The 1994 World Cup intended to make a dent in a country where “soccer” barely registered. While the impact remains subject, football’s global festival shone a light on America’s anxieties in the early 1990s – about immigration, identity, politics, and its place in the post–Cold War world.
Europeans scoffed at holding the tournament in the game’s backwater. It was like “holding a skiing competition in the Sahara,” London’s Independent wrote. Some in the American press tended to agree, joking, “Hating soccer is more American than mom’s apple pie.”
The quips spoke to a real discomfort: soccer was seen by many as foreign, suburban, even unpatriotic. But once the matches began, the fault lines of American politics came rushing in.
Immigration on the pitch
Pasadena’s Rose Bowl became the symbolic center. In a June warm-up between the U.S. and Mexico, the stands were filled with Mexican flags.
For local officials, it was a celebration; for conservative politicians, it became evidence of a country losing control of its borders. That summer’s images fed directly into the debate over California’s Proposition 187, the ballot measure aimed at stripping undocumented immigrants of public services. When the initiative passed later in the year, supporters pointed to those same flags as proof of a cultural invasion. Courts later blocked the measure.
The irony, of course, was in the innate hodgepodge of Americanness. Even the U.S. roster reflected that story, with key players like Tab Ramos and Fernando Clavijo born in Uruguay, Earnie Stewart born in the Netherlands, and Thomas Dooley raised in Germany — a team built from America’s immigrant roots.
The World Cup also stirred anxieties about identity. Former congressman Jack Kemp dismissed soccer as a “European socialist sport,” contrasting it with the supposed rugged individualism of American football. Right-wing radio mocked the game relentlessly, a far cry from Trump’s love of the “beautiful” game today.
Yet stadiums from New Jersey to California were full, fueled by immigrant communities and youth soccer families who embraced the chance to see the world’s game up close. Tension arose: was soccer a foreign intrusion, or a sign America was becoming more global?
Politics in the stands
At the opening match in Chicago, President Bill Clinton welcomed the world with the language of soft power. “The love of soccer is a universal language,” he told 67,000 at Soldier Field, slipping in greetings in Spanish and German.
The message was plain: the U.S. could be both host and bridge-builder in a world adjusting to life after the Cold War.
Security was another arena of politics. More than forty agencies coordinated one of the largest law enforcement operations ever attempted at an American sports event.
Fears of hooliganism never materialized; instead, visiting supporters turned city streets into parades of color. The contrasts were striking – Brazilian fans dancing in California suburbs while California politicians ran ads warning of immigrant “invasions.”
By the time Brazil lifted the trophy at the Rose Bowl, the World Cup had broken attendance records and turned a profit. It had also left America with contradictions. The month showed a country capable of welcoming the world, but also one wrestling with its own definition of belonging.
For immigrants, USA ’94 was a celebration of identity. For nativists, it was proof of encroachment. For the White House, it was diplomacy. And for millions of new fans, it was a first taste of the world’s game.
The slogan of USA ’94 was “Making Friends.” In reality, the tournament exposed divides as much as it built bridges. Yet it also planted seeds – Major League Soccer would launch two years later, and generations of kids who watched in 1994 grew up seeing soccer not as foreign, but as part of the American story.
