Looking back at the 1994 World Cup

Why does the United States winning a game as the host nation merit mentioning? As we noted, the United States returned to the World Cup in 1990 for the first time since 1950. In 1990, though, the Americans lost all three games they played. That made the U.S. win over Colombia its first World Cup victory in 44 years. Then, they lost three games in 1998, meaning that one win had to tide the country over until 2002.

World history impacts sports history, especially when it comes to international competitions. The Soviet Union had competed in World Cups, even finishing in fourth place once. However, after the 1990 World Cup the Soviet Union dissolved. Russia, now an independent nation, qualified for the 1994 World Cup, but did not make it out of the group stage.

You ever hear about this Berlin Wall? For many years, West Germany and East Germany were separate entities, and West Germany was the one that was good at football. Germany has four World Cups, but three of those were won by West Germany. That included in 1990, right before the reunification. 1994 was the first World Cup for unified Germany since 1938.

Yugoslavia had found some success on the pitch, including in 1990 when it made the World Cup quarterfinals. Unfortunately for those who aren’t fans of sectarian violence and genocide, Yugoslavia broke out into wars in 1991 which took years to resolve, yielding several independent nations. In 1992, the United Nations sanctioned Yugoslavia, which led to FIFA banning the country from competition.

The 1990 World Cup was not well-received. Some still consider it the nadir of football as “the beautiful game.” It was cagey, played at a glacial pace, and low scoring. This led to the introduction of the back-pass rule, which doesn’t allow goalies to handle the ball if a teammate passes it to them. For what it’s worth, scoring in the 1994 World Cup went up by half a goal per game.

You may be surprised to find out that it wasn’t until 1994 that wins in the World Cup were worth three points instead of two. Draws remained worth one point. The reason for this was to incentivize winning more, and also to try and make teams play more actively and less defensively. After all, if a win is only worth one additional point, isn’t a scoreless draw good enough?

Three teams made their first World Cup appearance in 1994. Nigeria had the best time of the bunch, going 2-0-1 and making it out of the group stage. Saudi Arabia also went 2-0-1, only losing to the Netherlands. Neither team made it out of the round of 16, but that’s still impressive. Greece, meanwhile, had a worse go of it. It lost all three games, allowing 10 goals and scoring zero.

The United States wanted to host a World Cup, and certainly had the infrastructure to do so. There was just one problem. The country didn’t have a professional soccer league, as the NASL had folded in 1984. FIFA made it a condition of awarding the U.S. the World Cup that it create a professional league. In 1993, the founding of MLS was announced, and in 1996 it began play. These days, the MLS is going strong.

Maradona is one of the greatest footballers in history. Unlike Pele or fellow countryman Lionel Messi, though, Maradona was a bit more mercurial. Thus, it is perhaps fitting that his final World Cup ended with him being banned for doping. Maradona played in Argentina’s first two games, and even scored a goal against lowly Greece. Then, he failed a drug test by testing positive for ephedrine. Maradona claimed it was an accident, but it’s hard to get away with that when you were once banned 15 months for cocaine use.

Sadly, one of the defining stories of the 1994 World Cup is the plight of Andres Escobar. Colombia’s national team had a lot of, shall we say, outside interests putting pressure on it. This was at a time when the nation was still largely colored in the international picture by another Escobar, drug kingpin Pablo, who had died in 1993. Andres, a disciplined center-back, unfortunately was credited with an own goal against the United States. This is the game the U.S. ended up winning, and Colombia ended up eliminated in the group stage. Ten days later, Escobar was murdered outside a bar down in Colombia. To this day there is speculation it was related to the own goal, and possibly betting losses stemming from said own goal.

Do you like parity in sports? Then the 1994 World Cup was for you. Only two teams, Greece and Morocco, failed to get a single point, and no team won all three of its group games. Brazil and Germany did the best of the bunch, as they both had two wins and one draw with no losses.

By the skin of their teeth, the United States made it into the round of 16. There were six groups in the 1994 World Cup, and the top-two teams in each group moved on. That left the top-four third-place teams to round out the knockout phase. Argentina and Belgium, both of which went 2-0-1, made it through with ease. Then, the United States and Italy grabbed the last two spots. Each nation went 1-1-1 with a zero goal differential.

Romania won the United States’ group. Then, it beat a Diego Maradona-less Argentina. While Romania lost in the quarterfinals in penalty kicks, it was quite the run for a nation not known for being a giant of football. In fact, 1994 is the only year it made the quarterfinals, and it has not qualified for the World Cup since 1998.

That being said, Romania’s magical run fell short of two other surprising nations. Sweden is the team that beat Romania in penalties in the quarterfinals. Bulgaria also made it out of its group, beat Mexico, and then upset Germany to make it into the semis. Both Sweden and Bulgaria then lost, but that of course set up the third-place game. Sweden was apparently more invested in that one, as it routed Bulgaria 4-0.

When you are talking about the blue-blood football nations, Brazil and Italy are certainly in the mix. Both countries have won multiple World Cups, though Italy simply struggles to even make it to the World Cup these days. Brazil beat Sweden and Italy beat Bulgaria, setting up an iconic matchup for the 1994 World Cup final.

Brazil and Italy played the final in the Rose Bowl. It was…not the best game. After all those hopes for more offense in the 1994 World Cup, hopes that were so far borne out, the final was scoreless through 120 minutes. That left it to be decided by penalty kicks. Hey, at least history was made, as this was the first final to be decided in that way.

Unfortunately for Roberto Baggio, a fine player, he is the defining player of the 1994 World Cup. He’s also Italian, so you can probably guess what happened. Both Brazil and Italy’s first shooters missed, but then Brazil made three kicks in a row. Italy’s Daniele Massaro should maybe earn more ardor, as he’s the one who missed to make Baggio’s kick a must-convert. Then again, Baggio really flubbed his kick. His miss secured Brazil its fourth World Cup.

Baggio was still the runner-up for the Golden Ball as the player of the tournament, so clearly had he made that kick the landscape would have changed. Instead, Brazilian striker Romario won the award. He was playing domestically for Barcelona at the time, so clearly he was one of the best players in the world. Also, apparently he’s a senator in Brazil now.

Romario and Baggio were two of four players to score five goals. However, two players tied with six goals to lead the tournament. They were a Bulgarian and a Russian. If you were following soccer in the ‘90s, or know soccer history, you may be familiar with Hristo Stoichkov, a popular pick as the best Bulgarian player in history. Also, he was Romario's teammate at Barcelona. The other leading goalscorer was Oleg Salenko, who was not a particularly good player. He just racked up five goals against Cameroon in the group stage.

Keepers can play for quite some time, and that was certainly true for Michel Preud’homme. He debuted for Belgium all the way back in 1979, and he was the number-one keeper for the country in 1994. Preud’homme played well enough to win the Yashin Award as the top goalie. While he didn’t play for Belgium again, he’d play for Benfica all the way until 1999. Best Young Player went to Dutch winger Marc Overmars. While he never became a superstar or an icon of Dutch football, he did have 86 caps for his national team, and he played for Ajax, Arsenal, and Barcelona.

The 2026 World Cup will have 48 teams. Back in 1994, there were half that many teams, and that is literal. This particular World Cup had 24 competing nations. However, while Germany had reunited, the Soviet Union had dissolved, and Yugoslavia was on its way to doing so. The sport was growing in North America, Asia, and Africa. Starting in 1998, there were 32 teams in the World Cup, a number that remained steady until 2026.