USA '94 - The last great World Cup?

Several months ago I shared a few tweets with Tim Vickery, the BBC’s South American football expert, he was of the opinion that the 1986 World Cup was the last ‘great’ World Cup. I replied, insisting that while USA ’94 didn’t have a team that won over the hearts of the public like the ‘Danish Dynamite’ side, the overall competition was equally as good as Mexico ’86.

However is that really the case? The World Cup of 1994 was the event that opened my eyes to the world of Football and therefore has always been held on a pretty high pedestal. 

The event captivated me, from the colourful (not to mention some outlandish) jerseys to the eternal sunshine to the exotic names of countries I’d never heard of to the quality of the players on show, it was here that I found my footballing idol in Roberto Baggio, I cried for hours when he missed his penalty in the final.

The game that changed my life

As I mentioned in my first entry on this blog, I came to the World Cup party late in the tournament, watching from the quarter-finals onwards. When the VHS was released showcasing the best of the competition, I bought it and watched it over and over for years.

Greatest GK jersey of
all time?

So just shy of two decades on, I decided to investigate my own claim and see if USA ’94 really was the last truly ‘great’ World Cup or whether my opinion was formed on nostalgia.

The U.S was awarded FIFA’s premier competition in July 1988, the decision was widely criticised at the time as the USA didn’t even have a professional Football league, the NASL had folded in 1984 and the MLS didn’t come into existence until two years after USA ’94 was consigned to history. One condition FIFA made was that if they gave America the tournament, they would create a professional league. 

The opening ceremony kicked off on the 17^th June, with the first game coming a day later.  The following four weeks were filled with drama, scandal, tragedy, controversy, death threats, surprises, broken records, brilliance and most importantly, goals. 

From 1982 to 1994 there were 24 teams competing at a World Cup, when comparing the four tournaments, the 1994 edition comes in second for best average goals per game ratio, with 2.71 (behind Spain ’82 2.81).  If one was to compare further until the present day, no World Cup has matched the ratio of USA ’94, furthermore, the last three editions rank amongst the lowest in the tournaments history.

Diana Ross should stick to singing

Commentators prior to the World Cup feared there would be half-empty stadiums during tournament, citing that the American public weren’t exactly renowned for their passion of the beautiful game, due to it’s low scoring nature.  To their immense credit the same American people shattered that assumption, more people attended USA ’94 than any World Cup in history, before or since, with the average attendance being 68,991 and some 3.5 million overall.

So what happened on the pitch?  The competition had just about everything you could hope for in a tournament, and then some.  Colombia had come into the tournament as one of the potential favourites, earning an endorsement from Mr. FIFA himself, Pele, after they had beaten Argentina home and away in the qualifiers, including an historic 0 – 5 win in Buenos Aires.

Carlos Valderrama in the infamous
USA game

However, the tournament was about to take a more somber turn, as anyone who has watched the stellar ESPN documentary ‘The Two Escobars’ knows, there was turmoil in the Colombian camp.  The team had received numerous death threats from the Colombian drug cartels.  Afraid that they might be shot at from the crowd by snipers, the team was in disarray and they lost their opening two games, sending them home earlier than most expected.

The nightmare wasn’t over, Andres Escobar, who was to complete a move to Milan after the competition and who had scored an own goal in the vital game vs the host nation in the second game, was gunned to death six days later outside a bar in Medellin. It was a tragic end to a horrifying episode in World Cup history.

The tournament was also witness to the last chapter in the extraordinary international career of Maradona, the hero of 1986 became the antihero this time around, called back into the national team after the Colombia debacle, he helped steer Argentina into the World Cup via a play-off against Australia.

The end is nigh

He got into incredible shape for the start of the tournament, his best condition in years, but the fairytale wasn’t to last, he was tested after the second game against Nigeria and his results came back positive for Ephedrine. He was subsequently banned from the tournament and never kicked a ball for his country again. ‘’They cut off my legs’’ is how Maradona described the event in his autobiography.

The death of Escobar and the banishment of Maradona added a touch of the surreal to the tournament.

USA ’94 has the honour of containing the tightest group in the history of the competition. Group E contained Italy, Norway, the Republic of Ireland and Mexico.  All four teams finished on four points, with three teams going through, Norway were the ones to pay the price for being so prudent in front of goal, scoring only one goal in three matches.

Football tournaments are judged by the quantity of great games that unfolded throughout the duration of the finals, so what games stood out? In the early stages the Group A clash between Romania/Colombia and the Group C affairs between Germany/South Korea and Spain/South Korea were fantastic games.

In the round of 16 you had the instant classic that was Romania/Argentina, Germany/Belgium was highly entertaining and Nigeria/Italy was a game high on drama and minutes away from a historic upset.

The quarter-finals produced some scintillating matches; Brazil/Holland was an end-to-end encounter, Romania/Sweden sprung into life in extra time and Germany/Bulgaria was another enthralling match with the Bulgarians toppling the current world champions.

Letchkov sinking the Germans

The final was a huge letdown, played in the suffocating heat of Pasadena, the Brazil side of ‘94 were the polar opposite of the oft spoken cliché about Brazilian teams. They were dull and pragmatic, save for Romario and Bebeto this incarnation had little in the way of imagination or flair.

Italy weren’t much better in the creativity department, their dreams resting on the hope of one man, who wasn’t close to match fitness and in reality shouldn’t have started the final. Baggio had strained his hamstring in the semi final vs Bulgaria and entered the field with his thigh heavily strapped.

The most unloved of Brazil's
World Cup winning sides 

There were chances, especially as the game became stretched in extra time, Romario somehow inexplicably missed a sitter from 4 yards out, Baggio had a shot that perhaps he would have scored had he been fit, and who can forget Gianluca Pagliuca infamously kissing the post after spilling Mauro Silva’s speculative long range shot onto the woodwork and back into his arms in the second half?

The ’94 World cup saw some breathtaking goals, the most famous from the tournament was Saaed Al-Owairan’s solo effort for Saudi Arabia against the Belgians. I have never been an admirer of the goal, always included in the top ten goals in World Cup history, he never seems to be in control of the ball like Maradona vs England in ’86 or Baggio vs Czechoslovakia at Italia ’90, which in my mind diminishes it’s worth.

Personal favourites were Jurgen Klinsmann’s brilliant swivel and finish vs South Korea, Philippe Albert’s elegant run and finish with the outside of the boot against Germany, Baggio’s beautiful curling effort vs Bulgaria, Maradona’s sublime one touch pass between three teammates and rocket into the top corner vs Greece and Daniel Amokachi’s thunderbolt, also against the Greeks.

Player of the tournament was arguably Baggio, who was the world’s greatest player going into the tournament, having won the Balon d’Or the previous December.  However he was poor in the group stages and only got going when his perfectly placed shot trickled into the bottom corner against Nigeria in the last 16. 

The despair and the ecstasy

After the final he was crucified by the Italian press, but most people recognised that he single handedly dragged a mundane Italian side to the final, in the greatest one man display the World Cup had seen since Maradona in Mexico and perhaps hasn’t seen since. The cruel irony that it was he who missed the final penalty wasn’t lost on him, given how excellent he was from the spot during his entire career. ‘’I don’t want to brag but I’ve only ever missed a couple of penalties in my career. And they were because the goalkeeper saved them, not because I shot wide’’

It was also the last ‘unknown’ World Cup, where watching the tournament meant uncovering new stars and teams. In the UK at the time, the only league that had any coverage outside of the Premier League was Serie A, but with the invention of the Internet and the popularity of the Championship Manager series, by the time France ’98 rolled around, you could name the entire Morocco starting XI and find out what their left back had for breakfast. Viewing a World Cup would never be the same.

Ref! How does my nose look?

Then you had the interesting tidbits that only added flavour to the finals; John Aldridge’s tantrum on the sideline.  The most harmless guy in football, Gianfranco Zola, getting sent off against Nigeria and his almost childlike reaction. Jorge Campos and his flamboyant multi-coloured goalkeeping jersey. Brazil’s Leonardo breaking a bone in Tab Ramos of the USA’s skull with a sickening elbow. Mauro Tassotti deciding he could go one better, rearranging Luis Enrique’s face in the quarter final. The bald dome of Yordan Letchkov flying through the air to beat Germany, his diving header so glorious it seemed like it happened in slow motion. The use of the BBC’s very much-underrated yet quite brilliant Barry Davies for commentary in the final. Roger Milla becoming the oldest ever goal scorer at forty-two (his official age anyway). Ray Houghton’s now legendary goal vs Italy in New York. Maradona’s notorious scream into the camera after his goal vs Greece. Roberto Baggio’s disbelief after Arrigo Sacchi decided to substitute him against Norway after Gianluca Pagliuca got sent off. Bebeto and Romario’s now annoying but at the time novel ‘rock the baby’ celebration. Bulgaria’s dramatic road to the semi final (and indeed to the tournament itself), made all the more remarkable by the fact that they had never won a game at a World Cup prior to USA ’94. The golden generations of Romania and Sweden.  Nigeria’s ‘dog taking a pee’ celebration. Franco Baresi putting in a herculean performance in the final, notwithstanding the fact that he missed three weeks of the tournament because he had knee surgery after the first game. The emergence of one Gabriel Batistuta. Oleg Salenko finishing as joint top goal scorer despite all his goals coming in just two games and last but not least, the brilliance of Stoichkov, Romario and Hagi.

It was fun for a while

Having said all that, do I still believe the World Cup of 1994 was the last ‘great’ tournament? When you bring it all together, the answer unequivocally has to be yes.

With only 24 teams, there weren’t many dead rubber games, which has plagued the competition since FIFA expanded to 32 sides for France ’98.  Due to this expansion, the quality of the teams making it to the finals in recent years has hurt the competition. With each passing World Cup the goals to game ratio has declined from USA ’94, a sign maybe that teams who are just happy to have made it are setting up camp in their own half, hoping to avoid humiliation?

Hagi was at his best in
USA '94

In USA ’94 44 goals were scored in 15 games throughout the knockout stages, a statistic that has yet to be bettered by any edition since (France ’98 comes closest with 42 goals). Which suggests that all the teams who advanced to that point were of enough quality to go all out and seek a victory. Can that be said about any of the last three World Cups?

Great games have been few and far between in the most recent World Cups. In France ’98 the semi final between Holland/Brazil could be nominated, as could the semi final in Germany ’06 consisting of Italy/Germany, but the World Cups of 2002 and 2010 had no games that stood out for their brilliance, instead they are best remembered for sterile games, controversial decisions and flaccid atmospheres.

Let’s hope Brazil ’14 bucks the trend and we witness another great World Cup. The world is waiting.