The Poacher & The Vulture : Lineker, Butragueno Playing a Game of Hat Tricks and Treats

If anyone had predicted three weeks ago that by the World Cup quarterfinals an Englishman and a Spaniard would be the soccer tournament’s leading goal scorers, few would have believed it.

After all, England’s strength traditionally has been its defense, not its offense. And Spain is more noted for its goalkeepers than its forwards.

But this World Cup has been full of surprises, not the least of which have been the performances of England’s Gary Lineker and Spain’s Emilio Butragueno.

Going into today’s quarterfinal games--England will play Argentina at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium, and Spain will play Belgium at Cuauhtemoc Stadium in Puebla--Lineker and Butragueno lead all scorers with five goals apiece.

They have, so far at least, lived up to their nicknames.

Lineker, 25, is the Poacher, the player who lurks near his opponent’s goal area and often picks up goals resulting from defensive mistakes rather than his own team’s offensive buildup.

Butragueno, who will be 23 next month, is known as el Buitre, the Vulture. In part, it is because of the similarity between the Spanish word and his name, but, like Lineker, he also has the habit of striking when the opportunity presents itself.

Between them, they have led to the downfall of one-sixth of the World Cup’s 24 teams.

Lineker scored a hat trick against Poland at Monterrey, his three goals so demoralizing the Poles that they subsequently allowed four against Brazil and were eliminated.

Not content with that, England’s player of the year also scored twice against Paraguay in another 3-0 victory last Wednesday that eliminated the South Americans.

Butragueno’s first goal of the World Cup took him exactly 1 minute 3 seconds to find the back of the net against Northern Ireland during Spain’s 2-1 victory. The goal was the fastest scored so far in the ’86 tournament.

But that was just an appetizer for what was to come. Last Wednesday, Butragueno tore the Danish defense to shreds, scoring four times as Spain stunned favored Denmark at Queretaro, 5-1.

“My four goals today were an accident,” he said afterward. “It was the team that made the chances, I just finished them off.”

Accident or not, Butragueno’s performance put him in some illustrious company. In the 56-year history of the World Cup, only seven other players have scored four goals in a single match.

Leonidas of Brazil and Ernest Willimowski of Poland each did so in a memorable 6-5 Brazilian victory over Poland in 1938, and Sweden’s Gustav Wetterstroem also achieved the feat that year against Cuba, which fell, 8-0.

Ademir of Brazil scored four times against Sweden during a 7-1 victory in 1950; Hungary’s Sandor Kocsis did so in an 8-3 win over West Germany in 1954, and France’s Just Fontaine got four in a 6-3 triumph against West Germany in 1958. The last player to achieve the feat was Portugal’s Eusebio, against North Korea in 1966.

Now, 20 years later, Butragueno has added his name to the ranks, falling just one goal short of the all-time record of five set by Uruguay’s Juan Schiaffino in an 8-0 victory over Bulgaria in 1950.

Butragueno, who plays alongside Mexico’s Hugo Sanchez and Argentina’s Jorge Valdano for Spanish champion Real Madrid, insisted after Wednesday’s game that the scoring title is not his aim.

“I’m not concerned at all about being the leading goal scorer in the tournament,” he said. “The important thing is that Spain can go all the way to the final.”

England’s Lineker, meanwhile, unabashedly states that finishing as the World Cup’s top scorer is very much on his mind. “I’d be lying if I said otherwise,” he said after Wednesday’s match against Paraguay.

The English striker, who plays his club soccer for Everton, the runner-up to neighbor and rival Liverpool in both the English League and the British championships this year, was the leading goal scorer during the 1985-86 English season.

A relative newcomer to the English team, he has nevertheless fitted in well, especially since the team also includes five other Everton players.

“The biggest difference between playing for your club and your country is that you’re playing with new, different players, and that sometimes inhibits you from doing the things you do with your club,” he told English sportswriter Bob Harris before the team’s departure from London.

“But with England it’s no problem because everyone is so friendly. There’s not one player in the group who doesn’t get along with the others. Everyone backs up everyone else and there are no cliques, just a desire for England to win the World Cup.”

Asked after Wednesday’s game whether he expects tougher opposition from the Argentines today than England got from Paraguay, Lineker laughed.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I hope not. I’m sure it will be a great game. They are a very, very good side with some great players.

“I’m sure it will be tougher, but who knows? If we play as well as we can, then perhaps we can win as well as we did today.”

And if England does win and Spain manages to beat Belgium, Lineker and Butragueno will play against each other in the semifinals.

That could be a fine encounter--the Poacher against the Vulture.