No Walls Will Hold Back This World Cup Juggernaut

We can name the two best soccer teams in the world now.

One is West Germany, and the other is Italy.

Sorry, but “San Diego Sockers and Baltimore Blast” is not the correct answer.

With the World Cup down to four teams, we are closer than ever to crowning a champion. We do that next Sunday, in fact.

And they are going to go ahead and hold a championship game in Rome, even if the West Germans and Italians don’t happen to be in it.

But we might as well go ahead and state something publicly that is already common knowledge among billions of people who have been following the World Cup thus far.

No other team can play soccer as beautifully as the teams from these two old European acquaintances, West Germany and Italy.

Oh, somebody might defeat one of them in this week’s semifinal matches, because in any sport that has as many 1-0 scores as soccer, an entire nation can be eliminated by one lucky bounce.

You watch enough soccer, you go away convinced that every game ever played has had a final score of 1-0.

I have come to believe that you could put 11 guys on one side and an empty net on the other and the final score would still turn out to be 1-0--unless one of these two teams was the United States, in which case the final score would be either 0-0 or 100-0, depending whether the United States had the 11 guys or the empty net.

Yet the more soccer you watch, the less difficult it becomes to tell the good teams from the not-as-good teams, even with only one goal.

Take the game I attended Sunday, in which West Germany defeated Czechoslovakia by a score of . . . oh, you know.

The only goal came on a penalty kick, which, for those of you who do not understand soccer, gives somebody a free shot at the goalkeeper, with nobody else on defense permitted to do so much as stick out his big toe.

Anyhow, it probably sounds as though the West Germans didn’t exactly knock the Czechs’ socks off.

Even the winning coach, Franz Beckenbauer, didn’t sound all that thrilled with the way his men played. This was partly because one of Czechoslovakia’s players got kicked out of the game for angrily kicking his shoe into the air, which, come to think of it, was about the farthest anybody from Czechoslovakia kicked anything all day.

We can assure you, 1-0 score or not, the West Germans outplayed their opponents from start to finish, as they usually do.

They are slick and quick, these Germans. This makes six of the last seven World Cups in which they have reached the final four. And in 1994 in the United States, one of the teams in the World Cup will be our favorite new nation, United Germany.

On TV or in person, all you have to do is watch the way West Germany or Italy plays, then watch the way other teams play, and you are bound to notice the difference. Italy, too, plays 1-0 matches night after night, yet considers it an off-night when the opponent gets off one decent shot.

In Sunday’s game here, West Germany took seven shots at the net from inside the penalty area alone. (That’s that boxed area in front of the goalkeeper, if you still need help.)

Czechoslovakia did not get one shot inside the West German box all day.

And remember, these Czechs were the big bullies who pounded on the poor little United States, 5-1.

The other World Cup teams simply aren’t in the same league as the Germans or Italians. Sorry if that steps on any toes, but they aren’t. Ireland had heart and Brazil had skill and the Netherlands had style, but the West Germans and Italians are artists. The way they control the ball, these guys must have Velcro on their shoes.

And the West Germans have this one guy, Juergen Klinsmann, who can run so long without running out of energy, his inner parts must be made by Duracell.

We really like this West German team’s chances to go the distance. West Germany hasn’t won the World Cup since 1974, and, what with the Wall coming down and everything, this seems like a good time to throw another party, toss back some cold Beck’s and break out some pretzels.

But don’t forget that Italy has not given up a goal in this year’s tournament. So, while West Germany might very well win the World Cup final by a score of 1-0, playing the game could take two or three days.