Diana Ross missed an open goal in front of 750 million people. Oprah fell through the stage. O.J. Simpson led the LAPD on a televised car chase through Los Angeles. And all of that happened before a single competitive ball was kicked.
USA '94 was, by any reasonable measure, the strangest World Cup ever staged. It was also one of the best.
With the 2026 World Cup returning to American soil this summer, it's worth revisiting the tournament that the rest of the football world didn't want — and what it ended up giving the sport permanently.
The opening ceremony nobody will forget
June 17, 1994. Soldier Field, Chicago. Germany vs Bolivia. The global audience is estimated at 750 million. And to open proceedings, FIFA's chosen host is Oprah Winfrey, who almost immediately falls through a hole in the stage covered by a sheet of plastic. She'd later call it the most embarrassing moment of her career. Most viewers missed it — cameras had already cut to Diana Ross.
Ross then ran the full length of the pitch to take a ceremonial penalty, hoofed it well wide of a comically oversized goal, and kept singing as the goal dramatically collapsed anyway — it had been rigged to burst apart in celebration, regardless of where the ball went. Nobody had apparently planned for the alternative.
A few hours later, Spain and South Korea drew 2-2 in Dallas. American viewers switched over to Game 5 of the NBA Finals, only to find the basketball sharing the screen with live footage of O.J. Simpson being pursued through Los Angeles in a white Ford Bronco. The World Cup had been running for less than a day.
Maradona's last act, Escobar's tragedy
On the pitch, the tournament caught fire quickly. Germany lost to Bulgaria. Brazil edged the Netherlands 3-2 in a quarter-final that still holds up. Roberto Baggio — the Divine Ponytail — carried Italy almost single-handedly toward a final against Brazil, scoring a penalty in extra time against Nigeria to keep them alive.
Then there was Maradona. At 33, carrying every kilogram of his legend, he scored against Greece with the kind of instinctive brilliance that reminded you exactly who he'd been. His celebration — sprinting to the pitchside camera, grabbing the lens, screaming into it — looked slightly unhinged even at the time. It turned out there was a reason for that. After the Nigeria game, he tested positive for five variants of ephedrine and was expelled from the tournament. One of football's defining careers ended not with a trophy, but an anti-doping report.
Colombia's exit was darker still. Andrés Escobar diverted a cross into his own net against the United States, the hosts won 2-1, and Colombia — widely considered among the tournament favourites — were eliminated in the group stage. Escobar accepted responsibility with dignity. Ten days later, he was shot dead outside a nightclub in Medellín.
The rules that still govern the game today
And yet, underneath all the chaos, something lasting was being built.
USA '94 introduced three points for a win. It banned goalkeepers from picking up deliberate back-passes. Both rules reshaped how the game is played at every level, and both remain in place more than three decades later. The tournament averaged 2.71 goals per game — not a bad return for a competition everyone had predicted would be a defensive slog on American soil.
It also produced a cast of characters worth remembering: Roger Milla scoring World Cup goals at 42, Oleg Salenko putting five past Cameroon in a single game, Hristo Stoichkov playing with the permanent fury of a man who had personal grievances with the entire universe, and Romário and Bebeto giving the world the rocking-the-baby celebration.
The first World Cup match played indoors happened here — the USA vs Switzerland at the Pontiac Silverdome. The first final decided by a penalty shootout happened here too, when Baggio's kick sailed over the bar in Pasadena and Brazil lifted the trophy. Average attendance hit 68,991. Total crowd figures topped 3.5 million. Both records still stand.
Two years later, Major League Soccer launched. The line from USA '94 to Lionel Messi playing in Miami isn't straight, but it's there. This summer, when the World Cup returns to a country where soccer is now a genuine commercial force, that strange, chaotic, brilliant 1994 tournament is where most of it started.
- USA '94 introduced three points for a win — now universal across world football
- Back-pass rule also debuted, eliminating deliberate time-wasting by goalkeepers
- First World Cup final settled by penalty shootout (Brazil beat Italy)
- All-time attendance records: 68,991 average, 3.5 million total — both still unbeaten
- MLS launched two years later, directly inspired by the tournament's commercial success
Baggio's penalty still hasn't landed.
