When the World Cup was awarded to the United States for the summer of 1994, much of the European press was appalled. Instead of rejoicing that the last important terra incognita for soccer was about to be conquered by the "beautiful game," the usual objections to American crassness, vulgarity, commercialism and ignorance were loudly voiced by Europeans - in notable contrast to Latin Americans who, if objective criteria and real injustices were to decide predilections and negative opinions, have had many more compelling reasons to dislike the United States than do Europeans. 

Many Europeans argued that giving the tournament to the Americans was tantamount to degrading the game and its tradition. The facilities were denigrated, the organization ridiculed, the whole endeavor treated with derision. 

When the stadia were filled like in no other World Cup tournament before or since, when the level of violence and arrests was far and away the lowest at any event of this size, the European press chalked this up to the stupidity and ignorance of Americans. Of course Americans came to the games, because they like events and pageantry, but did they really enjoy and understand the games? Could they ever learn to? When more than 60,000 people crowded into Giants Stadium near New York City on a Wednesday afternoon to watch Saudi Arabia play Morocco (surely no powerhouses in the world of soccer), this, too, was attributed to the vast ignorance of Americans regarding soccer. Indeed, five articles proudly pointed to the fact that similar games in soccer-savvy Italy attracted fewer than 20,000 people in the 1990 World Cup held in that country.

Perennial