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The Village Voice - July 26, 1994

No To Penalties!
By Matthew Yeomans

PASADENA--The dreaded penalty shoot-out. What an appalling way to end the World Cup. With the players collapsed in the center circle and the Brazilian bench all linking arms and draped in an enormous Brazilian flag, the farce begins. Baresi shoots high over the bar. Marcio Santos aims right at the keeper. Albertini clips cleanly into the net. Romario follows his lead. Evani rifles top right. Branco drills bottom right. Massaro is saved by Taffarel. Dunga doesn't miss. Once more Italy's fate falls upon Roberto Baggio. Hobbling, tired, and out of sorts since the beginning of the match, Baggio trudges to the penalty spot and gives Taffarel a few seconds' thought before striking his shot, high above the bemused Brazilian goalkeeper, over the net, and into the history books.

It had all started so well--the Rose Bowl grounds packed with fans as early as 7:30 a.m., Italians chanting and taunting with that edgy Mediterranean charm, grumpy clumps of German fans, a small spread of Dutch orange, and, of course, the Brazilians, both the native fans and their American and Latino ringers. Outside the stadium, they paraded and strutted, confident of their impending victory and (roughly translated) chanting, "Joy for Brazil! It's an explosion from the heart! It's beautiful, my Brazil, so contagious a beauty it's shocking this city!" All around the Rose Bowl, little ticket touts were chirping away, first to the tune of $600, then $500, then $400 as game time rolled around and fans were faced with the dilemma of spending more time outside or having to suffer the closing ceremony show.

Perhaps it wasn't Kenny G, but something happened to that crowd once it got into the stadium. No longer the drum-banging party hordes from outside, the 93,000 suddenly passive fans seemed out of sync with the magnitude of the occasion, and the Brazilians, at least, were a pale imitation of the green and yellow army that had jump-started its team's emotion up through the semifinal. Only briefly did the tempo rise as the two teams took the field, and the crowd stood to greet Romario as he kissed the ground and crossed himself, breaking free momentarily from the Brazilians' kindergarten entrance, holding hands as they emerged from the tunnel. From the start, it was obvious this wasn't going to be the attacking, free-for-all football the world had dreamed of. Everyone had portrayed the final as a showdown between Romario and Baggio, and this had not been lost on their respective opponents. With Baggio injured and not at all in the mood to attack, Romario's chance to fulfill his prophecy of dominating this World Cup was stifled by one man, Franco Baresi. Baresi eats up center forwards for breakfast, and the fact that he had not played a game since undergoing keyhole knee surgery three weeks before probably only heightened his desire to school the Brazilian pretender. Never more than five feet away, Baresi made Romario's game a living hell, as he combined with Paolo Maldini to ensure the explosive striker never got free to dribble directly at the Italy net. And apart from his one egregious miss late in extra time, Romario was reduced to long shots that tested but never troubled Pagliuca, then finally to a lot of falling over in the vain hope of finding sympathy from the referee. With Brazil's anemic midfield unable to better serve Bebeto or Zinho, the game dissolved into a fascinating but goal-free stalemate.

This was not what the crowd had come to see, and within minutes all enthusiastic chanting had hushed to an eerie, detached silence. Infrequently, the fans were jolted back into life, as Branco first had Pagliuca sprawling with a free kick, and then later, Bebeto and Romario both squandered easy opportunities that could have opened the game up. By the end of the ordeal, the best chance had fallen to Roberto Baggio, who in the last minutes of extra time took a good pass from Massaro, but, wide open, shot weakly at Taffarel.

Baggio, it was obvious, was exhausted and not nearly strong enough in his right leg to score the winning goal. So it was only slightly less of a surprise than Franco Baresi taking the first penalty, that Baggio stepped up to save Italy and tie the game. Maybe a World Cup finalissima needed to end on penalty kicks just for FIFA to do what a great number of coaches and soccer players have wanted them to do for a long time--banish them. "Penalty kicks is like playing the lottery," said Baresi after the game. "I think that when you reach the final, it is always horrible to lose, be it normally or on penalty kicks." Faced with the alternative of sudden death, though, Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira knew what he preferred. "It is not the most eloquent way to win," he told reporters after the game, referring to the shoot-out, "but it would be grossly unfair to keep playing after 90 minutes of regulation and 30 minutes of overtime." Whatever the case, you can't help but feel today that everyone, players and fans alike, was robbed.

So after 52 games, 141 goals scored, and untold millions earned for FIFA and the U.S. Soccer Federation, where does this monthlong feast leave the game here in the United States? In just over one month, football kicks off again all over the world. In Italy, Serie A will soon be in full forza. In Brazil, the games never seem to stop. But here in the U.S. there will be nothing, and nothing will happen until the middle of next year at the very earliest, when Alan Rothenberg's Major League Soccer supposedly gets off the ground. But even if--and that's a big if--MLS is launched, it will take more than big money and a few big foreign stars to make it a success. The NASL proved that, if nothing else.

America's problem is not one of organization; move Rothenberg and Co. to Bolivia and even La Paz might stage a World Cup final. No, the problem lies in soccer culture, and that, unfortunately, the U.S. has very little of. For soccer teams to survive and prosper, it is not the money that matters, it is the fans and the grassroots support. Fandom is all about loyalty--a sense of belonging built up over the years--something MLS's boil-in-the-bag franchises can't hope to emulate. Already the whole uniformity of the MLS plans suggests a recipe for disaster. Coaches, players, and front office staff all hired by MLS itself--how will a team ever be able to define its own character? It's no coincidence that the big club teams of world soccer have grown out of close-knit social or working communities and have had their support passed down from generation to generation. Manchester United's Red Army, the 62,000 dues-paying members of Real Madrid, even Penarol, Uruguay's oldest club, built from the amateur sides of the British railroad companies.

Much like Louis Napoleon's dictum that a good foreign war keeps people's minds off trouble at home, international soccer and the World Cup in particular is the focal point of every country's national pride. In this World Cup, even the U.S. caught on, as soon as its team started winning. For those Brazilians outside the stadium before Sunday's game, raised on the mother's milk of national soccer excellence, the thought of losing did not even enter their heads. Their coach Parreira and star Romario had already promised victory, and now as they swayed their way toward the stands they chanted emphatically, "Italia, Italia, Italia will finish second." If only they'd known how narrow and fortunate that victory would be.

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