The 1994 World Cup transformed the domestic game in the US. MLS will hope a similar change can give the league a much-needed jolt<\/p>\n
In the thinking of the people who put them on, mega-events can never just be their own thing. They must leave a legacy, or, if possible, a Legacy. Remake the landscape; alter the course of history; change the whole world, if that isn\u2019t too much to ask.<\/p>\n
Most World Cups don\u2019t really leave much of one, once the dust has settled. Or if they do, it\u2019s a legacy of white elephant stadiums that burden the host nation for many years. The last World Cup in the United States, played in 1994, really did leave something tangible and positive behind: Major League Soccer, the creation of which was a condition for hosting the tournament.<\/p>\n
Leander Schaerlaeckens is the author of The Long Game: U.S. Men\u2019s Soccer and Its Savage, Four-Decade Journey to the Top, or Thereabouts, which is out now<\/a>. He teaches at Marist University.<\/em><\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 1994 World Cup transformed the domestic game in the US. MLS will hope a similar change can give the league a much-needed jolt In the thinking of the people who put them on, mega-events can never just be their own thing. They must leave a legacy, or, if possible, a Legacy. Remake the landscape; … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}