1994 FIFA World Cup

• 1. Introduction

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  The 1994 FIFA World Cup arrived in the United States carrying a question nobody could quite answer: what happens when you give the world's most popular game to a country that barely plays it? From June 17 to July 17, the tournament would unfold across nine American cities, inside stadiums built for gridiron football and college athletics. No one knew if the fans would come. They came in numbers that still have not been matched. The total attendance across the tournament reached 3,587,538, with an average of nearly 69,000 spectators per game. Those figures remain unsurpassed more than three decades later, even after the competition expanded from 24 to 32 teams. A country without a professional soccer league in 1988 was about to host the most financially successful World Cup in history. But records and revenues were only part of the story. A Bulgarian striker who had never won a World Cup match in his career was about to become one of the tournament's dominant figures. A Colombian defender was about to score an own goal that would cost him his life. And in Pasadena, California, two great footballing nations would meet in the first World Cup final ever decided without a single goal.

• 2. Choosing America

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  On the 4th of July 1988, a date the source notes was Independence Day in the United States, FIFA's Executive Committee gathered in Zurich to vote on where the world's most watched sporting event would land six years later. Three nations had put their names forward: the United States, Brazil, and Morocco. The vote was settled in a single round. The United States received just over half the votes, enough to carry the decision. FIFA's rationale was partly evangelical: staging the tournament in America might spark genuine growth in a country where soccer remained a niche interest. The Brazilian stadiums had been found deficient by an inspection committee. The Moroccan bid depended on building nine entirely new venues. Every stadium proposed by the Americans was already standing and fully operational. U.S. Soccer ultimately spent $500 million preparing and organizing the tournament, a figure the source contrasts with the billions other nations had spent and would spend hosting future editions. The 1984 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, had offered a preview of what was possible. The soccer portion of those Games drew 1.4 million spectators across the event. FIFA took note. There was one condition attached to the award. FIFA required the United States to create a professional soccer league. Major League Soccer was founded in 1993 and began play in 1996, three years after the founding decision and two years after the tournament it was created to serve.

• 3. Heat, Humidity, and One Indoor Field

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  Thomas Dooley, the United States midfielder, called the Pontiac Silverdome "the worst place I have ever played at." The Silverdome was the first indoor stadium ever used in a World Cup, and it presented a particular problem: it had no working cooling system, and because it was an air-supported structure, the air could not circulate out. Temperatures inside climbed past 90 degrees Fahrenheit with 40 percent humidity. Michigan State University grew the grass on-site, the first time since 1965 that natural turf had been installed in an American indoor stadium. The Silverdome hosted four group-stage games and no knockout matches, the fewest appearances of any of the nine venues. The heat extended well beyond Detroit. Orlando's tropical climate pushed temperatures during group stage games to 95 degrees Fahrenheit or above, with dew points above 70. The match between Mexico and Ireland played in Orlando reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Dallas was nearly as severe: mid-day temperatures exceeded 100 degrees at the open-air Cotton Bowl during a Texas summer. The scheduling of games during daytime hours was deliberate. A match starting at 12:30 in the afternoon in New York would air at 6:30 in the evening in Paris, giving European broadcasters their prime-time audience. The comfort of viewers in Europe was weighed against the conditions facing players on the field in Orlando and Dallas.

• 4. Debuts, Returns, and Absences

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  Nigeria qualified from the African zone and arrived at the 1994 tournament ranked 11th in the world by FIFA. It was the country's first World Cup appearance, and the team wasted little time announcing itself. Greece also made its debut, qualifying from a European group that sent Russia through as well; Russia competed as an independent nation for the first time after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Saudi Arabia became the first Asian team to qualify for a World Cup debut in this edition, topping the final Asian qualifying group ahead of South Korea. Japan came agonizingly close to qualifying but was denied by Iraq in a match that became known as the Agony of Doha. Germany appeared at the tournament as a unified nation for the first time since the 1938 World Cup, reuniting East and West German football under a single flag. Norway returned to the World Cup after a 56-year absence, a gap that equaled Egypt's record for the longest absence in the previous tournament. Bolivia qualified for the first time since 1950. Switzerland returned after missing out since 1966. Two nations that might have been there were absent. Yugoslavia had been suspended from international competition in 1992 under United Nations sanctions related to the Yugoslav Wars, and the sanctions were not lifted in time for the team to qualify. Chile was also banned, its suspension from the 1990 World Cup having been extended to the 1994 qualifiers following a forced interruption of its qualifying match against Brazil.

• 5. The Tournament's Darkest Story

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  Colombia arrived in 1994 with expectations well beyond what the squad could carry. The team had impressed in qualifying, and the style of their play had drawn wide attention. What followed was a group stage elimination dogged by external pressure that went far beyond the pitch. Coach Francisco Maturana received death threats over his squad selections before the tournament even began. Influence from drug cartels and betting syndicates followed the team. Against the United States in the group stage, Colombian defender Andrés Escobar turned a cross into his own net, effectively helping eliminate his country from the competition. Ten days after Colombia returned home, Escobar was shot to death outside a bar in a Medellín suburb, possibly in retaliation for that goal. Diego Maradona's tournament ended in a different but equally definitive way. Argentina's captain had played in the 1982, 1986, and 1990 World Cups, leading his country to the title in 1986 and to the final in 1990. In 1994, he scored his last World Cup goal against Greece in Foxborough. He played two games. After a drug test uncovered ephedrine, a weight-loss drug, in his blood, FIFA expelled him from the tournament. For Maradona, the 1994 World Cup was over almost before it had started, closing a World Cup career that had spanned twelve years and three finals.

• 6. Bulgaria's Unlikely Run

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  Hristo Stoichkov entered the 1994 World Cup as Bulgaria's best player and the weight of a particular historical embarrassment resting on his country: in five previous World Cup appearances, Bulgaria had never once won a game. That changed in the group stage of 1994. Bulgaria won two of its three group matches, advancing from a group that also contained Argentina, Nigeria, and Greece. In the round of 16, they met Mexico. The game was decided on penalties, Bulgaria winning 3-1 in the shootout. Their quarterfinal opponent was Germany, the defending world champion. Goals from Stoichkov and Yordan Letchkov gave Bulgaria a 2-1 victory, ending Germany's tournament. Stoichkov finished the tournament as joint top scorer with six goals, sharing the Golden Boot with Russia's Oleg Salenko. Bulgaria's run ended in the semifinals against Italy, and they lost the third-place match to Sweden 4-0. Fourth place at a World Cup where they had arrived without a single prior victory represents one of the tournament's most striking reversals. The All-star team selected by FIFA's Technical Study Group included Stoichkov, Balakov, and Baggio alongside Brazil's Romário, Dunga, Jorginho, and Márcio Santos.

• 7. Baggio's Final Miss

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  Roberto Baggio came to the United States as the reigning FIFA World Player of the Year and holder of the Ballon d'Or. Italy's most celebrated player had not scored a goal through the group stage, and in the round of 16 against Nigeria, the situation grew worse before it improved: Italy was trailing 1-0 in the dying minutes when Baggio equalized, forcing extra time. He then converted a penalty to send Italy through. From there, Baggio carried Italy's tournament. He scored the decisive goal in the quarterfinal against Spain. He scored both goals in Italy's semifinal victory over Bulgaria. By the time Italy reached the Rose Bowl final against Brazil, Baggio had scored five goals in the knockout stage. The final itself, however, produced no goals at all. After 120 minutes, the first World Cup final to be decided by penalties began. After four rounds of kicks, Brazil led 3-2. Baggio, playing injured, needed to score to extend Italy's survival. He struck the ball over the crossbar. Brazil were champions. Vice President Al Gore hosted the ceremony on the Rose Bowl field, handing the trophy to Brazilian captain Dunga. The Brazilian squad dedicated their fourth World Cup title to Ayrton Senna, the Formula One champion and fellow countryman who had died two and a half months before the tournament began.

• 8. Records and Lasting Changes

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  Oleg Salenko of Russia scored five goals in a single game against Cameroon in the group stage, becoming the first player ever to achieve that feat in a World Cup match. That performance made him joint top scorer with six total goals alongside Stoichkov, despite Russia failing to advance past the group stage. In the same match, Roger Milla of Cameroon scored a consolation goal at the age of 42, making him the oldest World Cup goalscorer at the time. The tournament introduced several changes that outlasted 1994. Three points for a win in the group stage, introduced here for the first time, became a permanent fixture of the competition. The rule banning goalkeepers from picking up deliberate back-passes from teammates, also introduced in 1994, has remained. Players' names were printed on the backs of their shirts in a World Cup for the first time, a practice borrowed from other American sports. Referee shirt colors expanded beyond traditional black to include burgundy, yellow, and silver. The 1994 World Cup was also the first to feature a constantly visible sponsored scoreboard and game clock on television broadcasts throughout matches. Fox Sports, which launched its NFL coverage about a month after the tournament concluded, adopted the format, and by the end of the decade virtually every television network in the United States had followed with their own version of the on-screen clock. The scoreboard innovation that began in American stadiums in the summer of 1994 reshaped how the world watches live sport.