1993 U.S. Cup

The 1993 U.S. Cup was a United States Soccer Federation organized round robin tournament held in June 1993. The U.S. hosted Brazil, England and Germany. All three of those countries were playing in their only U.S. Cup. The U.S. Cup began as a four-team invitational tournament in 1992 and would be played each year until 2000, except for the World Cup years of 1994 and 1998. The team with the best record at the end of the cup was crowned the cup champion. This year, Germany went on to win the title.

This year’s cup had two interesting features. First, the final game of the cup, between Germany and England, took place in the Pontiac Silverdome, an indoor stadium. This was the first soccer game played indoors on grass and it served as a test for the upcoming 1994 World Cup to be held in the U.S. In that World Cup, several venues, such as the Silverdome, had complete roofs and the World Cup organizers wanted to test the feasibility of using grass on an indoor field. Finally, the U.S. Cup organizers had difficulty setting the dates for the various stadia as they had to compete with that summer’s Paul McCartney concert tour.