Out of
Reach
Brazil was too much for a gutty but overmatched U.S.
team
by Alexander
Wolff
Issue date: July 11,
1994
It wouldn't be fair, World Cup organizers said. That's why
there was no additional star-spangled pregame pageantry at
Stanford Stadium on July 4 and why no more Old Glories than
usual festooned the Bay Area venue. For good measure an
official issued a
punctilious decree before the U.S. played Brazil: ''There
will be no
fireworks.''
(Chris Covatta)
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As a prediction for the game at hand, those words certainly
seemed supportable, at least as far as the host nation was
concerned. Going into Monday's game in the Round of 16,
the U.S. had not only failed to beat the Brazilians in 64
years but also
hadn't so much as scored a goal against Brazil since 1930, when
the U.S. lost 4-3 in the first World Cup. But once this
game kicked off, matters were out of the organizers' hands
and the fireworks were free to
start.
''If we lose, nobody cares,'' said Alexi Lalas, the goateed
American defender who's only a top hat and tails away from
passing as Uncle Sam. ''That is what we are supposed to do.
But if Brazil loses. . .
.''
So huge was the opportunity—the home-standing underdog
getting a shot at the favorite on the underdog's national
holiday—that U.S. midfielder Tab Ramos sounded a note of
suspicion before the game. ''The whole thing seems like a
setup,'' said
Ramos.
It was a setup, but not as Ramos had hoped. Brazil set off
most of the fireworks on the Fourth in its 1-0 win. Oh,
there was a sparkler of a possibility for the U.S. when Tom
Dooley just missed wide left a dozen minutes into the game.
But the rest of
the detonations were Brazil's. Aldair struck a Roman candle
that barely missed. Bebeto's cherry-bombed volley just
missed too. Romario sandwiched two bottle rockets around
halftime, one that exploded off the post and another that
Dooley cleared at the last
possible instant. Finally, in the 74th minute, Bebeto set
off a game-winning M-80 in the American net, and the hosts'
run to soccer's Sweet 16 had come to an end. ''It was a
great script,'' said U.S. midfielder Cobi Jones, ''except
for the
ending.''
When Leonardo, a Brazilian defender, threw an elbow late in
the first half, striking Ramos in the left temple,
fracturing his skull and waylaying him for the rest of the
game, Brazil might have been in serious trouble. Leonardo
was ejected, which
allowed the U.S. to play with a man advantage for half the game.
But the loss of Ramos was devastating. He had been all over
the field, setting up Dooley's shot, which wound up being
the Americans' best opportunity of the
afternoon.
U.S. coach Bora Mulitinovic believed his team's best chance
would come if it could lock up the Brazilians for 90
minutes of regulation and 30 minutes of overtime, thus
pushing the game into a penalty kick shoot-out, when the
pressure on the favorites
would only become more acute. But how to reach a shoot-out?
The U.S. took its cues from Sweden, which tied Brazil 1-1
in the final round-robin qualifier on June 28 by jamming
the middle and cheating back / on defense. Mulitinovic
started neither of his
two best goal scorers, Eric Wynalda and Roy Wegerle, and
deployed only one striker, Ernie Stewart. Nine players
packed the back and the midfield, playing, as Ramos would
put it, ''to destroy, not to create.'' The Yanks would
pillage for two hours and then
try their
luck.
Brazil, alas, was bent on wreaking some havoc of its own,
and after the ejection of Leonardo, it seemed even more
focused playing 10 on 11. The gut of the U.S. defense,
Lalas and Marcelo Balboa, had shut down Switzerland's
Stephane Chapuisat, Colombia's
Faustino Asprilla and Romania's Florin Raducioiu, three of
the most dangerous strikers in the world, in the first
round. Now, with Dooley joining Lalas and Balboa in the
backfield, they faced a pair of conjurers: Bebeto and
Romario.
Maddeningly pouty and egotistical, Romario, 28, was twice
sent home from tournaments as a junior for unspecified
disciplinary reasons. At the last World Cup, in Italy, he
insisted on bringing along his own trainer. Three years ago
he spurned a call from
the national team because he wanted to go to Ibiza on
vacation. In the last few months he has called Pele both
''mentally retarded'' and, intending no compliment, a
''museum piece.'' Most recently, he pitched a fit over
being assigned a seat on a team
flight next to Bebeto, his soft-footed linemate and Spanish
League
rival.
Since the Cup began, however, Romario seems to have taken
to heart the pleas of his coach, Carlos Parreira, to behave
himself. Perhaps the pretournament counseling that the
entire team went through, in which a specialist in positive
thinking stressed a
range of virtues, including humility, also helped set his
head right. Whatever, he has caused no problems and
channeled his ego well without entirely suppressing it.
''This will be Romario's Cup,'' he pronounced after scoring
in Brazil's opening-game
defeat of
Russia.
In the 74th minute on Monday, Romario set up the game's
lone goal. He eluded Dooley's sliding tackle outside the
penalty area, dodged Balboa and laid off a pass to his
right, past Lalas to Bebeto, who didn't have to break
stride to beat American
goalkeeper Tony Meola. From the looks of the embrace the two
Brazilian strikers shared after their collaboration,
Romario may even be willing to sit next to Bebeto on the
flight to Dallas, where the Magnificent Mononyms will play
the Netherlands on Saturday in
the
quarterfinals.
Brazil, which has won three World Cups (1958, '62, '70), is
a nation that looks for salvation from its soccer. The
government is plagued by chronic corruption. The people can
hardly tell what currency they'll be paid in from week to
week. Renegade
policemen shoot street urchins with impunity. Thus Brazilians
hang their hopes on the promise of the national team every
quadrennial, even as untimely injuries, dissension or turns
of fate have thwarted their expectations again and again.
Posters all over
the country articulate the wish unrequited since 1970: ONE
MORE,
BRAZIL!
''Brazil lives for soccer,'' says Romario. ''It has misery.
It has bad politics. Soccer is like a blanket wrapping up
all
that.''
Despite its elimination, the U.S. team raised its profile
immeasurably during its Cup run. Say ''Bora,'' and
Statesiders no longer think of half an island in the South
Pacific. By advancing to the second round the Americans
pulled in a huge television
audience for their match with Brazil, the team that,
notwithstanding Leonardo's elbow, is soccer's best
advertisement for itself. The U.S. was the perfect
host—delivering the not-too-long, just- witty-enough toast
before letting the guests be the lives of
the
party.
There's a life of the party, and then there's Brazil, which
with its drum- beating fans and exuberant style is a
festival unto itself. A few months ago someone asked
Romario to name his dream World Cup final. ''Brazil against
Brazil,'' he answered, not
unsurprisingly. As it happens, that's not just Romario's
dream, or Brazil's, but much of the rest of the world's as
well. For their artful style the Brazilians have come to be
known outside the Land of the Carnival as everyone's
second-favorite
team.
So millions of Americans have reason to continue to follow
this World Cup, in spite of the elimination of the home
team—and to come to terms with a notion that only a few
weeks ago must have seemed strange indeed: that they have a
first favorite team,
too.
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