190 Countries Can’t Be Wrong

Everything is just about ready. in Orlando, Florida, painters have finished the massive black and white panels that have transformed the copper dome of the new city hall into a giant soccer ball. Near Detroit, agronomists from Michigan State University have covered the synthetic turf in the Pontiac Silverdome with 1,850 hexagonal chunks of specially grown, soccer-friendly grass. In Palo Alto, California, workers are nearly finished giving Stanford University’s venerable stadium a $5 million face-lift.

All this activity is in preparation for World Cup USA94, which begins in Chicago on Friday. Forget the Super Bowl, World Series and Olympic Games. The World Cup is the most eagerly anticipated event on the sporting calendar for most people on earth. Held every four years, the tournament decides the world championship of football — the kind of football actually played with the feet. Like America’s Dream Team in Olympic basketball, the teams are made up of a country’s best players. Some may play professionally in a league on a foreign continent, but they play for their national teams in World Cup games. In December 1991, 143 nations signed up to compete in the qualifying rounds; even Vanuatu and San Marino, plus a few curious geopolitical subdivisions like the Faroe Islands, entered. It took two years and 491 matches to whittle the field down to two dozen, and these finalists will play 52 games in nine cities in the U.S. By the time the championship is won in the Rose Bowl on July 17, more than 30 billion viewers in 190 countries will have tuned in.

The federation that runs the World Cup chose the U.S. for the 1994 tournament with the hope of attracting more American fans to soccer. It’s a difficult task. A recent Harris poll found that only 25% of the 1,252 U.S. adults questioned knew what sport the World Cup involved, and only 20% were aware that the tournament would be held in the U.S. this summer. As for professional soccer in America, does anyone out there remember the Cosmos? Americans are not completely indifferent to the game, however. Fourteen million children and young people play the sport, and their parents are often avid spectators.

Americans who do follow the World Cup will be rewarded, for international soccer right now is better than ever. In recent years gifted players from small countries have increasingly gone abroad to compete in the prosperous, rigorous football leagues of Europe. If fans in their home countries are deprived of the joy of watching top talent play during the regular season, the stars are battle hardened when they return to their national teams. The result has been a closer parity among national teams that undoubtedly will lead to upsets. The most exciting squads competing in the finals fall into four broad categories.

CROWN PRINCES. The teams that have dominated the world championship for 60 years are Argentina, Brazil, Italy and Germany. Will one of them win again this year? Probably, but it won’t be as easy as it has been. In the qualifying rounds, Argentina was nearly eliminated after Colombia humiliated it at home 5-0. Brazilians thirst for a magical “tetra,” a fourth championship, but the team has a bad habit of falling apart when it is least expected. Who will keep Brazil from losing? Romario and Bebeto. In Brazil no one ever bothers with last names for football stars; Romario is Romario de Souza Faria, leading scorer for Barcelona, the current Spanish league champion; Bebeto is Jose Roberto Gama de Oliveira, who is fragile looking but has a magical touch with the ball.

Italy’s coach, Arrigo Sacchi, speaks of teamwork with religious fervor. “For the kind of football I believe in,” he says, “generosity is fundamental.” If Sacchi sounds like the St. Francis of Assisi of football, he has yet to win many converts. Nearly 8 out of 10 readers polled recently by the weekly Guerin Sportivo said they had lost faith in him. Still, he has Roberto Baggio, probably the world’s best player, to call upon for miracles.

Finally there is Germany, the 1990 Cup champion. Germans are wondering whether new coach Berti Vogts comes near to Franz Beckenbauer, the football legend who guided the team four years ago. “Vogts was a bone crusher of a player,” says one nervous fan. “Beckenbauer was a thinker.”

THE CHALLENGERS. In the 1970s the Dutch played in two Cup championship games, losing both times. Since then they have lingered on the fringes of greatness. But this year the Netherlands hopes to put an end to its also-ran reputation by playing a slightly modified version of “total football,” an aggressive style that has players move as a single unit on both offense and defense. The Dutch will be playing in the same group as the ascendant Belgians, their geographic neighbors but stylistic opposites. Belgium plays a tough, tight defensive game that exploits opponents’ errors. The biggest threat to the traditional powers comes from Colombia. Under coach Francisco Maturana the team has built an attacking machine led by Faustino Asprilla, a striker, or goal-scoring forward. The Colombian game is hide-and-seek ball control, emphasizing short passes that slice up a defense.

THE HIGHWAYMEN. On the road to the final in Pasadena, the favored teams will run into flashy underdogs who could, on a good day, dispatch the powerhouses. The Irish have a shrewd coach in affable Jack Charlton, who played on England’s 1966 Cup-winning team and led Ireland to victory over Holland and Germany in two warm-up games. Rashidi Yekini and Daniel Amokachi provide Nigeria, playing in its first Cup, with plenty of scoring power.

THE CINDERELLAS. Some teams that have languished in soccer obscurity for years have suddenly flourished. Under the direction of Spanish coach Xavier Azkargorta, Bolivia, long the doormat of South American football, was undefeated in the qualifying rounds and even beat Brazil 2-0. The U.S. also has extravagant hopes — the team won a stunning 2-0 upset victory over England last year. Unfortunately, the U.S lacks world-class stars, although goalie Tony Meola shows promise and midfielder John Harkes and striker Roy Wegerle have gained experience in England. The Americans have come a long way, but the team, which faces Switzerland in Detroit on Saturday, is unlikely to advance beyond the first round.

Just how important is the World Cup? For the citizens of most of the countries whose teams are playing in America, nothing else short of Armageddon really matters. Already, the debates over player selection and team preparation have been all-consuming. Brazilians spent weeks arguing about whether players would be allowed to have sex during the tournament. After Pele and Garrincha, heroes of previous Cups, announced that this activity had not harmed their performance, coach Parreira, who at first said spouses could not accompany the team to the U.S., recanted. All the players’ needs, he said, including “sexual ones,” would be tended to.

Perhaps after a few weeks of exposure to soccer mania at its most virulent, + Americans will begin to appreciate the game. But even if soccer fails to take hold in its last frontier, this year’s World Cup will not suffer. We may not know a corner kick from a throw-in, but no one puts on a sports spectacle better than America.