WORLD CUP ’90 : Argentina Gives Italians the Boot : Soccer: Defending champions stun host country with a victory on penalty kicks.

See Naples and cry.

That was the sad epitaph to Italy’s World Cup dreams written on the field of San Paolo Stadium Tuesday night.

Argentina, the defending world champion, ousted Italy from the tournament, throwing an entire country into severe depression.

For six years, Italians have dreamed of seeing their beloved Azzurri win the World Cup for a record fourth time.

For almost four weeks, the nation has charted the fortunes of every player, delighting in the goals of Salvatore Schillaci, replaying the dazzling moves of Giuseppe Giannini, analyzing every word spoken by Coach Azeglio Vicini.

In bars and restaurants and piazzas across the land, Italians have danced and sung and cheered the team’s every success. Italy seemed invincible. It won five times. It had not allowed a goal. It was one step away from the championship game in Rome on Sunday.

But on Tuesday night, before a stunned and disbelieving crowd of 59,978, it fell to Argentina, losing a classic semifinal match on penalty kicks after two hours of regulation play and extra time ended with the score deadlocked at 1-1.

The hero for Argentina was not Diego Maradona. It was Sergio Goycochea, the team’s backup goalkeeper who has been playing only because Nery Pumpido, the starting goalkeeper, broke his leg in a first-round game against the Soviet Union.

Each team had made three penalty kicks when Italy’s Roberto Donadoni stepped up to take his. He struck the ball cleanly and hard, aiming for the top right-hand corner of the net. Goycochea guessed correctly, flung himself across the goal and blocked the shot.

Donadoni sadly trudged back to his teammates sprawled on the ground at midfield. Roberto Baggio, the $13-million star whom Vicini inexplicably chose not to start, walked over and consoled him.

Maradona was next. He easily beat Walter Zenga, the Italian goalkeeper who had not given up a goal for a World Cup-record 517 minutes before Claudio Caniggia beat him with a header in the second half to tie the score. Schillaci had put Italy in front in the 17th minute.

With Argentina leading, 4-3, on penalty kicks, it meant that the next Italian player, Aldo Serena, would have to make his kick and Zenga would have to save the fifth Argentine shot for Italy to stay alive.

But Goycochea, perhaps inspired by his previous save, denied Serena, too, and it was over.

“Some goalkeepers have better intuition than others,” Goycochea said. “I don’t think saving penalties is just a matter of luck.”

Argentina’s players and coaches could hardly believe their luck. The team barely survived the first round, finishing behind Cameroon and Romania and barely advancing to the round of 16. It was totally outplayed by Brazil and somehow managed to salvage that game, 1-0. It went to penalty kicks against Yugoslavia in the quarterfinals, saw Maradona miss his, and yet still won.

“We deserved to win,” Argentine Coach Carlos Bilardo said. “We dominated play in midfield.”

Said Maradona: “I’m dreaming of an Argentina-England final. I’ll give everything to win the World Cup because it’s the last one I’ll play in.”

Implausible as it seems, all that stands between Argentina and its chance to become the first team since Brazil in 1958-1962 to win consecutive World Cups is Sunday’s match against the winner of tonight’s West Germany-England semifinal in Turin.

The Italians began confidently, stringing together passes, moving the ball from wing to wing and giving every indication that the goals would be just a matter of time. When Schillaci scored in the 17th minute, completing an intricate move that also involved Fernando De Napoli, Giannini and Gianluca Vialli, it appeared that it might be the first of several Italian goals.

Goycochea did well to block Vialli’s initial shot, but he had no chance at the rebound. Schillaci, lurking nearby for just such an opportunity, slammed the ball home from close range. It was his fifth World Cup goal, tying him with Czechoslovakia’s Tomas Skuhravy as the tournament’s top goal scorers.

There was some question before the game whether Naples fans would cheer for Italy, their national team, or for Maradona and, by extension, Argentina, because Maradona plays for Napoli in the Italian league. The “I-tal-ia! I-tal-ia!’ roar that followed the goal provided the answer.

But, although it played attractive soccer, Italy failed to increase its lead. As the match wore on, Argentina got more and more into it and Vicini’s agitation on the Italian bench increased. He finally sent Baggio into the game, and later Serena, but neither could provide the goal Italy so clearly needed to quell Argentina’s mounting confidence.

Caniggia got his goal in the 67th minute, when he out-jumped Zenga and three defenders and headed the ball into the opposite corner of the net.

Argentina, down to 10 men after the expulsion of Ricardo Giusti in overtime, held on. When it went to penalty kicks, it was anyone’s game.

“We leave this World Cup adventure knowing we did everything we possibly could to reach the final,” Vicini said. “We needed a little luck.”

In Rome, Italy was invincible. Farther south?

See Naples and cry.