Marcelo Balboa: World Cup 1994, the “traveling circus” that changed soccer

“I’d never in my life dreamt that I would play in a World Cup at home. Who would even think of giving the United States a World Cup? Back then, we were not a soccer country.”

The 1994 World Cup was a landmark event for soccer in the United States, catapulting the sport into the national spotlight for the first time and transforming American players into global stars. But for many members of the US squad the story of World Cup 1994 begins in the modest surroundings of Mission Viejo, a small commuter town in Southern California. It was there, in early 1993, that a group of out-of-work players came together and set about preparing to take on the world.

One of those players was Marcelo Balboa, a college soccer star of Argentine descent who would go on to make 127 appearances for the US men’s national team. Balboa was a part of the group brought together by enigmatic head coach Bora Milutinović, who was tasked with preparing the US team for a home World Cup.

Now retired, Balboa is a prominent figure on Apple TV’s MLS coverage. With the World Cup returning to the States this summer, Balboa sat down with AS USA to look back at the “traveling circus” that made history for American soccer.

‘No one else would give us a contract’

Balboa’s soccer journey is an uniquely American one. His father, Luis, had been a professional in Argentina and Marcelo played throughout his childhood in California before embarking on a successful college soccer career. While playing for San Diego State University in 1988 Balboa Jr was named a First Team All-American and he earned his first call-up for the senior national team that same year. He played in all three games for USMNT at the 1990 World Cup in Italy and, aged 22, was ready for a big move overseas. But it wasn’t to be.

Balboa tells AS USA: “It was difficult. I left college and played in the 1990 World Cup. After the World Cup we thought that maybe some doors would open for us, but they didn’t. Nobody wanted to take a chance with an American in the 90s.”

That left players, and the US Soccer Federation (USSF), with a major problem. The United States would not have a proper professional league until the introduction of MLS in 1996 and there were no obvious routes to high-level soccer for the vast majority of young Americans. Recognizing that many USMNT players were without professional clubs, the USSF decided to create one of their own. And so, in 1993, the federation brought together a group of World Cup hopefuls in Mission Viejo, handed them professional contracts, and told them to start training.

“I was playing in an amateur league in ’91 and ’92 here in the United States. Then the national team decided to give us full-time contracts, so we trained almost as a club team for two years,” Balboa explains. “No one else was going to give us a contract. No one else was going to ask us to train every day. So when US Soccer did it we knew the commitment that they were making.”

“All of us did anything and everything that we could to make the team because we knew what a special moment it would be to represent your country in a World Cup at home.”

USMNT on the road

With 18 months to prepare for the biggest tournament of their lives, players lived, trained and ate alongside one another every day. Milutinović was a tough task-master, implementing twice-daily training sessions and lining up games against dozens of teams to ensure that players were match-ready. It was, in Balboa’s own words, a “traveling circus” as the American federation searched desperately for international opposition. “We would travel to any part of the world, from Saudi Arabia, to China, to Turkey, to Japan, Korea… We went all over the place finding games, trying to make sure that we were ready for the World Cup."

What followed was a grueling schedule of international friendlies, with Balboa’s teammate Tony Meola later saying that he counted 250 travel days in a single year. There were some successes, including a 2-0 win over a strong England team in June 1993. But there were also some low moments, like a home defeat to Iceland in front of 3,017 people less than two months out from the 1994 World Cup. But whatever the on-field performances, the Mission Viejo experience also helped to build a sense of camaraderie as the group prepared to shoulder the weight of an expectant nation at a home World Cup.

“We lived together in three apartment complexes and we saw each other every day. We went out for lunch, did dinner together, did everything as a group. I think that was part of the point of living together, to get us to bond as a group.”

“It could be frustrating, we would sometimes train for two or three weeks without a game. But we knew what the end goal was; to make the 1994 team. And we knew that if we did something special those doors would finally open. Not just for us, but for the next generations of American players.”

Amateurs at the World Cup

The Mission Viejo experiment ensured that players like Balboa arrived at the World Cup with more international experience than many top professionals get in their entire career. Despite having never signed professional terms with a club, Balboa had racked up 88 senior caps ahead of the 1994 World Cup and had built a confidence in both himself and his teammates.

Alongside a handful of Europe-based additions - Tab Ramos of Real Betis, John Harkes of Derby County - it was the domestic players who formed the spine of the team in 1994. A draw against Switzerland and a shock victory over Colombia ensured that the US advanced from the group stage, before being beaten by eventual winners Brazil in the knockout rounds. It was the team’s best World Cup performance since 1930 and it proved the value of the Mission Viejo training camp.

Balboa explains: “In ’94 the back four of Fernando [Clavijo], Alexi [Lalas], myself and [Paul] Caligiuri didn’t have a club team. We didn’t play professional soccer, we had just played for the national team for two years. Then there’s Tony Meola and Mike Sorber. So that’s six of the 11 players that beat Colombia had never played a professional soccer game, except for with the national team. That showed that everything that we did for those two years paid off.”

Thankfully for Balboa it also paid off for him personally. The team’s success at the 1994 World Cup brought offers from overseas and he signed with Mexican giants Club León, his first professional club, just two months shy of his 27th birthday. He spent two years in Liga MX before returning to the US to join the Colorado Rapids for the inaugural season of MLS in 1996. Balboa scored the first-ever Rapids goal and went on to play six seasons with Colorado, earning a spot in the MLS 10th Anniversary Team and the National Soccer Hall of Fame.

Changing expectations for US soccer

For the players involved, World Cup 1994 was a watershed moment for both their careers and their lives. Balboa recalls that, ahead of the tournament, the Mission Viejo group had spent a day at Disney Land, wandering around the park in complete anonymity. They returned a few months after the World Cup and found that they were swamped by fans, forcing park security to step in and escort them through the crowds. In Balboa’s words: “It changed our lives in a big way.”

Was it inevitable? The United States is a sports-obsessed nation and soccer is the world’s most popular sport. Surely the game was always destined to be a hit with American fans? Balboa thinks not, pointing to the importance of that unlikely win over Colombia and the sense of belief that it gave to the country.

“If we had lost to Colombia then we don’t get out of the group, and I think there would be a different outlook for soccer right now. We’re now 32 years past that World Cup and people still talk about the USA beating Colombia, that’s how big of an impact that game had on soccer here in the United States.”

“We always wanted that pressure - that you have in Europe, in South America - of having to win and having the pressure be on us. And I think we’re finally there. The fans, the journalists, everyone is finally holding the US up to a certain standard. Which is what we really wanted, all those years ago.”

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