This was the first game in this enormous franchise, and was initially just available for the Sega Mega Drive, only beginning to be ported to other machines such as the SNES in 1994, EA in America were unsure of it's potential success, and initially only produced 300,000 units, but by the end of the first month on sale, the game had sold 500,000.

 The game in it's first incarnation was very different from the latest versions, the pitch is seen from an isometric viewpoint, and the characters are very cartoon like, there are only international teams, and the players not really distinguished from each other.

Electronic Arts had first entered the world of sports titles with it's John Madden Football series, to enormous success, even in Europe where at the time the sport was not widely known.

 EA signed a five year licensing deal with Fifa for a small amount of money, but soon found out why, the license was basically only for the use of the name, and contained no clauses for player names, stadiums, teams, logos or likenesses, this was because US Gold held the licence for the upcoming 1994 FIFA World Cup, the developers were therefore able to put their own names in the game.

This license was renegotiated after the initial five year period to include all the missing elements, but at a considerably higher cost.

FIFA International Soccer beat the US Gold title to market, and by the end of 1993 despite being on sale only a few weeks became the best selling software title of 1993.

EA considered calling the title USA Team Soccer in America fearing a sales flop, but eventually decided on a worldwide release under one name, with options in place to ship unsold units to Europe. 

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