accident of two isolated careers. Davis and Santa Barbara kept producing players who could survive the draft and still be on rosters in June.

Belgium Ended the Big West’s Summer

The bracket did not care about the pipeline. Belgium, already through from Group G, put five past New Zealand in Vancouver, then put four past the United States in Seattle 10 days later.

HOW THE TWO TEAMS LEFT

• United States: Group D winners at 2-0-1, eight goals for and four against, then 2-0 over Bosnia and 1-4 to Belgium.
• New Zealand: Group G last at 0-1-2, four goals for and 10 against, out on one point.
• Shared opponent: Belgium, 1-5 over the All Whites on June 26 and 1-4 over the U.S. on July 6.
• Shared alumni: One minute for Arfsten, 207 for Boxall, zero goals from either.

Arfsten still made the MLS All-Star Game on July 29, 45 minutes in a 4-3 win over Liga MX, which is a strange coda to a World Cup that barely used him. Boxall went home with a history mark, a qualifier goal, and the same group-stage ceiling New Zealand has always had.

Middlesbrough Signed the Unused American Sub

On Aug. 4 the Crew sent him to Middlesbrough for an undisclosed fee and kept a share of any future sale. Club records put him at 89 MLS regular season appearances, 72 of them starts, 14 goals and 22 assists, plus three goals and two assists in six playoff games. In 2026 league play before the move he started 17 matches with four goals and four assists. He is a two-time MLS All-Star, 2025 and 2026.

Issa Tall, the Crew general manager, said the club had spotted him in the 2023 draft and that he had used every chance he got. Arfsten, in a Crew interview, thanked Columbus and said all you can ask for is an opportunity. He joins former Crew midfielders Aidan Morris and Sebastian Berhalter in the north-east of England, and he has already been used at left back, the same converted job that got him a World Cup roster spot and then a seat.

https://x.com/ColumbusCrew/status/2079691838366130490

The louder problem at his new club is whether a winger who learned fullback in Ohio should stay there. That debate started in MLS, followed him into Pochettino’s camp, and met him on Teesside. Boxall is still the Minnesota captain who headed a country to the finals and then played them. Arfsten is the Davis alum whose World Cup lasted a minute and whose next contract is in the Championship.