USA '94 - the World Cup like no other: Diana Ross, Maradona - and OJ (2024)

Scott LeTellier has had to redecorate his bachelor pad over recent months. The 73-year-old remarried in October and his new wife Patsy doesn't quite share his tastes.

'It looks like a sports museum in here,' LeTellier explains. The exhibition has now shrunk but his walls remain a shrine to one summer. Pictures, posters, tickets - all originals. All from 1994.

LeTellier was a lawyer once. But 30 years ago, he was among the architects of a World Cup that broke records and brought soccer to the USA. He wrote the bid that swayed FIFA and helped change the face of sports in the States.

On Thursday, at Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium will host the opening game of Copa America.In two years' time, the World Cup will return to a soccer landscape transformed since that summer.

When Oprah Winfrey fell through a trapdoor andBill Clinton was left to burn. When Diana Ross missed a penalty and OJ Simpson drove players to insomnia. When a bridge collapsed and attendance records fell, too.

When USMNT hopefuls went through a 'reality show' and drunk Jagermeister with Metallica. When Diego Maradona failed a drugs test and some soccer was played, too.

'It was a strange, strange summer,' says Alexi Lalas. 'There was a real fear that we were going to get embarrassed.'

Shortly before the tournament, Lalas sat next to an elderly woman on a plane. He told her he was a soccer player. Her next two questions? 'What's your job?' And 'What do you do for money?'

Within weeks, Lalas had become the red-haired rock star of a team that defied its doubters. During a summer when soccer seared itself into American hearts and minds.

Sunil Gulati first got involved with US Soccer in the mid-1980s. They had a staff of around six back then and he was once asked to run an Under-17 training camp.

'We literally bought soccer balls at a retail store,' he recalls. 'We had sprinklers that went off... in the middle of training.'

Gulati told then-president of the US Soccer Federation, Werner Fricker: 'Your national team program is a mess.' He was asked to do something about it.

LeTellier's journey in soccer began in Cold War Germany. He was there on a church mission in 1974, when the World Cup was in town.

'I got a graduate-degree level of education in soccer,' he recalls. A decade on, LeTellier oversaw soccer for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

But that same year saw the collapse of the North American Soccer League, leaving a 'barren wasteland' in front of players: no professional league and few career prospects.

Lalas grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. He would juggle a ball 15 minutes away from the Pontiac Silverdome. In 1994, he walked out there to play in a World Cup.

After America failed with a late bid to host the 1986 World Cup, LeTellier argued that - rather than producing 'a glitzy American marketing presentation' - they needed to speak to the Swiss-based suits at FIFA.

'It was more of a bureaucratic document,' he explains, 'which I basically dictated in a two day non-stop session.'

A few tweaks and 130 pages later, the bid was formed. They hired a political campaign firm out of Washington DC. But their chances, LeTellier was told by FIFA, were around 10 per cent. Brazil was widely expected to beat the US and Morocco, only for its bid to 'implode' amid financial problems and infighting.

'The key moment came in '88 when FIFA announced they were changing the date of the decision,' Gulati recalls. 'They moved it to July 4… we thought that was a pretty good sign.' So it proved.

LeTellier was asked to pull the plug on his law firm and run the organizing committee. Soon he had mortgaged his house to keep the operation afloat.

'We literally had no money,' he says. Within three months, it's claimed, he was $110,000 in the red.

At this point, it remained a shoestring operation. 'We had only seven people,' LeTellier recalls. That had changed by the Gulati joined the organizing committee in late 1992, following a stint at the World Bank. But it remained a race against time.

Gulati would usually be in the office by 6am. He would leave around 9.20pm and order pizza in time for international calls from home. 'That's not a complaint,' he says. 'It was fantastic.'

For the players, those final two years turned into an exercise in survival. 'It was basically a reality show,' Lalas recalls.

With no professional league, it was time to improvise. A training camp was set up in California, where coach Bora Milutinovic put on a rolling audition. 'You would come in and hope that you lasted for the week,' Lalas says.

Thirty players would train twice a day, run on the beach, and travel around playing international fixtures. 'It was a boot camp,' Lalas says. 'They would churn them and burn them... a lot of players came in and out. I was fortunate enough to go through that gauntlet.'

At first players were housed in a hotel and paid only in meal tickets. Those who hung about would 'graduate' to a room in an apartment and perhaps a short-term contract. 'The pot of gold was being on that team in 94,' Lalas explains.

By June 17 1994, the hard work had been done - on and off the field. Before sport could take over, however, organizers needed to survive the opening ceremony in Chicago.

Oprah Winfrey was chosen to be MC. 'During the rehearsal, she had completely mangled (FIFA president) Joao Havelange's last name,' LeTellier recalls. 'So I went up to her and tried to explain.. she took umbrage at the fact that I was correcting her.'

And one of Oprah's aides took an earful. 'That's it! We're not mentioning any names!' she told them.

Not many people stuck to the strict, in fairness. During her performance, Diana Ross shanked a penalty from a few yards out. It missed but the goal still broke in half.

It was a comical gaffe but no one was hurt. Unlike when Oprah and singer-songwriter Jon Secada fell through the stage.

Organizers had arranged for dancers to perform and then disappear down a trapdoor. 'The last person down was supposed to close it,' LeTellier says. They didn't and soon Oprah and Secada tumbled down the stairs.

Up in the stands, meanwhile, a luxury suite had been reserved for President Bill and Hillary Clinton for the ceremony - and the opening game between Germany and Bolivia.

Instead Clinton chose to sit among the people with temperatures nearing 100 degrees. 'No hat, no sunblock, no protection. It was just a mess,' LeTellier says.

The only saving grace? Before long, another story had stolen the headlines. Over near Detroit, the US players were due up around 6am the following day for their first game against Switzerland.

But Lalas and Co struggled to sleep - OJ Simpson wasin the back of his friend’s white Bronco with a gun to his head. Hehad been accused of killing his ex-wife and her friend. He led police on a 60-mile chase that unfolded on national television.

'I remember turning to Brad Friedel, who was my roommate, and saying: "OJ is going to keep me up before the biggest game of my life",' Lalas recalls.

'You couldn't put the remote control down,' he adds. 'Then obviously we're talking about it at breakfast the next morning.'

The US drew with Switzerland - after a pre-match visit from Henry Kissinger - and then upset Colombia to reach the knockout stages. Lalas went out for dinner the following night; other diners stood up and cheered.

A few days later, however, Colombia defender Andres Escobar was shot dead back home. He had scored an own goal against the US.

'If we were able to lose that game and Andres was still here, we would gladly lose,' Lalas says.

The tournament also marked the end of Diego Maradona's World Cup career. The Argentina legend was thrown out of the tournament after testing positive for a banned stimulant.

'An embarrassment for him and an embarrassment for us,' says LeTellier, who was dragged into emergency meetings with FIFA in Dallas.

Argentina was beaten in the last 16 and the United States' tournament ended there, too. Lalas and Co lost to Brazil, who went on to lift the trophy at the Rose Bowl.

For the first time, the World Cup was settled via a penalty shootout, with Roberto Baggio following Ross' lead and missing the crucial spot kick.

It was a drab climax to a remarkable summer which smashed attendance records. The 52 games, from Pasadena to Washington DC, attracted an average of nearly 70,000 fans.

Somehow they avoided real catastrophe. In Stanford, a temporary bridge was created to carry the media to their seats. It collapsed. 'Fortunately, nobody was on it,' LeTellier says. Fortunately no one was hurt, either. So the party could continue.

Lalas hung out with Pele before the final. He drowned his sorrows, following defeat against Brazil, with shots of tequila and Jagermeister with Metallica.

There is a very good chance Lalas would have hung up his boots had he not been called up to that California boot camp. After the World Cup, the defender became the first American to play in Italy's Serie A.

Gulati went on to become president of US Soccer and, in 1996, Major League Soccer kicked off. Three decades on, Lionel Messi calls Miami home and the world is preparing to return to the United States.

'If that was the first half of the game,' Gulati says, 'if we could have the next 30 years look like this… I would take that in a heartbeat.'