USA no minnows 20 years on from return

On Saturday they take the field against England, in their Group C opener and no-one in the world would be overly surprised if they drew against one of the game's traditional powers.

"Soccer has grown so much in America," Marcelo Balboa, who came on as a sub in that mauling in Florence and featured in three World Cups, told Reuters.

"In 1990 we were a bunch of kids out of college who had a dream about playing in the World Cup - we were kids and reality slapped us right in the face.

"People had told us we would be physically strong and we walked out down the tunnel and saw a six foot five centre-forward and a six foot one forward. Our dream had come true and it scared the crap out of us," he said.

After a respectable 1-0 loss to Italy and then a 2-1 defeat to Austria, the Americans went home without a point - not that anyone seemed to notice.

"There was a huge reception at the airport," said Balboa with a grin, "I think it was my girlfriend and my college coach."

The official departure had hardly been much better - the team gathering with officials at an Italian restaurant in New York's Little Italy - very different treatment from the formal send-off the current team received at the White House from President Barack Obama.

But at least after that four decade long absence from the World Cup, the U.S. were back on the global stage and ready to start the climb towards the respectable position they now occupy.

FIFA's decision to let the U.S host the 1994 World Cup forced a rethink on how the game was being developed Stateside.

"Preparing for 1994, we didn't even have a professional league - not outdoor football anyway," Fernando Clavijo, 61-times U.S international, told Reuters.

"I remember playing on a Thursday night, indoors in St.Louis and then travelling on Friday to play a friendly in Brazil in front of 80,000 people," he said.

MLS BOOST

The creation of Major League Soccer, which began in 1996, helped create a steady supply of players to the national team and gave those footballers a chance to play regular professional football at last.

"If it wasn't for MLS where would Landon Donovan be? Where would Clint Dempsey be?" asks Balboa.

"Look at all these players who have had the opportunity because of MLS to develop their craft to live a life that they have dreamt of since being a kid of playing professional soccer in the United States and then going to Europe," he said.

Both Balboa and Clavijo, who have continued their involvement in the game in various roles, feel former coach, the much-travelled Serb Bora Milutinovic, does not get enough credit for the way he brought the U.S national team into the modern era.

"We were college kids playing against professionals and I think that is where U.S Soccer realised they needed to do something in order for us to compete and have a chance in 1994.

"They brought in Bora and he changed our mentality and showed us how we could beat teams a