World Cup USA 94

So far this has been the best world cup I have seen in my lifetime. Italia 90 was brilliant but the football was sh*te in all rounds. France 98 was decent but Ireland not being there took away any fondness I had for it and the final was an anticlimax. Whatever happened Brazil was strange. 2002 was decent. It seems hot climates produce exciting football for some reason.

Anyway thought I would start a reminiscing thread about USA 94. 

The venues:

New York/New Jersey


Boston:


Washington:


Orlando:


Dallas:



Detroit:


Chicago:


Los Angeles:


San Francisco:











Edited by Trap junior - 01 Jun 2015 at 12:43am

Group Stages in Brazil were the best I've seen so far 👍

90 was class cos of the buzz. 94 was brilliant the night we beat italy, after that it was a damp squib like euro 2012.

Edited by rolo - 01 Jun 2015 at 1:17am

What about last year, sid? It was a great tournament. I know the later stages lacked some of the drama of the groups and last sixteen but it was still a top tournament.

That's two or three matches out of sixty four, though. There were plenty of amazingly entertaining matches in that tournament. Even in the knockout stage, there was plenty of drama.

Brazil Chile
Costa Rica Greece
Belgium USA
Brazil Columbia
Brazil Germany

And that's leaving aside the late drama of other games like Netherlands Mexico, Germany Algeria and Argentina Switzerland. Sure, a few of the games could have been better, but as World Cups go, it was pretty damn good. Hell, the England Italy game was probably the best draw between sides knocked out in the group stages of a tournament as there has been.

2014 is certainly the best since 1986, even if it doesn't surpass it in your mind. I agree that the final maybe wasn't brilliant (certainly, the final in 1986 was superior) but you can't tar the entire tournament just because a handful of the games in the knockouts (and by no means all of them) could have been better.

It's the knockout stages that determine whether a tournament is a classic. The knockout stages in 2014 didn't deliver enough. The group stage in 2006 was good too but again the knockout stages didn't deliver that much bar Germany-Italy.

sid waddell wrote: It's the knockout stages that determine whether a tournament is a classic. The knockout stages in 2014 didn't deliver enough. The group stage in 2006 was good too but again the knockout stages didn't deliver that much bar Germany-Italy. Compare that to 1994 when all four quarter-finals were smashing matches altogether. Italy-Bulgaria was a good semi-final too. 1998 was reasonably decent, I suppose. I won't hear anything about 2002 though which was muck, as was 2010.

Exactly, even if the group stages produce plenty of good/great games, excitement and entertainment which was the case last summer, it's the knockout stages that people generally remember world cups for so, for me, France '98 ranks up there for having excitement and drama right the way through even though the final was an anti-climax, US '94 was a fairly close second (completely let down by an absolutely dire final)

Brazil was the most enjoyable month of football of my lifetime. Best world cup by a country mile

Giants Stadium was a stunning venue, really loved that day we beat Italy, shame we didn't reach any more highs in the other 3 games after that.