The Ultimate Guide to the World Cup That Changed Everything The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the ultimate cultural collision: the world's most passionate sport crashing into the American circus. Hosted by a country that barely knew the game, the tournament was a chaotic, commercially brilliant experiment. The American Summer of '94 unearths the wild, essential stories that defined that summer. Go behind the scenes of the political "Remortgaged Dream" that won the bid and relive the sheer audacity of the USMNT's "Denim Disaster" kit. The drama was instant and unrelenting, with unforgettable figures like Baggio, Romário, Stoichkov, and Ravelli dominating the pitch. The tournament delivered shocking controversy, including the tragic fallout from Escobar's "Own Goal" and the expulsion of Maradona by "The White Nurse." This is the definitive history of the World Cup that changed America, paving the way for the future of U.S. soccer and proving that chaos, commercialism, and pure drama could win the day. Welcome to the summer of '94. The World Cup was here, and nothing would ever be the same.