USA 1994: Baggio's penalty, the elbow on Luis Enrique and Andrés Escobar's death

FIFA took a gamble bringing the World Cup to a country where football barely mattered to anyone. It worked at the box office — no World Cup has ever drawn bigger crowds, before or since — but everything else felt weird: midday kickoffs for European television, 40-degree heat, and a tournament that generated more headlines off the pitch than on it.

Tassotti's elbow

Let's start with what still stings here in Spain. Quarter-final, 9 July, Foxboro, Boston. Spain 1-2 Italy, and in the 88th minute, with the ball nowhere near play, Italian defender Mauro Tassotti threw an elbow straight into Luis Enrique's face in the penalty area. He broke his nose. Luis Enrique got up with blood all over his face.

The Hungarian referee didn't call anything. No penalty, no foul. And Spain went home.

What happened next matters: FIFA reviewed the footage and banned Tassotti for eight matches, the longest suspension ever handed out to a player at a World Cup. In other words: they officially acknowledged what had happened, but only when it was too late.

Andrés Escobar

Colombia arrived in the United States as one of the favourites: they'd just hammered Argentina 5-0 in Buenos Aires in qualifying and Pelé had singled them out as title contenders.

They crashed out immediately. In their second game, against the United States, centre-back Andrés Escobar tried to cut out a cross and scored an own goal. Colombia lost 2-1 and were eliminated.

On 2 July 1994, ten days later, Escobar was shot in the car park of a bar in Medellín. He died at 27 years old. His murder shocked the football world and all of Colombia; over a hundred thousand people attended his funeral.

This is the hardest story in this entire series and deserves to be told carefully, because it's often told wrong. Details below, in the documented facts section.

Maradona, sent off

Maradona arrived at his fourth World Cup aged 33 and in form. He scored against Greece and celebrated with that wild-eyed celebration screaming at the camera — another image that went around the world.

After the game against Nigeria, he tested positive for ephedrine and was thrown out of the tournament. He always maintained it came from a supplement they gave him and he didn't know what was in it. His quote from those days is one that stayed with him forever: "they cut off my legs".

Argentina, which had started like a steamroller, fell apart and crashed out in the round of 16.

The most boring final

17 July, Rose Bowl in Pasadena, 94,194 people and hellish midday heat. Brazil 0-0 Italy after 120 minutes. It's the only World Cup final ever to end without a goal.

And it was decided by the first penalty shootout in World Cup final history. Baresi, Massaro and finally Roberto Baggio all missed — Baggio sent his over the bar. The photo of Baggio from behind, hands on hips and head bowed, is one of sport's most iconic images.

Brazil won their fourth World Cup, twenty-four years after Pelé's. Romário was the tournament's best player, and his celebration with Bebeto rocking an imaginary baby — Bebeto had just become a father — became the most copied celebration in history.

What lasted

Two records remain standing. First: Russian Oleg Salenko scored five goals in a single match, against Cameroon, something no one else has done in a World Cup — and he finished as joint top scorer with Stoichkov, with six, despite Russia not making it out of the group stage. Second: in that same match, Roger Milla scored at 42 years old and remains the oldest goalscorer in World Cup history.

And there was a rule change that shaped football ever since: they introduced the three points for a win, so that no team would be happy settling for a draw. It came after how dull the 1990 World Cup had been.