The draw and a dose of Hollywood glamour

Just nine years earlier, the country’s only professional league had collapsed, ending a glamorous decade of the North American Soccer League that was kickstarted by New York Cosmos throwing a world-record salary at Brazil legend Pele to coax him out of retirement in 1975.

Franz Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto and Johan Neeskens followed the Brazilian to a sold-out Giants Stadium, where Bugs Bunny was mascot and stars including Barbara Streisand, Mick Jagger and Muhammad Ali mingled in dressing rooms with players and presidents.

George Best, Johan Cruyff, Gerd Muller. A stream of footballing greats voyaged across the Atlantic before over-expansion, lavish spending and dwindling crowds - coupled with the USA's failure to land the 1986 World Cup - saw the champagne era fizzle out.

It did, though, leave behind embers of a love for the sport, enough to convince football's world governing body Fifa that the USA remained fertile ground for growing the sport's popularity, worthy of being the first nation outside Europe or Latin America to stage its showpiece event.

That came on one condition: start a new professional football league.

Fifa wanted Major League Soccer to kick off in conjunction with the World Cup. Rothenberg - brimming with ideas to Americanise the game, such as allowing players to circle goalposts like in ice hockey - convinced then-Fifa general secretary Sepp Blatter it would launch if the tournament was a success.

The first flickers of the glitz the US wished to bring to the World Cup were witnessed during the draw at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. James Brown and Smokey Robinson performed, while comedian Robin Williams wore a surgical glove when drawing the teams and poked fun at Blatter.

There was a week of concerts at the iconic Hollywood Bowl, everything from the Moscow Symphony Orchestra to Red Hot Chili Peppers. Celebrities were rolled out at every event possible - Stevie Wonder, Enrique Iglesias, Barry Manilow, Liza Minnelli, Bryan Adams, even boxers Evander Holyfield and Oscar De La Hoya crashed the promotional tour.

“We didn't think there was much knowledge or interest in the World Cup in the US,” Rothenberg tells BBC Sport. “What we did know is Americans love a big event, so we wrapped ourselves around celebrities and entertainers.

“We did a lot of things that had never been done before. And it worked.”

An American dream that started in a trailer

The World Cup may have been sprinkled with stardust but when Rothenberg first arrived as president of US Soccer, then became chairman of the World Cup Organising Committee, he found a “mom and pop” volunteer-run organisation with “no soccer infrastructure" operating from a trailer rented to them for free by the US Olympic body at their site in Colorado Springs.

They leveraged the World Cup for sponsorships and better facilities, and called on host cities for best-in-class services, from transport and security to sell-out-ready stadiums. As Rothenberg recalls telling the mayor of Chicago, who hosted the Pope the previous year: “More people care about the World Cup, so I expect the same treatment.”

The USA needed to scale up on the pitch, too. The national team qualified for a first World Cup in 40 years in 1990 but lost every game.

“The showing was pretty disastrous,” says Rothenberg. “We had to figure out how to make the team credible because if we fell on our face, it would increase the doubters. We were so disrespected from an ability standpoint.”

Of those that made the 1994 squad, seven were playing abroad, the rest were college or local-league players on US Soccer central contracts under the guidance of seasoned Serb coach Bora Milutinovic, who’d previously managed Mexico and Costa Rica at World Cups.

Milutinovic effectively sought the role out himself, tracking down Rothenberg’s assistant Steve Sampson in San Jose and insisting he be hired. In 1991, the nomadic boss, someone USA centre-back Alexi Lalas labelled a mix of “Yogi Bear and Yoda”, beat Rinus Michels and Carlos Queiroz to the job.

Milutinovic ran the national team like a club side - setting up a 16-month residency outside Los Angeles, where every training session included football tennis. They played more than 90 matches in three years before the tournament, beating Graham Taylor’s toothless England at the US Cup in 1993. The “laughing stock of international football”, scolded the Independent.

Wales missed out on the actual tournament in agonising fashion. Scotland, Northern Ireland and England failed to qualify too, with Rothenberg writing in his book ’The Big Bounce: The Surge That Shaped the Future of US Soccer’ that authorities were relieved to not have “UK hooligans streaming in through our airports, seeking to wreak havoc”.

Oprah, OJ and the grand opening 

The States was in a moment of cultural flux. The world had just lost Kurt Cobain, Michael Jordan was playing minor league baseball and ‘soccer’ had to compete with a string of box-office summer movies - Forrest Gump, Speed, The Mask. The Lion King was released on the day Brazil beat Cameroon 3-0, Romario and Bebeto enthralling like a canary-yellow Timon and Pumbaa.

Oprah Winfrey welcomed a 750 million-strong worldwide audience to the opening ceremony at Chicago’s Soldier Field but then fell through the stage. Diana Ross pulled a penalty wide only for the goalposts to collapse anyway, and Germany’s 1-0 win over Bolivia was reduced to a footnote that evening when police cars trawled OJ Simpson for almost two hours in a snail-like pursuit across California.

Italy goalkeeper Gianluca Pagliuca and his team-mates followed it from the Somerset Hills Hotel in New Jersey, as they prepared to face Republic of Ireland the next day.

“We were shocked, and I remember it very clearly,” he recalls. “We saw the entire chase unfold live on TV. It felt like watching a film – something almost unreal. We were all glued to the television.”

The Azzurri enjoyed a glowing welcome in New Jersey from a large Italian diaspora following their every move. “It was really wonderful,” adds Pagliuca. “There were always bodyguards controlling the situation because there were so many Italians living there who would come to ask for photos and autographs.”

The Irish weren’t about to be overawed by a crowd that was expected to be predominantly Italian, or from the weather - some players shed eight to nine pounds during sweat-drenched training sessions – although boss Jack Charlton and striker John Aldridge would have heated exchanges with touchline officials later in the tournament.

“On the bus going to the stadium, all we could see was Irish flags and tops, so it gave us a lot of hope,” Ray Houghton told BBC World Service Sportsworld.

Among them was future US women’s national team star Heather O'Reilly, a nine-year-old inspired by a World Cup on her doorstep.

“With a name like O'Reilly, you can imagine there was a lot of excitement around supporting Ireland,” adds the 230-cap USA international. “I remember people doing keepy-uppies in the parking lot, cooking food, hearing the drums - the whole occasion made a huge impact on me.”

Houghton’s looping half-volley sealed a surprise 1-0 victory at Giants Stadium, even if he almost appeared with the wrong kit on - lining up in the tunnel, Italy were also wearing white.

“We're all looking at each other, saying, ‘well, one of us is in the wrong, who is it?’” he explains. “It transpired it was us. We had to run back in. You can imagine Jack Charlton was berating a kit man for getting it wrong! It really just calmed us down. We were laughing and giggling going out to do the national anthems.”

The States, meanwhile, got up and running with a 1-1 draw against Switzerland. Eric Wynalda - patriotic stars draped across his denim-blue jersey - whipped a free-kick into the top corner following some late-night practice under the roof at the Pontiac Silverdome, where the squad had been taken to watch a motivational video.

"I told the equipment manager to bring my boots and a couple of balls,” says Wynalda. "I wanted to see if I could hit a couple free-kicks. They both just took off on me. I thought, ‘man, the ball's acting differently in this stadium’.”

The roar when Wynalda’s effort went in made him feel “electric”, and when he returned to the hotel afterwards, one of his heroes, who’d been on commentary duty, was waiting in the bar: “Chris Waddle waves me over and says ‘you're buying the next couple of rounds here!’.”

Journalist Ledio Carmona, at the tournament following Brazil, found a “curious interest” among the US public. “There was a certain exoticism in their gaze,” he explains. “Like, what is this fascination that captivates so many people with this sport?”

Rothenberg says Fifa chiefs were “blown away” by huge attendances: “I remember Sepp Blatter calling me, it was an opening-round match and it was sold out, he was just flabbergasted.”

Maradona's exit and Colombian tragedy

The ruthless Gabriel Batistuta netted a hat-trick as Argentina, who had qualified for the tournament via a play-off against Australia, flew out of the blocks with a 4-0 win over Greece. But the participation of the other goalscorer was the real story. 

Diego Maradona served a 15-month ban after testing positive for cocaine in March 1991. He was overweight and out of sorts by the time he returned, first at Sevilla and then briefly with Newell’s Old Boys, and looked unlikely to make the World Cup before entering a rigorous personal training regime, losing two stone and announcing: "I am tired of all those who said I was fat and no longer the great Maradona. They will see the real Diego at the World Cup."

The 33-year-old’s sublime goal against Greece was a snapshot of his glorious past - a rapid exchange of neat passes on the edge of the box, two subtle touches to make space and a sweeping left-footed strike into the top corner. The celebration was even more iconic, hurtling towards the camera and roaring down the lens - mouth open, eyes bulging. 

That would be Maradona’s last goal for La Albiceleste, with the diminutive magician’s final act creating both goals for Claudio Caniggia in a 2-1 win over Nigeria in the following game.

“I had to play him one-on-one,” remembers Nigeria’s Sunday Oliseh. “I've never seen a player control the ball the way he did. He made the difference - just genius.”

Argentina’s World Cup was thrown into disarray when Maradona returned urine samples from that match showing traces of banned substances. He pleaded innocence - his personal trainer bought the wrong dietary supplement, Ripped Fuel, instead of his usual Ripped Fast. But the nation’s favourite son was banned before the final group game.

“Diego was desperate, he was broken, he started crying, he shut himself in his room and didn’t want to speak to anyone,” Dr Roberto Peidro, part of Argentina’s medical staff, told the BBC’s Sporting Witness, comparing the atmosphere in camp to “a funeral”.

Argentina were among the favourites before Maradona’s ban, but lost to a Hristo Stoichkov-inspired Bulgaria in Dallas and then suffered a last-16 exit to another surprise package, Romania. 

It was Colombia, though, who had qualified automatically for the World Cup after thumping Argentina 5-0 in Buenos Aires the previous year - in doing so hyping up expectations for their own chances in the States. The likes of Pele, Johan Cruyff and Arrigo Sacchi touted them as potential winners.

Wearing their reverse blue jerseys in Pasadena, Colombia too came unstuck against Romania in their opening group game - Gheorghe Hagi catching out goalkeeper Oscar Cordoba, who’d replaced Rene Higuita following his imprisonment the previous year.

Amid a backdrop of death threats to coach Francisco Maturana over his team selection, delivered via TV screens at the squad hotel and believed to have come from the country’s drug cartels, Colombia faced a novice USA side next.

Their task grew harder when defender Andres Escobar turned into his own net in the first half. Earnie Stewart doubled the hosts’ lead in front of almost 94,000 fans at the Rose Bowl before Adolfo Valencia’s late consolation. Los Cafeteros beat Switzerland in the final game, but were eliminated.

Upon returning to Colombia, Escobar wrote a newspaper column in El Tiempo, saying: “Life doesn’t end here”. Yet just 10 days after that own goal, the 27-year-old was shot dead outside Bar El Indio in Medellin following an argument in the car park.

It was portrayed as a revenge killing. Others, including national team head coach Maturana, felt Escobar was an unfortunate victim of Colombia’s violent society at the time. It proved a tragic end to the country’s golden footballing era.

A glorious exit for the hosts

Not only did the USA make it out of their group, they were handed a tantalising last-16 clash against Brazil - excitement only gathering momentum given it would be played on 4 July.

“That was a war,” remembers journalist Carmona. “The Americans gave everything they could to win on Independence Day and the game was dramatic. A typical World Cup duel.”

Leonardo was sent off for an elbow on USA midfielder Tab Ramos late in the first half - the blow, Ramos said, left him feeling like he was going to die, yet head coach Milutinovic tried to throw him back on before medics intervened and the apologetic Brazilian later visited him in hospital.

“I came in as a sub for Tab,” says Wynalda. “I didn't know if he was gonna survive that. He looked horrible. He's a really good friend, and it was just really difficult. We left the field fairly quickly, and the first question is, ‘how's Tab? Is he OK? Was he still with us?’ We were really concerned.”

The hosts held out until Bebeto netted inside the final 20 minutes. For thousands of flag-waving American fans, it was a glorious exit, proof the USA had a credible team. 

“As sad as we were, we went to an event right after the game and Robin Williams was there,” adds Wynalda. “Within 30 seconds he had us in stitches laughing and forgetting about it. He just reiterated how proud he was and America was of what we had just done.”

For Rothenberg, the fixture was “a turning point for soccer" in the US. “Everybody knows the great picturesque enthusiasm of Brazilian fans. [But] there were an equal number of US fans with painted faces, waving flags, dancing in the streets.

“That’s when I thought ‘you know what, we have become a soccer nation’. I think it’s been that way ever since.”

Italy, meanwhile, scraped through their group in third place as all four teams finished level on points. Pagliuca was handed a two-match ban for his sending off against Norway - the first goalkeeper to be red carded at a World Cup - so missed the extra-time last-16 win over Nigeria.

Replacement Luca Marchegiani did well, leaving Pagliuca to wonder whether his tournament was over. He was in his hotel room watching golf with team-mate Roberto Donadoni when assistant manager Carlo Ancelotti came by to confirm the goalkeeper would return against Spain.

“For me, the World Cup really began that night,” says Pagliuca. “At dinner, I was obviously very happy, but I couldn’t show it.

“Afterwards, we usually went for a walk to digest. While I was smoking a cigarette, Marchegiani came up to me and asked if I knew anything. I felt bad, but I had been asked to keep it secret.”

The icons who defined a summer

The footballing summer of 1994 was shaping up to be one for iconic individual performances. Hristo Stoichkov carried Bulgaria to the semi-finals with six goals earning him a share of the Golden Boot alongside Russia’s Oleg Salenko, who scored five in one game against Cameroon.

“Stoichkov was an outstanding player, very unique,” says Pagliuca, whose Italy side ended a Bulgarian run that included knocking out holders Germany. “He was at the peak of his career and very dangerous, but we marked him extremely well.”

Stoichkov went on to win the Ballon d’Or that year, but Italy had their own hero in Roberto Baggio. The Divine Ponytail was the man sacrificed when Pagliuca was sent off against Norway in the group stage, but inspired the Azzurri in the knockouts. 

Baggio levelled late against Nigeria in the last-16 and then sent Italy through from the spot in extra time. He rounded Andoni Zubizarreta to score an 88th-minute winner against Spain in the quarter-finals and produced two magical semi-final goals against Bulgaria at Giants Stadium.

“From the round of 16 onwards he exploded and carried us all the way to the final. He scored incredibly important goals,” remembers Pagliuca.

“He wasn’t just a great player, but also a genuinely good person. He had a sunny personality, very playful, always joking and laughing – perfect for the dressing room. We had a great group. We felt good together.”

On the other side of the draw was Romania’s gifted Gheorghe Hagi who, after joining Brescia from Real Madrid, had spent the season in Serie B and was disgruntled with the club for refusing him a move to replace Maradona at Napoli.

“The motivation of the World Cup made him reinvent himself. Out of the blue, he started training harder and better than anyone,” recalls Romanian journalist Emanuel Rosu.

“He says he was a ‘bomb’ ahead of Romania's trip to the US, as he was so ready. He was telling those around him that Romania could win the tournament. He basically pulled the entire team into the right direction. And the nation, too. We were just coming out of the communist darkness.”

Romania’s run ended in a quarter-final penalty shootout defeat by Sweden, another of the tournament’s vibrant attacking sides, but Hagi’s displays won hearts at home and wowed those around the world. 

“It was the biggest joy of the 90s, after the bloody revolution killed thousands and after the miners came to Bucharest twice, just years ago, beating people and opponents of the regime,” adds Rosu.

“Romania ‘94 made peace in the society and enlightened us all. There were plenty of pen-written votes for Hagi in the presidential elections that followed a few years later. He was that popular.”

Bebeto and Baggio brought to tears

In a nod to Italia ‘90, the Three Tenors played LA’s Dodger Stadium the night before the final in front of president George Bush and a crowd containing Arnold Schwarzenegger, Frank Sinatra, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. 

US Soccer chiefs, meanwhile. were patting themselves on the back. This was a World Cup that had delivered record crowd numbers, with 3.6m attending 52 matches, generated more goals per game than four years earlier and turned huge profits.

Brazil, still mourning national hero Ayrton Senna following a fatal crash just eight weeks earlier, set up a showdown with Italy at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena by beating Sweden, having also knocked out the USA and Netherlands - the latter remembered for Bebeto’s iconic ‘rock the baby’ celebration.

Two days earlier, the forward took a call at the team hotel from his wife to say their son had arrived safely. Within an hour, TV network Globo connected the Selecao forward with his wife and newborn son via video link. Mattheus, now a midfielder for Tampa Bay Rowdies in the States’ second-tier USL Championship, turns 32 this summer.

“It was totally spontaneous,” Bebeto later told Fifa. “I still get emotional talking about it.”

Brazil’s last-four game had also been at the Rose Bowl, while Italy had to fly over from the east coast for a midday kick-off in the Californian sunshine. Journalists, Carmona says, were “melting in the stands”, but Pagliuca felt it was cooler down on the turf. 

“There was less humidity,” he says. “I remember it being much hotter in New York and Boston. There was even a bit of breeze in the final.”

Brazil and Italy's route to the final

The game, though, was a tense goalless draw. The most notable moment was Pagliuca letting a speculative long-range Mauro Silva effort slip through his fingers and on to the post. The keeper kissed his glove and patted the woodwork in relief.

“I kissed the post because it saved my career,” he smiles. “If that ball had gone in, I would have been marked for life. Everyone would have remembered Pagliuca’s mistake in the final.”

Instead, it is remembered for Baggio’s decisive miss in the shootout. Three players had already failed to score - Italy’s Franco Baresi and Daniele Massaro, and Brazilian Marcio Santos. Brazil’s match-winning moment came down to a man who’d carried Italy to the final. Baggio skied his kick. An agonising end to his magical tournament.

“There was obviously huge disappointment,” recalls Pagliuca, who embraced the forward. “He felt particularly guilty, but we told him he had taken us there, so had nothing to apologise for.

“That’s football. You can be a hero one moment and something else the next. We tried to comfort him as much as possible. He was very upset. Even now when I see him we sometimes talk about it. The emotions of that day will stay with me forever.”

There was relief in the Brazil camp, but the debate around the team’s cautious, seemingly un-Selecao style - one that saw them booed during qualifying - raged on.

“The officials also received a lot of criticism, with one of them assaulting a journalist during the title celebration,” remembers Carmona. “And there was also a power struggle between the Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo media, each with its own technical and tactical preferences. It was a tense atmosphere, even at the celebration.”

Brazil boss Carlos Alberto Parreira remained unperturbed, channeling one of America’s great entertainers to hit back at critics. "Like Frank Sinatra in that song, I did it my way," he said.

The birth of Major League Soccer

The World Cup was a hit, and Major League Soccer launched two years later.

“In my opinion, the 1994 World Cup played a big role in bringing Americans closer to football,” says Pagliuca.

Rothenberg adds: “There was a lot of scepticism from the majority of football followers in the world who were scratching their heads saying: ‘How could this non-soccer nation put this on?’ I think we made true believers out of them.”

Eric Wynalda scored the first MLS goal as San Jose Clash beat DC United 1-0 in April 1996 and received a celebratory call from Jurgen Klinsmann, who told him: “I don't think you realise how important that goal was.”

MLS now boasts 30 teams. It has welcomed global superstars such as David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Kaka, Wayne Rooney and Lionel Messi, yet Rothenberg says it would have “been a disaster” had 1994 not succeeded.

Fifa pushed back on some early proposals like Rothenberg’s “ice hockey” idea or making the ball and goals bigger: “We looked at putting the game into quarters. We kicked around wider goals, but at the end of the day it was rejected. Sepp Blatter said: ‘we can't change the size of the net in every country in the world!’”

Instead, Rothenberg and co realised they needed to focus on the “core fan”. Out went countdown clocks and 35-yard shootouts: “Trying to convert non-soccer fans was going to be a long, hard struggle and we were offending the purists.”

It once was hard to even find “soccer” on American TV. Rothenberg says there was no English language coverage of Italia 90 in the States. Now, as the 2026 World Cup kicks off, the men’s and women’s games are hugely popular and completely ingrained in American culture.

“We’ve gone from no television to complete saturation,” he reflects. “Now you drive in and it’s kids kicking a soccer ball, not throwing a pass!

“If you go around shopping malls, you are more likely to see somebody wearing replica jerseys of their local team, Messi, Bayern Munich or Tottenham, Real Madrid and Barcelona. They overwhelm even in cities where baseball or football are king.”

That, Rothenberg believes, is the real legacy of World Cup 1994.

Credits

Written by Alex Bysouth
Sub-edited by Rahul Shrivastava
Graphics by Andy Dicks
Images by Getty Images