U.S. vs. Paraguay: Breaking down the challenges in World Cup opener

The first time a World Cup game was played in the U.S., the opening ceremony featured Oprah Winfrey tumbling off a stage and Diana Ross shanking a penalty shot several yards wide of the goal.

“At the time, it was a little bit of a panic,” said Alan Rothenberg, the man who organized that tournament. “But ultimately, once the competition started, it flowed nicely.”

So nicely that the 1994 World Cup remains the most successful in history, averaging crowds of 68,991 a match and earning a $50-million surplus for the host committee. Both figures are still records 32 years later.

The 1994 tournament also gave birth to Major League Soccer, the largest first-division league in the world, and endowed a foundation that has funded grassroots soccer development for more than a generation. It introduced the sport to a reluctant public that now ranks soccer ahead of baseball and hockey in popularity and it inspired kids like a 12-year-old Landon Donovan, who had never heard of the World Cup before attending a game at the Rose Bowl.

Donovan went on to play more World Cup games and score more World Cup goals than any American in history.

That’s the legacy this summer’s tournament will be chasing Friday, when the World Cup returns to the U.S. with the national team kicking off against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium.

“Of course we want to do well. We want the game to grow,” U.S. star Christian Pulisic said before training Thursday in Irvine. “I think it’s going growing already, no matter what happens, but of course we want to put on the best performance we can. We want to get Americans excited to watch this game.

“That’s obviously a big goal of ours, and of course, being successful would give that the best boost.”

With the U.S. sharing this World Cup with Mexico and Canada, the 39-day tournament will be the largest and most ambitious sporting event in history, one featuring 48 teams playing 104 games in 16 cities spread over three countries and four time zones. Seventy-eight of those games will take place in the U.S., including Friday’s opener in Inglewood and the July 19th final in East Rutherford, N.J.

Get it right, and the tournament could once again inspire a nation. Get it wrong, and it could stunt the growth of a game that was just beginning to find its place in the American sporting landscape.

At the center of that maelstrom are the 26 men who will be wearing the U.S. Soccer crest over their left breast. But that pressure, the players say, is something they’ve come to accept, even embrace.

“There’s nobody putting more expectation and more pressure on us than ourselves,” captain Tim Ream said. “And that’s the way that it should be.”

“This is a fantastic opportunity to be able to play in front of our country, in front of people we consider our family,” added forward Ricardo Pepi. “So the pressures, I see it more as an opportunity to be able to represent our country.”

Yet the stakes are too high, the moment too rare to be content with simply showing up.

“If they do something special, it could turn this country on its head,” said Marcelo Balboa, who played every minute of every U.S. game in the 1994 World Cup, helping the team reach the knockout rounds for the first time in more than four decades. “Imagine the United States reaching a quarterfinal and playing Argentina or Brazil in our own country.

“It would flip people’s minds on how to look at soccer and an American player.”

That could be a tall order for a U.S. team that has made the quarterfinals just once in the modern era. And with the tournament field expanding to 48 teams, an additional round has been added to the knockout stage, meaning the U.S. would likely need three wins to reach the final eight.

The U.S. has never won more than two games in a single World Cup — and they’ve won that many just once since 1930.

But then this team has been a project years in the making. Days after the Americans failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, U.S. Soccer blew up its aging, veteran roster, made former Galaxy assistant coach Dave Sarachan the interim manager, and tasked him with rebuilding the team.

In Sarachan’s 12 months as the caretaker coach, he gave a record 23 players their international debuts, including four — Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams, Tim Weah and Antonee Robinson — who are key members of this World Cup roster. Thirteen players on this team were also on the roster four years ago, when the U.S. went to Qatar with its second-youngest squad in World Cup history, hoping to steel the players for a deep run at home this summer.

“Historically, teams that host the World Cup outperform their capabilities,” Donovan said. “We’ve seen it over and over again. The [U.S.] team is on a path towards a really, really good chance to succeed. They are absolutely capable of competing with any team in the world if they are playing at their best.

“The minimum, minimum, is to get through the group and into the round of 32. We should absolutely win a round-of-32 game. And then we see from there.”

There are certainly reasons to be optimistic. For starters there’s the group the U.S. was drawn into, one that includes Turkey and Australia, in addition to Paraguay, making it one of just two groups without a top 15 team, according to FIFA. (The U.S., at 17, is only team in the top 20.)

Then there’s the players. Pulisic, the team leader in goals and games played, and McKennie, the heart of the U.S. midfield, are both in their prime at 27. And 17 men on the roster — including Pulisic and McKennie — play for top-flight European clubs, making this the deepest U.S. team ever.

It’s also one of the most explosive U.S. World Cup teams, with five players who scored 10 or more times for their club teams this season.

But it’s a team with flaws as well.

Coach Mauricio Pochettino’s preferred tactical formation calls for three center backs and if Chris Richards, who is returning from two torn ankle ligaments, is not 100%, the U.S. would be without its defensive anchor, organizer and playmaker. That could be a problem since goalkeeper might be the Americans’ weakest leak.

In 1994, the U.S. team’s success, together with Rothenberg’s organizational skills, dramatically changed the direction of soccer in this nation and left a legacy that is still being felt.

This team and this tournament can have an equally dramatic impact. The next six weeks will determine if they’ll succeed.

“The whistle will blow to end it and the circus will leave town. But what’s the legacy?” asked Alexi Lalas, whose shock of red hair and matching Van Dyke made him the face of the 1994 team. “America is desperate to celebrate America. And certainly on the 250th birthday, there’s a lot of stars aligning this summer.

“If they are able to harness all of that, they can experience something the likes of which they will never forget. Something completely unique and something special.”

If not, it will be the biggest miss since Diana Ross shanked her try from the penalty spot.