WI: The USA doesn't win hosting rights for the 94 Football World Cup?

There are some interesting conditions as to what the US had to do in order to host the world cup. This included the introduction of a professional football league, this of course would become the MLS which started a year before the world cup (the NASL folded in 84 and would only restart in 25 years later in 2009).

Lets say either Morrocco or Brazil win hosting rights to the event instead and both beat out the US in voting (which is another question alltogether but we'll say dodgy FIFA business gets it through much like Qatar IOTL).

What happens

a) To the sport in the US in the short term
b) what does US soccer look like today, both on a national team standpoint and domestically. Does a professional domestic league exist and if so, how big would the league be now?
c) How does this affect maybe foreign players and the prospects of players going to the states and leagues outside of europe (such as Beckham and more recently Dos Santos and Giovinco etc).
d) What about the national team, do players still have a strong domestic league or will they be forced to move to europe in the hope of actually playing professionally.
e) What would grass roots football be like, would participation rates be still very high.
f) Do the U.S. become disheartened or do they go after 98, 02, 06 and beyond?
 
One thing thats for sure is that the MLS would not have been created, and likely soccer remains what it was before the MLS began to succeed.
 
It was inevitable that the United States would host the World Cup at some point as it was the biggest untapped market for Association Football, yes China is larger but the United States is a richer market.
The World Cup was held in France in 98, Japan and South Korea in 02, Germany in 06, South Africa in 10, and Brazil in 10, so most likely it would have been Brazil in 94.
The main advantage that the United States had was that it did not have to build any new stadiums and when the WC was played in the United States the experts were surprised that so many people bought tickets and it is still the most attended World Cup of all time.
As for soccer in the United States without the World Cup in 94, the national team would be dependent on a hodgepodge of players from European Leagues and college players.
It must be remembered that the United States qualified for the 90 World Cup on a fluke because Mexico was disqualified.
If the World Cup was not held in the United States in 94, the earliest I could see it being held would be 06 just as the 84 Los Angeles Olympics games showed that Americans would attend the soccer matches, the 96 Atlanta Olympics games soccer matches would be well attended.
 
It was inevitable that the United States would host the World Cup at some point as it was the biggest untapped market for Association Football, yes China is larger but the United States is a richer market.
The World Cup was held in France in 98, Japan and South Korea in 02, Germany in 06, South Africa in 10, and Brazil in 10, so most likely it would have been Brazil in 94.
The main advantage that the United States had was that it did not have to build any new stadiums and when the WC was played in the United States the experts were surprised that so many people bought tickets and it is still the most attended World Cup of all time.
As for soccer in the United States without the World Cup in 94, the national team would be dependent on a hodgepodge of players from European Leagues and college players.
It must be remembered that the United States qualified for the 90 World Cup on a fluke because Mexico was disqualified.
If the World Cup was not held in the United States in 94, the earliest I could see it being held would be 06 just as the 84 Los Angeles Olympics games showed that Americans would attend the soccer matches, the 96 Atlanta Olympics games soccer matches would be well attended.

so without 94, its probably a 2010 or 2014 U.S. world cup? Assuming Germany gets 2006 still.
 
so without 94, its probably a 2010 or 2014 U.S. world cup? Assuming Germany gets 2006 still.
I think that's a fairly big assumption. If Brazil get 1994, then the ability for Europe to alternate with the rest of the world ('90, '98, '06) is even less defensible when North America still hasn't had a tournament. I believe one of the reasons UEFA for away with it in otl is that the '94 and '02 cups were seen as developing markets. The next one was back to football land, to make sure the loyalists stayed loyal. No way that excuse flies in a Brazil '94 scenario.

If '98 and '02 aren't affected by butterflies, I see USA '06 as inevitable, providing they want it.
 
I think that's a fairly big assumption. If Brazil get 1994, then the ability for Europe to alternate with the rest of the world ('90, '98, '06) is even less defensible when North America still hasn't had a tournament. I believe one of the reasons UEFA for away with it in otl is that the '94 and '02 cups were seen as developing markets. The next one was back to football land, to make sure the loyalists stayed loyal. No way that excuse flies in a Brazil '94 scenario.

If '98 and '02 aren't affected by butterflies, I see USA '06 as inevitable, providing they want it.

How far back would a professional league (assuming it started in 05) be behind otl MLS. The A-League started around the same time and that is well behind the MLS in terms of teams (and the standard isn't as good).
 
as far as U.S. team success in the World Cup

The U.S. women won the "Women's World Championship" in China in 1991 (before it was even called the Women's World Cup!). So, hosting '94 was part of an upward trajectory, not the catalyst or the whole thing.

And since the U.S. men made the World Cup in 1990 for the first time in a long time, a similar argument can be made on the men's side, although so far a more modest trajectory. I heard someone argue seemingly convincingly that what's lacking in U.S. men's futbol is a serious developmental league for highly talented 15 to 18-year-olds. I don't feel I'm knowledgeable to really judge this argument for real.
 
as far as U.S. team success in the World Cup

The U.S. women won the "Women's World Championship" in China in 1991 (before it was even called the Women's World Cup!). So, hosting '94 was part of an upward trajectory, not the catalyst or the whole thing.

And since the U.S. men made the World Cup in 1990 for the first time in a long time, a similar argument can be made on the men's side, although so far a more modest trajectory. I heard someone argue seemingly convincingly that what's lacking in U.S. men's futbol is a serious developmental league for highly talented 15 to 18-year-olds. I don't feel I'm knowledgeable to really judge this argument for real.

That and in college soccer is a minor sport and it is not well funded. For football and basketball, you have the colleges acting as defacto developmental leagues and colleges along with the minor leagues are the developmental leagues for baseball and in some parts of the country college baseball is taken pretty seriously.
 
as far as U.S. team success in the World Cup
...
And since the U.S. men made the World Cup in 1990 for the first time in a long time, a similar argument can be made on the men's side, although so far a more modest trajectory. I heard someone argue seemingly convincingly that what's lacking in U.S. men's futbol is a serious developmental league for highly talented 15 to 18-year-olds. I don't feel I'm knowledgeable to really judge this argument for real.

Thanks for the notes on what u.s. men's soccer was like. I had a couple cousins who were big into soccer in the early 90s, but interesting Lee enough the younger of the two brothers was more into indoor soccer until that point when the World Cup happened. The youngest brother was more baseball and even tried American football for a year. Said Middle Brother actually played High School soccer with someone who I believe made the MLS so not as a major star or anything.

Anyway, back to indoor soccer, presuming of the u.s. men don't make it in 1990 or something, I wonder if we might see a branching off of indoor soccer as a totally different sport just like American football developed. It sounds like it would have been too late by The Point of Departure of the u.s. not hosting it in 1994. There was an indoor soccer league if I recall for a long while, in fact Cleveland actually got a championship in it in the long drought between 1964 and 2016. I am just a little biased by being in Northeast Ohio so I don't know if that was really a big enough thing nationally that it could have taken off and filled the niche that normal soccer has.
 
Thanks for the notes on what u.s. men's soccer was like. I had a couple cousins who were big into soccer in the early 90s, but interesting Lee enough the younger of the two brothers was more into indoor soccer until that point when the World Cup happened. The youngest brother was more baseball and even tried American football for a year. Said Middle Brother actually played High School soccer with someone who I believe made the MLS so not as a major star or anything.

Anyway, back to indoor soccer, presuming of the u.s. men don't make it in 1990 or something, I wonder if we might see a branching off of indoor soccer as a totally different sport just like American football developed. It sounds like it would have been too late by The Point of Departure of the u.s. not hosting it in 1994. There was an indoor soccer league if I recall for a long while, in fact Cleveland actually got a championship in it in the long drought between 1964 and 2016. I am just a little biased by being in Northeast Ohio so I don't know if that was really a big enough thing nationally that it could have taken off and filled the niche that normal soccer has.

When I was a kid in the early 1980s we had the Cleveland Force Indoor Soccer Team.
 
. . . For football and basketball, you have the colleges acting as defacto developmental leagues . . .
Our family knew a young woman years ago who got a college scholarship in judo. Meaning, there are some scholarships in more minor sports.

But the football programs at U.S. colleges just have so many scholarships available, and I think a big chunk of them are full-ride.
 
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When I was a kid in the early 1980s we had the Cleveland Force Indoor Soccer Team.
honest to gosh, I think a big problem Americans have is understanding the Offside Rule.

It helped my own understanding to put it in American football terms, that you have to run the ball in and not pass it in, which is true at the instant the ball is struck.

I was also helped by a discussion of a player who really pushed the envelope. Someone wrote about the chap, not only does he play 'off the shoulder,' he was born off the shoulder!
 
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