Can this USA team make a deep World Cup run?

LOS ANGELES — It’s been a long wait since the U.S. got to play host to the World Cup. Thirty-two years to be exact.

But times have changed and so has the World Cup. Unlike 1994, when the U.S. hosted the 24-team tournament and from it grew the game through the evolution of Major League Soccer, we don’t have exclusivity for this 48-team World Cup. We’re sharing it with Canada and Mexico, two countries that don’t exactly love us at the moment given the current resident in the White House.

And as I’ve watched our national team muddle its way to Friday’s opening group match against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium, or as FIFA refers to it, Los Angeles Stadium, I started to think how much better we seemed to be back in ’94. The U.S. has had few shining moments on the sport’s biggest stage, perhaps the biggest coming back in 1950 when a bunch of unknown guys, the majority coming from St. Louis, managed to beat England 1-0.

But that ’94 USA squad had talent and cohesion. It had a goaltender in Tony Meola who knew how the keep the ball out of the net. It had feisty defenders like Alexi Lalas and Marcelo Balboa. There were tough veterans in the midfield like John Harkes and Roy Wegerle and young legs from Cobi Jones and Tab Ramos. Up front, Eric Wynalda was doing some amazing things, like his late goal against Switzerland in the Pontiac Silverdome to give the USA a 1-1 draw in its opening group match.

And it was coached by Bora. Bora Milutinovic, a Serbian wizard who was hilarious to listen to even if you didn’t know what the hell he was saying half the time. But he knew what he was doing and his players responded. They beat Colombia 2-1 at the Rose Bowl, a match that would cost Colombian defender Andres Escobar his life weeks after the loss because he inadvertently put the ball in his own net.

Balboa was reminiscing Thursday on the eve of the USA’s opener and he’s hoping that the current squad will acquit itself well over these next few weeks and make a deep run.

“I think we’’ll find out what impresses us tomorrow or what doesn’t impress us after the game,” Balboa said. “Right now, you can’t compare a World Cup game to a friendly against Germany or Senegal because they just trained two days and you’re not looking to get anybody hurt.

“What impresses me about this team is they still found a way to get a result against Senegal and they played well against Germany. The concern? This is probably the first World Cup we’ve gone into that we’re questioning who the goalkeeper is going to be.

“Even now, we don’t know. We anticipate it being (Matt) Frees, But if you go back to the old days, you knew it was going to be Tony., You knew it was going to be Casey Keller. We knew it was going to be Brad Freidel. We knew it was going to be Tim Howard. Now, everybody’s questioning — is it going to be Freese? Is it going to be (Matt) Turner? We haven’t established a No. 1 ‘keeper solidly in the last year.”

Of course, the politics of U,S. Soccer, being what they are, always seem to be a distraction. The current coach, Mauricio Pochettino, was hired in September. Already it’s being reported he’ll be gone once the World Cup ends. That feels a bit disconcerting.

“It’s been difficult when you went through all the stuff we went through with (former head coach Gregg) Berhalter. That was difficult. Then you bring in Matt Crocker and he’s gone. Then you don’t get the results a year out from the World Cup and everyone is stressed out.

“You’re only as good as the product you put on the field. So this World Cup will show us how well or not how well we’re doing. We’re doing well with the women. Now it’s our turn to show up and do something special at this World Cup.”

The 1994 American squad went 1-1-1 in group play but was eliminated by eventual champ Brazil. But the die was cast. Finally, American soccer was getting some respect from the world soccer community. MLS would launch two years later. And while it is the top league in our country, only eight from it is on this World Cup USMNT roster. Among the eight are the three goalkeepers — Turner, Freese and Chris Brady.

The best USA player, forward Christian Pulisic, plays his club soccer in Italy for AC Milan of Serie A. He has never worn a kit for an MLS side.

To be fair, the quality of play in MLS has improved greatly since its inception. The structure, tactics and skill level is far superior thanks to the mix of American player development and the interspersing of world talent. That Lionel Messi is still pumping in goals at age 38 in any league speaks to the greatness that is his persona on the pitch. He draws huge crowds when Inter Miami CF plays on the road, much the way Pele, Chinaglia and Beckenbauer did when the Cosmos ruled the North American Soccer League in the 1970s.

But the reality remains that a truly great American player like Pulisic feels it serves him on and off the pitch to play overseas rather than stay home in MLS.

When the league launched in 1996, many of the USA World Cup players from 1994 agreed to stay home and help get it off the ground. Wynalda played for San Jose. Meola and Ramos for the MetroStars. Harkes for DC United. Lalas for New England. Jones for the LA Galaxy. Balboa for Colorado. They felt a sense of loyalty to growing the game in their home country.

“We’re still trying to close the gap,” Balboa said of the USA’s standing in world soccer. “We made great strides after the ’94 World Cup. We launched MLS. We’ve had players go overseas and have success. It’s a long process. But we’ve made progress.”

I’m sure the current USA roster is every bit as loyal and dedicated to growing the game. After all, many of them were the beneficiaries of the early days of MLS, either through clinics, camps or attending matches and seeing what was possible if they worked hard enough and were willing to be coached. Perhaps they will write their own successful story over the coming weeks, starting here Friday night in front of 70,000 red, white and blue fans, many who played as kids themselves and now have the financial affluence to pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to support the home side.

My hope is they won’t be disappointed, that their faith in the national side will be rewarded with a deep run as we saw in 1994. A quarterfinal appearance or beyond would do wonders for the sport here. It would likely create yet another wave of new fans and youngsters who will want soccer balls for Christmas and start their own path to one day wearing their country’s kit.

But my gut is telling me we should be prepared for something less. That greatness and championship timber will be the domain of Spain, France, Argentina, Brazil and England, you know, the usual suspects every four years they play this thing.

Of course, I didn’t think the Knicks were coming back Wednesday from 29 points down to beat the Spurs and win Game 4 of the NBA Finals. And I haven’t been right yet about the compelling Stanley Cup Final between the Golden Knights and Carolina. So maybe our lads will show some mettle and find a way to excite the nation and take the sport on a giant leap forward from California to the New York island.

Balboa? He believes this team is capable of making a deep run.

“What would be a successful World Cup short of winning it?” he said. “Getting to the quarterfinals. That would be big for the U.S. Can they do it? The talent is there. We’ll see.”

Yes we will. Starting Friday.