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A classic to remember
Argentina-England rematch more than lived up to hype
Posted: Thursday September 17, 1998 04:11 PM
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The match brought joy to Chile, and despair to England Ben Radford/Allsport |
ST. ETIENNE, France (CNN/SI)
-- As everyone expected, Argentina and
England
produced yet another classic when they met on the soccer field .
Diego Maradona's trickery and brilliance ruled the day when the two met 12
years ago. This time, it was a World Cup classic, one of the best games in
memory, won 4-3 in a shootout by the Argentines after a 2-2 draw.
Let's recap all the highlights from the second meeting.
Four goals were scored in the first half. England played almost an hour and
a quarter with 10 men, and had a go-ahead goal waved off despite the
disadvantage.
After all of that, it still came down to the shootout, which even silenced
the party in the stands that ran at full throat all night.
"It will be a game to always think back on," Argentina goalkeeper Carlos
Roa said.
His memories of the match will be good ones because he stopped David
Batty's attempt to clinch a spot in the quarterfinals against the Netherlands
on Saturday in Marseille.
"In a shootout, you must forget everything else," Roa said, "and think only
of stopping the shot. You are not expected to stop it, and if you do, you
can win."
But first, you must go through 120 gut-wrenching minutes that thrilled
anyone who saw it.
"It was as exciting as a game can be," said coach Daniel Passarella of
Argentina, which is now 3-0 in World Cup shootouts.
It also was as painful a loss as England could suffer.
"I think we did OK," goalie David Seaman said, "but we are very
disappointed. We came to win the tournament."
In London, the tabloid Express Wednesday carried a one-word headline
of praise: "Heroes." British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who watched the
match with his children at 10 Downing Street, said the team "showed the
English spirit at its very best."
An estimated 28 million people in Britain watched the match, and the
national power service said electricty usage surged to levels registered
when the "Who Shot J.R?" episode of "Dallas" was shown in Britain in 1985.
One pub owner in Poole, England, smashed the TV set as the last penalty
kick was blocked.
Wednesday, British Airways said it would send a supersonic Concorde to
France to bring the team home. The flight from Paris to London takes less
than an hour by conventional airliner.
Not all the reaction was so grand.
Groups of fans brawled in Saint-Etienne, and local youths broke store
windows and damaged cars. Police closed off much of the town center, and
trams and buses were diverted. Organizers said Wednesday that 36 arrests
were made, mostly for theft and public drunkenness.
In Buenos Aires, meanwhile, celebrations collapsed into rock throwing by
rowdy youths before police dispersed them with tear gas and a water
cannon.
Authorities said at least 20 people were injured in the disturbances around
the Obelisk, a monument that serves as a rallying point for fans.
The violence tainted what had been a largely peaceful outpouring by
thousands of Argentines that paralyzed rush hour traffic in the
capital.
And in England, police reported 45 arrests as fans poured on the streets,
smashing shop windowns and fighting.
England played valiantly after David Beckham was ejected one minute into
the second half. So this defeat had to be more painful than the 1986 World
Cup loss to Argentina, when Maradona scored a goal with the help of a
well-disguised fist, which he later called the "hand of God."
"We are almost distraught," said England coach Glenn Hoddle, who played in
that game. "It's a bitter, bitter pill to take. Even with 10 men we set up
so many set pieces we could have won it."
But Argentina won as Roa also stopped Paul Ince, while Robert Ayala
connected on his team's final kick, setting the stage for Roa's
heroics.
And setting off pandemonium, Pampas style, in the largely Argentine crowd.
As the players rejoiced on the field, mobbing Roa, the fans once again
burst into loud singing and drum-beating. It continued long into the
night.
The night began with soccer fireworks.
Gabriel Batistuta and Alan Shearer swapped penalty kick goals in the
opening nine minutes; 18-year-old striker Michael Owen fired England ahead
2-1 with one of the best goals of any World Cup; and Javier Zanetti curled
in a left-footed shot for the tying goal off a crafty set play on a free
kick just seconds from halftime.
"We worked on that in practice, and it came off perfectly," Passarella
said.
Beckham got a red card one minute into the second half for intentionally
kicking Diego Simeone, but England still found ways to attack. And it
thought it went ahead 3-2 with eight minutes remaining when Sol Campbell, a
standout all game on defense, headed in a corner kick. But Shearer was
called for pushing off.
The two first-half penalty kicks were questionable calls but evened out.
Then Owen took the stage with the kind of genius usually reserved for,
well, a Maradona.
He sped around Jose Chamot, leaving him groping, and then beyond Ayala, two
of the pillars of Argentine's defense. He easily beat Roa with a high shot
to the far post for a 2-1 lead in the 16th minute.
This against a defense that didn't yield a goal in the first three
games.
Argentina's guileful free-kick maneuver freed Zanetti for the tying goal in
the dying seconds of the half. It stayed 2-2 into the shootout as Argentina
vainly attempted to assert its manpower edge and England staunchly held on,
occasionally breaking downfield on its own forays.
"It's disturbing to play with 10 men," Seaman said. "We were very
unfortunate. It's got to be the most disappointing ..."
His words trailed off, and he headed into the night.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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