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The Village Voice - July 05, 1994

Frenzy! Despair!
By Matthew Yeomans

PASADENA--Soccer doesn't merely lend itself to cliches; it thrives on them. "It's a funny old game," "a game of two halves," "in soccer, anything can happen" are the stock-in-trade of the pundits, and being cliches, they have a habit of ringing true now and then. And whether it was death threats from the Medelln cartel, the biggest fix since the 1919 World Series, or simply divine intervention, the U.S. win over Colombia last Wednesday deserves all the cliches and more.

"This has to be one of the biggest upsets since 1950," said midfielder John Harkes after the USA stuffed Colombia 2-1 in what may be the event that woke America up to the World Cup and soccer in general. Like the kid who sat on the sidelines watching the big boys play it up with his ball, the victory finally won them an invite into the grown-up world. Though the Rose Bowl resounded with that rarefied Colombian chant, Oh ay, oh ay, oh ayo ayo ay, ooo!, and while for the first 15 minutes Colombia looked as if they could score at will, it was the USA that persevered.

As USA closed them down with their Bora-induced Euro-Latin hybrid style, the Colombians--Rincon, Asprilla, and Valderrama in particular--surrendered the field and their credibility, no doubt making the Colombian government even more relieved that it had banned the sale of alcohol and the carrying of firearms for two hours before and after each World Cup game. It'd been a long time since a highly rated team had played quite so badly, prompting some of the foreign press to giddily speculate that the Colombians might have actually thrown the game.

Finally, World Cup lunacy had arrived. Though the faxed death threat to Gomez, and Cameroon's threatened player strike unless they got a suitcase full of cash from their federation (they did) doesn't quite match the 1978 expulsion of Scottish winger Willie Anderson on drug charges or Germany and Austria's carefully calculated game-fixing in 1982, the U.S. audience for World Cup '94 is finally getting its money's worth. Italy-Ireland helped guide neophytes along the blind-faith route this game is all about; Mexico-Norway helped L.A.'s Mexican restaurant diners appreciate service on nonmatch days. Then came the Brazilian tour de force and next Argentina, a slew of goals, and the rebirth of the maniacal Maradona. But it was the U.S. victory that sealed it. Suddenly, everyone was a soccer buff, discussing results, favorite teams, and the size of the Bolivian coach's mustache. Soccer, it seems, can even give the NBA finals a run for its money, though as one L.A. Times wag put it, "Many people watched the soccer game because, comparing it to the Knicks, they figured they would see more scoring."

Friday morning, and the Caltrain double-decker World Cup shuttle from San Francisco to Stanford Stadium, Palo Alto, is rocking to a rhythmic sound like any other train. Except the train isn't moving, and the sound comes from the drums and percussion kept up by 15 carriage cars driving the chant of Braaasil Braaasil. Aside from a few lost Italians, who've decided to adopt Cameroon for a day, the rest of the train is bedecked with Brazil shirts and flags. Flamboyant passing, deadly offense, sexy first-name players, Brazil defines the world's view of good football. And playing a Cameroon side living mainly on past glories, Brazil delivered a lesson, executing precision touch passing, bisecting the Cameroon defense and creating enough scoring chances in the first 15 minutes to suggest the 3-0 rout it would become. Some teams set their own pace, others match that of their foes. Brazil do neither; they follow the lead of the fans, in this case 83,401 of them, letting the drums around the stadium set a rhythm and then upping their game as the tempo increases, slowly winding their supporters, and the other team, up into a frenzy.

And the next "other team" may well turn out to be the USA. Needing a draw or win to finish atop Group A, the USA's 1-0 loss to Romania not only creates the slim mathematical chance of not qualifying for the second round, a first by a host nation, but more likely, pits the U.S. against either Germany or Brazil in the round of 16.

Maybe it was the heat, an unhealthy 120 degrees on the pitch, but the USA never looked mentally prepared to win this game. From the very start, Romania sat back and let the USA control the attack. And for a while it seemed that the magic had carried over from Wednesday. Harkes hit the post, and the Romanians found themselves stretched at the back, caught up in a wave of U.S. fan hysteria. But even early on, there was something labored about the American game. The short-pass toca-toca style that the U.S. used so effectively in their last match never looked like it was working here. The Romanians sat back, soaked up the Latin game, then counterattacked. "Once they scored on us," said a peeved Tab Ramos after the game, "it was very difficult to figure out exactly what we needed. If we tied the game, we would have won the group, but if they scored one more goal, it would have made it that much more difficult to make the second round."

So despite being ceded the ball for much of the second half, the U.S. seemed at a loss for how to play the game. The U.S. started pressing without thinking, resorting to the Ernie Stewart running game and hoping for some miracle to rebound off the back of Alexi Lalas's head. Against a Romanian attack that played pinpoint balls behind the flat back-four U.S. defense, the Amerks' weaknesses--Paul Caligiuri's especially--were exposed. While Meola was looking for a cross, Petrescu's 17th-minute goal demonstrated just how an accomplished attack can rip USA to shreds.

At the end of the game, both players and coach were unconvincingly upbeat. "Today, I feel we played our best game in the tournament," said Bora, a little less cryptically than usual. "Now we know what we have to do based on the players we have."

But can those players, minus the only Amerk strong enough to control the midfield (Harkes, suspended with two yellow cards), stand up to either Germany or Brazil? And what would be the better draw? "I think we match up against Brazil a little bit better," said Ramos after the Romanian defeat, "because we are both Latin teams. But, it's such a tough question, like asking 'Do you want to jump off the top of a tall building or just jump off a bridge."' Somehow you don't see Brazil or Germany pulling a Valderrama this time, but then as the cliche goes, "In soccer, the ball is round."

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