The World Cup pressure on the 1994 USMNT was different than anything: Changed all our lives

World Cup pressure is always there.It was there for the U.S.men’s national team in 1994, the first time America served as the host country.And it is there for the 2026 team as the U.S.

serves as one of the host nations for the 23rd World Cup that begins this week.But the pressure was distinctly different for that 1994 team — for a lot of reasons.Those players were fighting for their soccer lives and bent on building a foundation for a sport that was niche in this country.The ’94 players were trying to avoid the ignominy of becoming the first host team in World Cup history to fail to get out of the group stage (South Africa in 2010 would become the first).The pressure on the current U.S.side is more about the here and the now: to not merely advance out of Group D, but to finish high in the group (first?) and advance well into the knockout rounds.The pressure on that 1994 team was more about the future of the sport in America.“We looked at it much more as an opportunity,’’ former U.S.

defender Alexi Lalas, one of the prominent members of that 1994 team and currently an analyst for Fox Sports, told The Post.“The summer of ’94 was a time to make a name for ourselves and to propel the sport forward in a positive way.

I’m talking to you today because of the summer of ’94.I live the power of what it can do for an individual.

There’s nothing better than a World Cup … except for a home World Cup.’’Lalas called that 1994 World Cup “an absolutely seminal moment in the history of American soccer, as was 1999 with the women’s World Cup a few years later.’’“That’s when things really, really changed for a lot of us,’’ Lalas said.“It was the first time we got any type of recognition, credibility, let alone respect.

For a lot of American soccer people and American soccer culture, it was the first time we were elevated above ground.It wasn’t a niche sport anymore.’’Had the U.S.

failed to get out of the group stage in 1994, the...