ATLANTA — The 1994 World Cup didn’t swing by Atlanta. Nine U.S. cities — New York, L.A., D.C., San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Orlando, Detroit — got games. We did not. It was no great loss.

That World Cup set records for attendance, but the event itself stirs no fond memories. The final ended when Roberto Baggio — the Divine Ponytail — sent his penalty into the Rose Bowl stands. It remains the only title match to end without an actual goal. Highlights from ‘94, such as they were, summon only a disconnect: Though the World Cup came to us, we weren’t sure what to make of it.

Come 2026, we’ll know what to make of it.

The 2024 Copa America — not the World Cup, but this hemisphere’s biggest quadrennial event — opened in Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Thursday. Attendance was 70,564. Argentina, the reigning world champ, beat Canada 2-nil. Lionel Messi didn’t manage a goal, though he could have had several. In the gracious way of big-time soccer, Argentina blamed the halting performance on newly installed grass.

Soccer-wise, this wasn’t the stadium’s first rodeo. Atlanta United has been playing in MBS to MLS’ biggest crowds since 2017. (United plays on artificial turf. Maybe that’s why it hasn’t won a home game since March. Though it did beat Messi’s Inter Miami 3-1 on the road.)

The U.S. national team will play Panama here on June 27. That’ll be it for Atlanta and Copa 2024. The 2026 World Cup will see eight games, a semifinal included, staged here.

Come 2026, the U.S. will be ready in a way it wasn’t in 1994. MLS wasn’t yet a thing then. (Its first season was in 1996.) Soccer wasn’t a fixture on any U.S. media outlet. Even a decade later, Euro 2004 — the rough equivalent of a Copa America — was available only on pay per view. We contrast that with Friday’s basic cable schedule:

— Noon EDT: Poland-Austria, FS1.

— 3 p.m.: France-Netherlands, Fox.

— 8 p.m.: Peru-Chile, FS1.

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