Sheffield, Rob. “Rage Against the Latrines.”Rolling
Stone820 (September 2, 1999): 52-55. This cover
story gives a detailed account of the three days of
turmoil and problems with fires, nudity, and vio-
lence at Woodstock 1999.
Watson, Albert.Woodstock 94: Three More Days of Peace
and Music.New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
Beautiful pictorial record, including portraits of
performers, audience, and other scenes from the
festival. Afterword by the concert producers.
Alice Myers
See also Alternative rock; Burning Man festivals;
Grunge music; Hip-hop and rap music; Internet;
Lollapalooza; Marilyn Manson; Metallica; Morissette,
Alanis; Music; Nine Inch Nails; Tibetan Freedom
Concerts.
World Cup of 1994
The Event FIFA conquers a new frontier with
World Cup USA 1994
Date June 17-July 17, 1994
Place Chicago; Dallas; East Rutherford, New
Jersey; Foxboro, Massachusetts; Orlando,
Florida; Palo Alto and Pasadena, California;
Pontiac, Michigan; Washington, D.C.
In July of 1988, the Fédération Internationale de Football
Association (FIFA) shocked the soccer world when it chose
the United States to host the fifteenth World Cup in the sum-
mer of 1994. Despite the lengthy distances between match
sites and the perceived general apathy of the American pub-
lic in regard to international soccer, an initially skeptical
global community was eventually converted by the overall
success of the tournament.
World Cup USA 1994 set a total attendance record—
3.6 million spectators gathered to see fifty-two
matches in nine different cities—and the ground-
swell of excitement generated by FIFA’s expansion
into untapped soccer territory overshadowed the te-
pidity of the final match between Italy and Brazil,
considered one of the weakest in the tournament’s
history.
World Cup Firsts Though the 1994 event was not
the first World Cup final played in North America—
that distinction belongs to Mexico in 1970—it did
feature a number of other first-time occurrences.
The 1994 tournament was the first to award three
points to winners of group play matches, ostensibly
to avoid the general malaise of the 1990 tournament
in which teams often played for ties. Also, the first in-
door World Cup game, in which Team USA faced
Switzerland, was played at the Pontiac Silverdome,
outside of Detroit, Michigan. Greece, Nigeria, and
Saudi Arabia were first-time qualifiers, and, with the
fall of the Iron Curtain, the Russian team sup-
planted the Soviet Union team. Perhaps the most
important “first” signaled the conclusion of the tour-
nament: Brazil met Italy in the final match and
the winner was crowned the first four-time World
Cup champion.The Tragedy of Fanaticism Each of the twenty-four
qualifying teams had reason to celebrate its inclu-
sion in the World Cup final. Bolivia resurfaced after
a forty-year absence, Mexico fielded perhaps its fin-
est squad in Cup history, and defending-champion
West Germany reunited with its East German coun-
terparts to form Germany’s first post-Cold War na-
tional team. However, the United States and Colom-
bia—teams scheduled to meet in the second match
of group play—piqued the interest of spectators be-
cause of each team’s recent surge in international
visibility. The U.S. team, one of the thirteen teams to
play in the original World Cup in 1930, was neither
traditionally strong nor elite. However, in 1994, the
team, buoyed by home-field advantage and headed
by Tab Ramos and Marcelo Balboa, hoped to sur-
prise the soccer community.
Colombia entered the tournament as a favorite to
win the Cup—Pelé predicting as much. The team
had finished first in its South American qualifying
group, ahead of Argentina, whom they crushed 5-0.
Led by Carlos Valderrama, as famed for his creativity
with the soccer ball as for his moppish, tightly curled
blond-orange hair, Colombia lost 3-1 in its first game
to Romania and hoped to redeem its World Cup
chances against the Americans.
Andrés Escobar, a veteran Colombian defender,
made a mistake that cost the Colombians the game:
He deflected a pass from American John Harkes but
inadvertently struck it past his own goalie. The team
was devastated, eventually losing 2-0, and elimi-
nated. Unfortunately, the devastation caused by
Escobar’s mistake was inconsequential to the event
that it triggered: As he left a restaurant in MedellínThe Nineties in America World Cup of 1994 935