FIFA's decision in 1988 to hold the event in the United States over the bids of Morocco and Brazil surprised many considering the perception that the United States had a relative lack of soccer fans. Despite these misgivings, in terms of attendance the event was a rousing success. The average attendance of nearly 69,000 shattered a record that had stood since 1950. To this day, the total attendance for the final tournament of nearly 3.6 million remains the greatest in World Cup history, despite the expansion of the competition to 32 teams in 1998. The overall attendance record will not be broken until at least 2010.
The format of the competition stayed the same as in 1990: 24 teams qualified, divided into six groups of four. Sixteen teams would qualify for the knockout competition: six group winners, six second place finishers, and four best third place finishers. This was the last time this format was used, due to the expansion of the finals tournament from 1998 onwards. This World Cup was the first in which winners of group matches received three points for a victory instead of two.
The 1994 World Cup was hosted in the largest geographicalarea of all World Cup finals, in which the longest distances were traveled by its participants.
Although Russia was knocked out in the first stage of the competition, striker Oleg Salenko still managed to finish as the tournament's joint top scorer alongside Hristo Stoichkov with six goals. Salenko scored five of his six goals in a single match, a World Cup record.
The official videogame for the 1994 World Cup was designed by U.S. Gold.
Firsts
Greece, Nigeria, Russia and Saudi Arabia played in the World Cup finals for the first time. The team representing Russia is considered by FIFA to be distinct from the one which represented the USSR from 1958-1990. Germany competed in the World Cup finals under the name Germany for the first time since 1938. FIFA considers the team representing Germany to be the successor to the team which competed under the name West Germany ten times from 1954-1990, which itself was the successor to the team which competed under the name Germany in 1934 and 1938.
There were three teams representing Africa, a record at the time.
The United States-Switzerland match in the Pontiac Silverdome was the first to be played indoors in World Cup history: grass was grown by Michigan State University and was the first time since 1965 that natural turf was used in an indoor stadium in the United States.
Brazil became the first country to win the World Cup four times.
Oleg Salenko of Russia became the first player to score 5 goals in a single World Cup finals game in his country's group stage win over Cameroon. Roger Milla who scored a goal for Cameroon in the same match became the oldest player to score a goal in world cups. He was 42.
Gianluca Pagliuca of Italy became the first goalkeeper to be sent off in a World Cup Finals match, dismissed for handling outside his area against Norway.
This was the first, and so far the only time, that a British team has not been in the World Cup since they started to participate in the tournament in 1950.
The finals were the first time FIFA decided to experiment with the style of jerseys worn by officials, foregoing the traditional black. They would choose between burgundy, yellow or white shirts depending on what was feasible to avoid a clash of colours with the two competing teams. This custom has since been followed, but with black shirts added as an option later.
The finals were also the first time that players had their names printed in the back of their jerseys, just like other sports did. This custom is also welcomed and followed ever since.
The 1994 World Cup revolutionized television coverage of sports in the USA through the sponsored scoreboard and game clock that were constantly shown on screen throughout the game. Television sports coverage in the US had long been dependent upon commercial breaks; a feature suitable for sports such as baseball, basketball and American football (which all have breaks in the action), but long considered incompatible with soccer, due to the long stretches of uninterrupted play. Variations on it were quickly incorporated into virtually every team sports broadcast by the decade's end.
The 1994 World Cup was the first FIFA World Cup to value a win at 3 points, replacing the previous "2 for a win, 1 for a draw" points system. This was done at the request of the United States Soccer Federation, to emulate the points system used by much of the world at that time.
FIFA released an official documentary for this World Cup, Two Billion Hearts directed by the Brazilian Murilo Salles.
The 1994 FIFA World Cup final match was the first to be decided on a penalty shoot-out with no goals being scored either in regular time or in extra time. It was the 4th final match to go into extra time at the time (2nd for Italy, the first being that of 1938), 5th as of July 9, 2006 (between Italy and France).
