A documentary that charts USA’s efforts to build and prep a team capable of challenging on home soil in the ’94 World Cup
Football, which shall henceforth be referred to as soccer for clarity’s sake, is on much better footing Stateside than it was even just a few years ago. Major League Soccer (MLS) has evolved, both naturally and strategically since its launch in 1996, with perhaps the biggest push for visibility and legitimacy coming over the past decade, with the league emboldened by a incoming stream of worldwide talent (think Beckham, Ibrahimović, Müller, and now Messi). Granted, many of them are looking for one final pay day, but what is clear is that there is both determination and concerted effort to awaken interest in the world’s most popular sport.
The same could be said as far back as the early nineties, when fates conspired to award the hosting duties for the 1994 FIFA World Cup to the United States. A country with almost no professional soccer infrastructure of its own. No domestic professional league, limited grassroots support, and a national team with little talent or cohesion. The event offered an opportunity to connect the nation to a sport it had little resonance with, the first concern was how to avoid complete embarrassment on the world’s biggest stage, and on home turf no less.
For viewers raised in countries where football is embedded in everyday life, the premise itself feels unusual. As a Brit, raised in a culture where the sport functions as both a unifying and polarizing force within communities and across the nation, the idea of a World Cup host still trying to figure out the basics of its football identity is striking. In 1994, however, that was precisely the situation in the United States. The tournament arrived in the shadow of the team’s poor performance at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, where the Americans were heavily beaten and quickly eliminated.
Summer of ’94 tells the improbable story of the unconventional attempt to build a competitive team from scratch. Under head coach Bora Milutinović, previously known for guiding underdog nations to unlikely World Cup success, the U.S. federation launched a bold experiment, setting up a full-time residency camp designed to identify and train the country’s best players. Around 40 athletes moved into a training facility in Southern California, where they would live, train, and compete for the places on the national team roster for up to eighteen months, without any guarantee of making the final squad of 22 players.
Many of those featured in the documentary, such as Alexi Lalas, Cobi Jones, and Tony Meola, came from unconventional pathways. Without a professional league to draw from, the squad was assembled from college programs, amateur leagues, and a handful of Americans playing abroad. The players themselves describe the uncertainty of the arrangement, careers and personal lives were effectively placed on hold in pursuit of a national team spot that might never materialize. What makes Summer of ’94 particularly engaging is the way it captures this period through intimate and often humorous footage recorded by the players themselves. Armed with camcorders, they documented daily life in the camp, training sessions, road trips, and the awkward media attention that surrounded their unusual project. At times the documentary almost resembles an early reality television experiment, with news crews touring the facility and talk shows inviting players to promote the upcoming tournament. The tone is occasionally tongue-in-cheek, acknowledging both the skepticism surrounding soccer in America and the unlikely nature of the team’s ambitions.
The documentary also highlights the personal and cultural dynamics within the squad. Players discuss their backgrounds, family support systems, and the different ways they encountered the sport in a country where soccer was still peripheral. Some reflect on the lack of visible role models for Black players in American soccer, while others speak about heritage and cultural connections to the game through immigrant communities. These stories illustrate how varied the pathways into the national team were during this formative period. At the center of the project stands Milutinović himself, a charismatic yet enigmatic coach whose methods sometimes left players uncertain. Language barriers and unpredictable squad decisions created tension within the camp, particularly as the roster gradually shrank and players were released. Yet the coach’s own story, shaped by personal loss and an itinerant career in international football, also suggests a protective, almost paternal approach to his squad.
When the tournament finally begins, the stakes shift dramatically. Drawn into a challenging group that includes the highly rated Colombian national team, widely tipped as potential champions, the United States enters the competition with modest expectations. What follows is one of the tournament’s most memorable upsets, as the Americans defeat Colombia in a match defined by a dramatic own goal that sends shockwaves through the competition. The result helps propel the host nation into the knockout stages for the first time since 1934.
Although the team ultimately exits the tournament against eventual champions Brazil, their performance carried lasting significance. The film argues that the tournament’s enormous viewership and the team’s unexpected competitiveness helped pave the way for the creation of Major League Soccer, which launched two years later and provided the professional foundation the sport had previously lacked. A legacy that resonates all the more right now as the USA, alongside Mexico and Canada, will serve as co-host of the ’26 World Cup.
If Summer of ’94 occasionally prioritizes nostalgia and personality over tactical insight, that choice seems deliberate. Directors Dave LaMattina and Chad Walker are less concerned with analyzing formations or match strategy than with capturing the chaotic, hopeful atmosphere surrounding a sporting experiment that few believed would succeed. In doing so, it offers a portrait not just of a team, but of a moment when the United States began to take soccer seriously.
Ultimately, the film’s greatest strength lies in its perspective from within the squad. Through archival footage and reflective interviews, the players recount how a loosely assembled group of athletes evolved into a cohesive team and, in the process, helped reshape the future of the sport in the United States. What began as an attempt simply not to embarrass the host nation became something far more significant, the foundation of modern American soccer.
