Top 100 momentsNo. 52
The World Cup in America
The United States hosts, and fills, a World Cup. Soccer on this side of the Atlantic stops being a rumor and starts being a crowd.
FIFA awards the 1994 World Cup to a country without a first division anyone abroad respects. The crowds show up anyway: 94,000 in the Rose Bowl for the final, records that still sit on the books. Brazil beat Italy on penalties. Roberto Baggio skies one.
MLS is the political price of hosting. It launches in 1996, stumbles, and survives. A generation of American kids meet the sport as a stadium event, not a gym class.
1994 does not make the U.S. a world power. It makes the World Cup look like it belongs in American summer, which is half the battle.