WORLD CUP ’90 : Italy Is Celebrating Win Over Austria : Group A: Host team makes everyone happy. They dominate play in their first game, score late for 1-0 victory.
It was a warm, magical night for Italians Saturday. Celebrations radiated from newly refurbished Stadio Olympico on the banks of the Tiber River via airwaves, phone lines and vocal chords--We Won! Viva Azzuri !
The Italian national team, laden with the burdens of being both the host country for the World Cup and one of the tournament’s favorites, opened its play with a 1-0 victory over Austria.
Italy and Austria are in Group A, along with Czechoslovakia and the United States. Italy’s next opponent is the United States, next Thursday in Rome.
Speculation that the Italians, who won the World Cup for the third time in 1982, would collapse under pressure ended for the time being. Instead, the young Austrian team was jittery before a capacity crowd of 72,303 flag-waving, screaming, singing, stomping Italian fans.
The Italian team was masterful and confident, dribbling and passing past Austrians who had never played in a World Cup game. Their basic skill level was glaringly below the Italians’.
The game was billed as Italy’s defense against Austria’s offense. After neutralizing Austria’s offense--star forward Toni Polster was stranded time and again in front of the goal--the Italians were left with their own inability to score.
For much of the game it seemed the Italian team was going to conduct itself in the way of Italy’s Cup organizers: complete the task at the last minute.
When the score came in the 79th minute, the fans erupted, although they seemed near hysteria all day.
Indeed, Rome itself was more frantic and impassable than usual. Harried taxi drivers refused to take fares to the center of the city, which had been overrun with soccer enthusiasts in all manner of language and dress.
A large group of red and white-clad Austrian supporters sang rousing songs to crowds sunbathing on the Spanish Steps. Italian fans engaged in a good-natured battle of the soccer songs.
Scores of mounted police watched, but there were no incidents. Everywhere cars bedecked in the red, white and green Italian flag honked horns, and people on street corners and in piazzas raised fists in response.
All roads in Rome, it seemed, led to the imposing Olympic Stadium, which had been refurbished for $140 million. The stadium opened after negotiation when an 11th-hour inspection found it lacking in safety, fire and health requirements. Faced with postponing the first game, officials in Italy’s Interior Ministry granted a special dispensation for the match to go on as scheduled.
So, with police helicopters overhead and the stands a riot of color, the game began.
From the start, Italy was impressive. But, for all their technical prowess, the Italians couldn’t seem to score.
Concern about the Italian team’s emotional well-being grew out of a 354-minute scoreless stretch during World Cup warmup matches.
The Italians had at least four first-half opportunities that could have resulted in goals, and at least equaled that number in the second.
The goal came after an Austrian defensive breakdown. Italian forward Gianluca Vialli took the ball on the right wing and lofted a cross to the middle of the field. Salvatore Schillaci out-leaped two defenders and, with a sharp-angled header, sent the ball sailing past goaltender Klaus Lindenberger.
Schillaci had come into the game only four minutes before, replacing Andrea Carnevale, who had played well but who had been worn down by the game’s pace.
Italy out-shot Austria, 20-7.
“We had a few problems opening the score,” said Italian Coach Azeglio Vicini. “In fact, I think we deserved to score in the first half.”
That almost happened in the 22nd minute. The Italians moved the ball with touch passes to just outside the penalty area, where it was left for defender Carlo Ancelotti.
Ancelotti took the drop pass and sent a hard shot that hit the right post of the Austrian goal.
Later, while celebrating the victory, the Italian players didn’t seem bothered by the misfires.
“You don’t always score goals on your first try,” said Vialli, laughing. “The important thing is to keep trying. Sooner or later you are lucky.”
Lucky for Italy that its national soccer team gave it something to cheer about, at least for one lovely late spring night.
World Cup Notes
Fourteen English soccer fans were charged with criminal damage and resisting arrest Saturday battling police in the Sardinian capital of Cagliari. Two more English fans, who had been detained in Genoa, were expelled from Italy when police found their names on a list of reputed soccer hooligans provided by the British government. In the first outbreak of street violence at the World Cup, some 40 fans were involved in a confrontation Friday night in Cagliari following rowdy scenes at a cafe near the stadium where all three of England’s Group F first-round World Cup matches will be played.
Naples and Udine on Saturday became the latest World Cup host cities to prohibit or restrict the sale of alcoholic beverages on days the soccer matches are played. Cagliari has ordered a ban on alcohol sales 36 hours before and after each match.
