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The United States World Cup bid team has chosen the 18 host cities to be included in its presentation to world governing body Fifa on May 14.

Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Seattle, Tampa and Washington DC all made the final list, but notable omissions included Chicago, Detroit, Orlando and San Francisco.

Fifa will announce the hosts of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in December, and US bid chairman and president of US Soccer Sunil Gulati said: “Today our hopes of becoming a host nation are strengthened by the announcement of the 18 cities we will submit to Fifa. These 18 cities share outstanding leadership with a vision and understanding of what a Fifa World Cup would mean to the United States, along with how well we can play the role of host to visitors from throughout the world.”

The US bid’s executive director David Downs believes the exclusion of prominent cities like Chicago, which hosted the opening game at USA ’94, was a sign of the game’s development in America over the last 16 years.

“We consider it a meaningful indicator of the significant growth of soccer in this country that we can put forth such a technically sound bid without four cities that served as hosts for the first World Cup in the United States in 1994,” he added.

“The emergence of passionate followings for the sport and state-of-the-art venues throughout the country has strengthened our ability to put together a truly national bid to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022.”