Not that anyone wondered, but now we know what Princeton's
basketball players do in the summer. Last Saturday in Marseilles
they put on white uniforms and took Norwegian names, played an
old-fashioned, disciplined style that the rest of the world
abandoned years ago and almost knocked Italy out of the
NCAAs—uh, the World Cup.
"Norway is a very difficult team to beat," Italy coach Cesare
Maldini said in a relieved, John Thompson sort of way. The
Italians won the second-round match 1-0 on an 18th-minute
breakaway by Christian Vieri, his tournament-leading fifth goal.
But because Italy was hobbled defensively, Norway had chances to
even the score on a couple of Princeton-like backdoor plays.
"We didn't play up to our limits," complained Norway coach Egil
Olsen, who, at 56, is every bit as irascible as former Princeton
coach Pete Carril. "I felt if we had done that, we would have
beaten Italy. In fact, I was not impressed with Italy, either."
As the Italians headed into a quarterfinal duel with host France
on Friday, they were especially concerned about their
23-year-old star, Alessandro Del Piero, who had yet to score and
failed on three breakaway chances against the besieged Norway
goalkeeper, Frode Grodas. Fearing that a substitution might ruin
Del Piero's confidence, Maldini declined to replace him with the
magical Roberto Baggio. "I wanted to play, but I'm not going to
make a big deal out of it," said Baggio, 31, who pointed out
that he was scoreless in '94 until the last minutes of the
second round. From there he netted five goals in three games to
lead Italy into the final.
Issue date: July 6, 1998
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