I am impressed by the U.S. team at the 2026 World Cup. One thing they seem to have mastered (and how!) is how to sprint. But I am here to speak about America's previous FIFA extravaganza, one that happened during the Clinton presidency 32 years ago.
As Glenn Reynolds links to Ilya Shapiro's A World Cup to Remember — "the U.S. wins its first two games for the first time since the original tournament in 1930" — it brought to mind the last time the World Cup was held in the United States, in 1994.
• In 1994, European soccer fans were dismissive of FIFA's decision to hold the in tournament in the USA. Not only was "football" not a game of interest for most Yanks, it meant, or it might mean, that matches of interest to Europeans might be held in the middle of the day if not in the middle of the night.
• The above-mentioned Europeans were hardly wrong. The number of soccer fields and teams in America did not seem to rise significantly after the end of the tournament.
• Whoever was the top star of the American soccer team he was, as far as I can remember, never used — not once in the tournament — even when the team had poor results throughout (although they did make it to the knockout round). This made me surly during every match, and I remember thinking that the only reason must be that the coach (Bora Milutinović) probably thought that the top star was having, or had had, an affair with his wife or girlfriend.
• America's final game before being booted out from the tournament was, of all countries, against Iran. The American team played so poorly that when its members were gathered around the Iranian goal for a free shot (or a corner), the goalkeeper grew so incensed at the lack of progress, he left his goal to run across the field to try and participate in scoring a goal against the Islamic Republic. (The ball did not go into the net.)
• All the above is admittedly nothing when compared with the tragedy for the Columbian team. After a player from Columbia had the misfortune of scoring an Own Goal against his own team with the result of it being disqualified. After the whole team returning home, Andrés Escobar was gunned down in Medellín.
• The tournament was won by Brazil after Italy's Roberto Baggio misses his penalty shot, which dedicated its (3-2) victory over Italy to their countryman Ayrton Senna, the Formula One driver who had been killed in an accident at Italy's San Marino Grand Prix six weeks earlier that year (8:48 in the video below, Al Gore at 12:25). Because one of the players had just become a father, a trio of winners went before the cameras, rocking wildly back and forth as they pretended to be cradling babies.
• In 1994, the Brazilians won a record fourth victory and eight years later, a record (and still unequaled) fifth victory, but every time the World Cup has been held in their country (1950 and 2014), they have fared poorly, with one of the most humiliating defeats in one 2014 match, when Germany scored four goals against them in the matter of six minutes (I will never forget the images of the horror-stricken audience) for an end result of 7-1. As I said at the time (2014), Brazilians should stop clamoring for home-soil World Cups, because the beautiful game is so entrenched in that country that it makes their players far too stressed out to perform well…
• In 1998, I was in a São Paulo bar during the finals of Brazil against the French team in France. There were two Frenchmen in the bar who cheered every time the French scored a goal, but they eventually noticed that it didn't make them very popular in the otherwise silent bar, and as France's goals increased, their cheers got more and more modest. After the loss, Brazilians accused their team of having been bribed to forfeit the game. I said that this was nonsense, since never could all players be made to agree with this, in view of the fact that no amount of money could equal the dishonor of losing on purpose. Moreover, a victory would bring just as many riches, besides opening all kinds of monetary contracts in the future. Finally, if I could be made to forfeit a game deliberately, I would insist it be by one goal only, and not by three (the final score was 3-0). However, the Brazilians — even Ronaldo! — did play so badly, I agreed, maybe the French had drugged the Evian bottles handed to Bebeto's team.
• Finally: I have never fully understood the concept of being Offside, and I probably never will.
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