#1994-world-cup

#1994-world-cup

Alan Rothenberg has a story he wants to tell you. A lot of stories actually; enough to fill a book. So he wrote one. But that's not the first memorable work he's authored. As the man behind the 1984 L.A. Olympics soccer tournament and the 1994 World Cup, still the most successful in history, Rothenberg has arguably had more to do with writing the story of U.S. Soccer in the modern era than anyone.

The United States was chosen, the columnist George Vecsey wrote in the New York Times in 1994, because of all the money to be made here, not because of any soccer prowess. Our country has been rented as a giant stadium and hotel and television studio. Nobody could seriously doubt that. The USA had played in only two World Cups since the second world war and hadn't had a national professional league for a decade.