USA 1994. The Opening Ceremony at Soldier Field, Chicago.
The World Cup had come to America and it was a big show business affair, an opening ceremony that promised to be box office. As with every tournament and final, most football fans aren’t bothered about the opening or closing ceremonies, they just want to get to the action, but this opening ceremony sure lives long in the memory.
Oprah would also stumble on stage, and there would be performances by Daryl Hall and Jon Secada but it would be Diana Ross that would be remembered the most. An icon, one of the most famous and most successful singers of all time.
Ross emerges at one end of the pitch with a mic in hand. She’s surrounded by hundreds of dancers, all holding white discs and from above it creates the visual of an arrow pointing towards the goal. We know that America implemented 35-yard shootouts when games were drawn in the early days of MLS, and maybe they got the idea from Diana Ross in this opening ceremony set-piece.
“I’m coming out, I want the world to know!
I got to let it show
I’m coming out!
I want the world to know
I got to let it show”
She forgets to bring the mic to her lips for at least one of the lines, concentrating on the long jog from one end of the pitch to the other, making it clear that she’s miming. She reaches the penalty box, there’s a goalkeeper standing in her way.
She feints, stops, stutters (maybe this was the first stutter penalty that inspired all the missed stutter penalties at the 2026 World Cup), and fluffs her lines. The keeper dives, the ball flies wide, yet the goalposts split in half anyway, as scripted. Ross raises her arm in celebration and runs through to the elevated stage behind the goal where she sings a medley of hits.
It was not her most supreme moment, but she looked like she was enjoying herself.
The opening match of the tournament was as equally disappointing as the missed penalty in the opening ceremony, a Jurgen Klinsmann goal enough for a 1-0 victory for the reigning champions against Bolivia.
Roberto Baggio would miss his penalty in the World Cup final penalty shootout, against Brazil, a month later. A lovely bookend to the tournament. Two terrible penalties wide and high.
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