St. Paul
It was twenty years ago today that Paul Caliguiri struck the hyperbolically-named Shot Heard Round the World. This goal in Port of Spain gave the US men’s national soccer team a 1-0 win over Trinidad & Tobago and put the Americans into the World Cup for the first time in forty years:
American soccer fans, please look around you. All that you see would not be here had Caliguiri not scored that goal. The US doesn’t qualify for Italia ‘90, it’s possible we don’t host WC ‘94, it’s possible there’s no Major League Soccer…nothing.
Thank you, Mullet Brigade.
Tags: damn glad that happened, memories, soccer, US soccer
December 3rd, 2009 at 9:11 am
The USA bid site (http://www.gousabid.com/pages/its-in-our-dna) has the US being awarded the 94 WC on July 4, 1988, and the goal above scored on Nov 19, 1989.
FIFA has done stranger things than revoke a World Cup bid, but that timeline surprised me…
December 3rd, 2009 at 11:09 am
Yes, we WERE awarded the Cup prior to Caliguiri’s goal. That’s correct.
However, and it may be revisionist history, but the sentiment is that, had the US not qualified for the 1990 Cup, FIFA was going to pull ‘94 and say “Thanks, but we’ll be going elsewhere.”
Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know. But that’s why I said “It’s possible we don’t host WC ‘94.”