SAN JOSE, Calif. – Thirty-two years ago today, soccer seized the United States’ collective attention like it never had before. And on Independence Day, no less.
That’s what it felt like for many of the sport’s backers, at least, when the US men’s national team battled Brazil in the Round of 16 at the 1994 FIFA World Cup. The match was played before 84,147 spectators at Stanford Stadium, about 11 miles down the road from where the USMNT defeated Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2-0, in Wednesday night’s Round of 32 clash in this year’s edition of the tournament.
Back then, the host nation had already exceeded expectations just to reach the knockout round. The ‘94 USMNT were a ragtag band of youngsters and journeymen compared to the current bunch.
With no top-flight domestic league at the time and precious few opportunities for US players abroad, most of the squad were signed to full-time contracts with the U.S. Soccer Federation and ensconced for months at a residency camp in Mission Viejo, California. The 2-1 upset of Colombia that booked their tickets to the knockout phase shocked the planet.
“We were a bunch of college kids who were hungry for anybody to take a chance on us,” recalled future Colorado Rapids legend Marcelo Balboa to MLSsoccer.com last month. “I'd never played a professional game in my life.
“We did what nobody thought we would ever do, and that's beat Colombia and get out of the group.”
More than 13 million television viewers tuned in to watch these plucky Yanks face off against mighty Brazil on the Fourth of July, a USMNT ratings record at the time and for many years one of the largest soccer broadcast audiences in the nation’s history.
Birth of a league
The on-field outcome was quite different from Wednesday’s. Brazil controlled the match despite a red card to Leonardo – who’d cracked US star Tab Ramos’ temple with a vicious elbow — which rendered them shorthanded for the entire second half, and eventually defeated the Yanks 1-0 via a Bebeto goal, then forged on to win the whole thing, their fourth World Cup title.
That US team’s legacy spanned far beyond, though: 11 of the 13 players who took part in that match went on to star in Major League Soccer, the founding of which was an explicit mandate of the tournament. The event’s massive, spirited crowds showed everyone, from FIFA on down, that the US — long seen as a soccer backwater – had passionate fans of the sport, and millions more who were curious about it.
“When I grew up, and how we grew up, we didn’t have access to soccer in the world,” MLS and USMNT icon Landon Donovan, who was 12 at the time, said in a panel discussion at Sports Business Journal's ‘Business of Soccer’ event in March. “It wasn’t on TV, different from [today] where it's on TV all the time. So my first introduction to soccer in a real way was the 1994 World Cup.
“Prior to that, soccer as I knew it was playing with my AYSO team or my club team. I had no idea that soccer existed beyond that. I went to a game at the Rose Bowl, Argentina vs. Romania in the knockouts, and it opened my eyes for the first time. It blew my mind that this many people cared about it, that these fans were this passionate about it.”
Attendance records shattered
USA ‘94 set attendance and ratings records galore, some of which stand to this day – or are being freshly eclipsed by North America ‘26, an event with twice as many teams and broader, deeper relevance across the board. That starts with, but is not limited to, the three co-host nations, all of whom are filling huge, mostly NFL-scaled stadia, smashing viewership milestones, packing watch parties and other signposts of interest.
That historic audience for Brazil-USMNT 32 summers ago? Wednesday’s gutsy win over Bosnia and Herzegovina nearly tripled it across FOX, Telemundo and Peacock – one of the country’s most-watched events of the year, on par with the NFL playoffs and the State of the Union address. The Yanks appear to be charming new followers and pushing deeper into the American mainstream in real time, and so is the wider tournament as a whole.
A love affair
“I've been telling everybody since we got this bid in 2018 that this country is going to turn out, and is going to show the rest of the world how we believe in the sport,” MLS commissioner Don Garber told reporters at the USMNT’s 2-0 Group D win over Australia in Seattle last month, one of several sold-out World Cup matches he’s attended.
“I've been traveling since the opening game, including running around here today, and to see crowds and crowds and crowds of people, whether it's a US game or it's a Brazil game or it's a Canada match yesterday — we really love this game. And I think we're leading the world, and showing them what this part of the world can do to be part of the conversation, and I'm emotional and pleased to see what I've been seeing the last couple of days.”
If ‘94 was a proper introduction, ‘26 is something akin to a love affair—a difference in magnitude, and hopefully a step up to a deeper relationship with soccer. Back then the sport sought survival, and the USMNT pursued the basics: acknowledgment, awareness, respect.
Now, the home team are a force to be reckoned with, carrying real aspirations into Monday’s Round of 16 clash vs. Belgium (8 pm ET | FOX, Telemundo, Peacock) in Seattle, while the other 47 teams have enjoyed their own array of North American adventures.
Take the beautiful, unexpected romance between Algeria and little Lawrence, Kansas, for example. Or the wave of support for inspiring underdogs like Haiti, Curaçao and Cape Verde. Or the party atmospheres that swept up bystanders and opponents alike around the likes of Scotland, Colombia and Mexico.
Building momentum
“Everyone knows in the back of our minds what this could do for this country,” said attacking midfielder and New York City FC academy product Gio Reyna, whose father Claudio was the youngest member of the ‘94 squad, last week.
“We feel the country rallying around us, we see the momentum it's bringing to the sport in this country just through the group stage, so we also understand if we make a nice run in the tournament, what it could really do for the sport.”
As one who’s been around long enough to see the full spectrum – he earned his first USMNT cap in 1988 — Balboa laughs when asked to compare then and now. Because really, there is no comparison.
One simple data point: The ‘denim kits,’ those famously bold star-spangled jerseys the US wore in the ‘94 group stage? With adidas having re-released a replica line earlier this year, you stand a much better chance of copping one today than back then.
“We didn't have five-star hotels, we didn't get charter [flights],” said Balboa with a chuckle, noting that US stars are now playing vital roles at global powerhouses like AC Milan, Juventus and Club América, a far cry from those basic dorms and long runs on the beach in Mission Viejo.
“You got two pairs of shoes, and you couldn't give your uniform away — because we only had three games, and we had three uniforms, so you couldn't give them away. So it's just nice to still be alive and see how much soccer's changed and grown in this country.”
Today Richard Motzkin is one of the leading agents in world soccer, representing a long list of elite players, past and present, from across the US and beyond. Sitting alongside Donovan at ‘Business of Soccer’ in Atlanta, he dropped some then-and-now figures that drive home the point.
“When I worked at U.S. Soccer as a general counsel in ‘94, our annual budget was $3 million, and we were in the red, and we were barely hanging on,” Motzkin noted. “I think now it's going to be probably close to $400 million, and you look at that, that's 100x money in 32 years — I mean, pretty, pretty good for everyone.”
The sport’s evolution is such that the USMNT began their final pre-World Cup preparations at the federation’s state-of-the-art new National Training Center in Georgia, a $250 million, 200-acre facility named after key donor and Atlanta United owner Arthur Blank, offering 17 fields, workspaces for some 350 employees and hundreds of thousands of square feet for the various needs of all 27 US national teams.
Meanwhile, Garber notes that just since FIFA selected the North America ‘26 bid eight years ago, MLS has added seven member teams, nine new stadiums, the MLS NEXT academy league, the U22 Initiative to recruit top young talent and a long and growing list of marquee international signings.
And, perhaps most influentially of all, reigning World Cup and MLS Cup holder and eight-time Ballon d'Or winner Lionel Messi, whose star power and enduring excellence has made Argentina perhaps the hottest ticket of the summer.
“All of that was the lead-up,” Garber said, “and now we've got to continue that momentum.”
Beyond the five league venues hosting World Cup matches, MLS clubs are holding watch parties, connecting with fans, advertising their product – which includes a record number of World Cup players – and gathering data that will help them guide tournament viewers towards their local teams.
Best yet to come
Three days before the World Cup final, MLS will resume its 2026 campaign with some of its most compelling matchups, including Seattle vs. Portland, Montréal vs. Toronto and LA Galaxy vs. LAFC, with an eye towards introducing the World Cup lovers and soccer-curious to the offerings in their own backyard.
If ‘94 planted the seeds for MLS and the vibrant culture around the sport we see today, no one’s quite sure yet just how far and wide the reverberations from what we’re witnessing in ‘26 will ring out.
“We're much further ahead in the way we host, and we have quality stadiums and fields; we didn't have that in ‘94,” San Jose Earthquakes boss and former USMNT head coach Bruce Arena said on Thursday as his club hosted the national team.
“This World Cup has almost been perfect. The stadiums are tremendous, the crowds are tremendous. It's probably the best World Cup in the history of World Cups, in my opinion, and I think you're going to see only better things as they continue to move forward.”
