| Tournament details | |
|---|---|
| Dates | 21 March 1992 – 17 November 1993 |
| Teams | 147 (from 6 confederations) |
| Tournament statistics | |
| Matches played | 497 |
| Goals scored | 1,446 (2.91 per match) |
| Top scorer(s) |  Kazuyoshi Miura(13 goals) |
← 1990 1998 → | |
The 1994 FIFA World Cup qualification was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA confederations. The 1994 FIFA World Cup featured 24 teams with one place reserved for the host nation, United States, and one place for the defending champions, Germany. The remaining 22 places were determined by a qualification process, in which 147 teams, from the six FIFA confederations, competed. Most of the successful teams were determined within these confederations, with a limited number of inter-confederation play-offs occurring at the end of the process.
Fifteen teams withdrew: Liechtenstein, Cuba, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Myanmar and Western Samoa, and three teams were excluded: Yugoslavia and Libya due to UN sanctions, and Chile for the El Maracanazo cheating incident during 1990 qualification.
A total of 130 teams played at least one qualifying match. A total of 497 qualifying matches were played, and 1446 goals were scored (an average of 2.91 per match).[1]
The first qualification match, between Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, was played on 21 March 1992, and the Puerto Rican forward Marcos Lugris scored the first goal in qualification.[2] Qualification ended on 17 November 1993, when European qualification ended and the OFC–CONMEBOL play-off match was played. Eighteen of FIFA's twenty-four top-ranked countries eventually qualified.[3]
- ^ "History of the FIFA World Cup Preliminary Competition (by year)" (PDF). FIFA.com. 27 July 2007. p. 32. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 June 2018.
- ^ "World Cup 1994 qualifications". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Retrieved 13 October 2017.
- ^ Stokkermans, Karel; Jarreta, Sergio Henrique (9 June 2016). "World Cup 1994 Qualifying". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Retrieved 13 October 2017.