WORLD CUP ’90 : Italy’s Victory Is No U.S. Loss

It was not a “Miracle on Ice,” but it was as close to splendor in the grass as the United States has come in 40 years.

A loss is a loss by any name, but the U.S. soccer players could not have been much prouder of their effort against Italy Thursday night if the 1-0 score had been reversed.

Branded by the international press as World Cup impostors after a humiliating 5-1 loss to Czechoslovakia in the opening game Sunday at Florence, they got what they came for at the Olympic Stadium.

“I feel we earned a little bit of respect,” Coach Bob Gansler said. “I feel very good for my team because we came back from the ashes. We’ve got to feel like the Phoenix tonight.”

The Italians also were rewarded, winning their second game of the tournament and assuring themselves of a berth in the second round.

That, however, did little to appease a majority of the 73,423 spectators who came to see their Forza Azzuri-- Blue Force--win decisively.

Well before the end of the game, fans were whistling derisively at the Italians, who were outhustled, outsmarted and, for brief periods, even outplayed by the World Cup’s longest shot.

Italian Coach Azeglio Vicini warned his players this week that they could not believe everything they read in the Italian press, which predicted a goleada . Loosely translated, that means rout.

He insisted afterward that they had not underestimated the United States, but there was no denying that the Italians played with less of a commitment than they had in a 1-0 victory over Austria in their opener here last Saturday.

Perhaps that had something to do with the United States’ own commitment to a defensive strategy that was designed to produce a scoreless tie, the best Gansler felt his overachieving underdogs could hope for against a team that had not allowed a goal in 653 minutes.

Any thought of that disappeared in the 11th minute when Giuseppe Giannini made a nifty pass to himself in the penalty area that beat both Mike Windischmann and John Harkes and left him one on one with goalkeeper Tony Meola. Giannini won with a left-footed shot.

Twenty-two minutes later, U.S. midfielder Paul Caligiuri fouled Nicola Berti in the penalty area, setting up a penalty kick for forward Gianluca Vialli.

It appeared that the goleada was on.

But although the odds against missing a penalty kick--a one-on-one duel with the goalkeeper--are high, Vialli managed it. He caught Meola leaning to the right and shot to the left, but the ball bounced off the post.

“That was the turning point of the game,” said U.S. defender Desmond Armstrong, who took Vialli out of the game with his clinging defense. “It showed us that those guys are human, that we could play with them.”

It was as discouraging for the Italians as it was encouraging for the Americans.

“The result would have been different if we had scored on the penalty kick, but we didn’t,” Vicini said. “So we had to fight to the end.”

Vicini did his part not only to inject life into the offense but also into the fans by putting high-scoring crowd-favorite Salvatore Schillaci in the game six minutes into the second half. He had scored the only goal against Austria after entering that game in the second half.

And he was Italy’s most effective forward, getting his head on the ball a couple of times near the goal and almost scoring on a free kick in the 89th minute. But for the most part, the Italians were stifled by a defense that routinely employed nine men.

Italy took only 14 shots, six fewer than it had against Austria. That was also nine shots fewer than Meola had to face against Czechoslovakia.

“They wouldn’t let us play,” Italian captain Giuseppe Bergomi said. “They all stayed in their half of the field, and it was difficult for us to find room to play.”

Gansler had said this week that his team would not go into a defensive shell.

“Coaches, like women, always have the right to change their minds,” he said.

Actually, he never intended to do anything but play defensively. That was apparent when he decided to put a defender, Jimmy Banks, at the midfield for Eric Wynalda, an offensive-minded player who was ineligible for the game because of his flagrant foul against Czechoslovakia.

Gansler made two other changes in the lineup that improved the defense, replacing defender Steve Trittschuh with John Doyle and midfielder John Stollmeyer with Marcelo Balboa. He probably will use the same lineup in the final first-round game Tuesday in Florence against Austria.

“We obviously had to play more defense than in the past, but we felt we could play it well,” Gansler said.

Vicini expected as much.

“Everyone knows that if you allow five goals in one match, you make certain maneuvers to prevent that from happening in the next match,” he said.

The Italians could have countered with a high-pressure defense of their own to cause turnovers at the U.S. end of the field and create more scoring opportunities. Instead, they inexplicably chose to allow the Americans to play keep-away and control the tempo. If the United States was going to give them a 1-0 victory, the Italians were going to take it.

That strategy almost cost Italy a victory in the 68th minute, when it made one of its few defensive mistakes. Riccardo Ferri fouled forward Bruce Murray just outside the penalty area, setting up a free kick.

Murray boomed the kick, which cleared the Italians’ player wall and bounced off goalkeeper Walter Zenga. The ball rebounded to forward Peter Vermes, who took a right-footed shot from about 15 yards out.

It slipped through Zenga’s legs and might have found the net if he had not deflected it with his rear end. That slowed the ball enough for Ferri to clear it.

“I feel I should have put it in the back of the net,” Vermes said. “He made a good save. I’ll think about it for a long time.”

Gansler said he jumped 10 feet into the air when Vermes took his best shot.

“Call us blooming optimists, but we wanted a tie,” Gansler said.

That would have been the most stunning result for the United States in soccer since it beat England in the 1950 World Cup, 1-0.

Instead, it got a loss that was a victory everywhere but on the scoreboard.