World Sports Scene : U.S. Expecting to Play in El Salvador Despite Country’s Problems
There has been discussion among officials of the Federation Internationale de Football Assn. about moving World Cup qualifying games out of El Salvador because of the uncertain political situation in that country.
But the disturbance that caused the referee to end last Sunday’s game between El Salvador and Costa Rica at San Salvador with eight minutes remaining apparently had nothing to do with politics.
“The fans were mad at the goalkeeper,” said Hugo Perez, a U.S. national team midfielder who lived in El Salvador until he was 14 and watched Costa Rica’s 4-2 victory on closed-circuit television.
Perez said the referee had little choice but to stop the game when some El Salvador fans charged onto the field after their goalkeeper gave up the final goal, which they believed should have been an easy save.
Since then, FIFA officials have been faced with the question of whether to move the U.S.-El Salvador game scheduled for July 9 at San Salvador to a neutral country, perhaps Mexico. U.S. Soccer Federation officials said Wednesday they have not requested a change and do not expect one.
“We have our visas,” USSF spokesman John Polis said. “We’re ready to go.”
Perez, who lives in San Diego, said he is eager to return to San Salvador, even though he was pelted with garbage by fans the last time he played there.
That was in 1987, when the United States beat El Salvador, 4-2, in a qualifying game for the 1988 Summer Olympics. Perez scored two goals and assisted on another in that game, an indication of his value to the U.S. team.
He has not played in the four World Cup qualifying games this year because of a stress fracture in a leg, but he said he will rejoin the team for the game at San Salvador and definitely will be ready to play in the Marlboro Cup at the Coliseum Aug. 10-13.
“It’s understandable that some of the people in El Salvador were not on my side,” he said. “You don’t like to see your players playing for another team. But that’s still my country. I was born there. From the first time I saw that stadium, I dreamed about playing there.”
As for the suggestion that the game might be sabotaged by revolutionaries, or that the U.S. team might be in danger, Perez said that soccer in El Salvador is too important for that.
“It’s the one thing that brings both sides together,” he said. “For two hours, everybody forgets about politics.”
The East German youth newspaper, Junge Welt, angrily denied allegations that the use of anabolic steroids and other banned performance-enhancing substances by athletes in that country is state-sponsored. That is not an unexpected response because the newspaper is also state-sponsored.
But the West German newspapers publishing the allegations in a seven-part series scheduled to end Saturday are considered no more objective. Bild and Bild am Sonntag are right-wing newspapers that are so disdainful of their neighbors from the Deutsche Democratic Republic (DDR) that they routinely surround the middle D with quotation marks.
Meantime, a Swiss newspaper, Blick, reported Wednesday that the International Ski Federation will investigate allegations made in the articles by Hans-Georg Aschenbach, a 1976 Olympic gold medalist in ski jumping for East Germany who defected to West Germany 10 months ago. He said East German athletes are required to take drugs, some beginning at 13.
One athlete implicated was two-time Olympic figure skating champion Katarina Witt, who has never been suspected of using anything not manufactured by Revlon to enhance her performance.
Figure skaters are seldom mentioned in discussions of drugs. Dr. Robert Voy, former chief medical officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee, said last summer that the only two sports in the United States that have never produced any positive drugs tests were women’s field hockey and figure skating.
But there were reports from the European Championships last winter that the International Skating Union was concerned about rumors that Soviet skaters were using beta blockers before competing in compulsory figures. Designed for use by cardiac patients to reduce their heart rates, beta blockers were widely used in sports such as shooting and archery before they were banned.
It also has been suggested that some men competing in pairs are bulking up with steroids to facilitate the lifting of their partners.
In the opening games of the USA Cup for men’s volleyball Tuesday night at Seattle, the United States beat Brazil and the Soviet Union beat South Korea. On Wednesday night at San Francisco, the United States played South Korea and the Soviet Union played Brazil. Those also are the matchups for Friday night’s games at UC Irvine’s Bren Center.
The best teams in the world for the last five years, the United States and the Soviet Union are expected to meet in the championship game Saturday night at the Forum. The United States beat the Soviet Union in the gold-medal match at the 1988 Summer Olympics and reaffirmed its superiority over the Soviets last week by winning five consecutive matches on an exhibition tour.
But after Saturday night, the Soviets no longer will have to face Karch Kiraly and Steve Timmons. The nucleus of a U.S. team that won Olympic gold medals in 1984 and 1988, they are retiring from international competition after the USA Cup. That is the volleyball equivalent of losing Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig from the lineup at the same time.
International Notes
The U.S. national soccer team lost to Colombia in an exhibition Saturday at the Orange Bowl in Miami, 1-0. But that was considered a good result for the United States because Colombia has improved to the extent that it can almost hold its own in South America with Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. The Colombians won their 14th consecutive international game three nights later, beating Haiti at the Orange Bowl, 4-0.
Phoebe Mills, the only U.S. gymnast to win a medal at the Seoul Olympics, has left Bela Karolyi’s Houston gym and returned to Northfield, Ill., to live with her family. Now 16, she has been away from home since she was 10. “I’m ready for another life style,” she said. But she has not ruled out competing in 1992 at Barcelona. . . . Calling New York “the sports capital of the world,” Mayor Ed Koch announced the formation of a foundation to bring the 2004 Summer Olympics to the city.
The Athletics Congress, which governs track and field in the United States, was supposed to begin its random, short-notice, out-of-competition drug-testing program this weekend, but might delay its implementation for three months. “This is like a rocket launch,” TAC President Frank Greenberg said. “You can’t have too many redundancy factors.” . . . SportsChannel America will televise most of this summer’s major European track and field meets. . . . The Soviet Union is expected to announce the site of the 1994 Goodwill Games this summer.
