Shoot-Out Victory by Germans Creates a World Cup Repeat
After 30 days and 50 games, the World Cup tournament is back where it was in 1986, with West Germany and Argentina playing for the trophy.
Until the semifinals, the teams had progressed in vastly different fashion. The Germans were awesome, overpowering nearly everyone with a precise attack, speed and strength. The Argentines were lucky, getting by on experience and guile.
Both took the same route through the semis, however. After 1-1 ties, they won shoot-outs, 4-3, putting in all four of their penalty kicks while their opponents missed the final two.
West Germany made its third straight final, fifth overall, by beating England on Wednesday night in Turin. The previous evening, in Naples, the defending champion Argentines edged host Italy.
On Sunday, in Rome, as they did four years ago in Mexico City, Carlos Bilardo’s Argentina plays Franz Beckenbauer’s West Germany.
“It should be an open game, just like tonight,” Beckenbauer said. “It’s great to have the opportunity to beat Argentina.”
“It will be like a chess game, with a lot of marking in the midfield. Whoever makes a mistake will lose,” Bilardo said. “The bottom line is that if we want to be world champions, we have to beat everybody.”
It will be the third final in the last four World Cups for Argentina, seeking to equal Brazil’s record of winning three of four. The Germans are the first to make three straight finals.
But they aren’t getting cocky about it.
“The match was more difficult than expected. We can’t remember such a good and dramatic match as this one,” Beckenbauer said. “Both teams had reached their peak. . . .
“It was advertising for soccer. All 120 minutes were played to full tempo, and England played a great game.”
It was the first time England did so in the tournament.
“We get told we play medieval, old-fashioned football,” Manager Bobby Robson said. “We have shown, with all our players, that our game hasn’t gone back at all.
“I couldn’t be more proud. We can go back home in honor. We always played sensibly, we’ve done our best and that’s all we can ask.”
Perhaps they could have asked for more success in the shoot-out. The English came up with a late goal for the third straight game, with Gary Lineker scoring his third in two games on a defensive mistake with 10 minutes remaining. That offset Andreas Brehme’s shot that nicked the leg of defender Paul Parker and soared over goalie Peter Shilton in the 59th minute.
Both teams hit the goal post in the overtime, and then came the shoot-out.
“I prefer you play until a team scores the first goal,” Robson said. “Someone is going to crack and a goal will be scored. . . . I feel at this level, with this importance, I say we play on.”
Sounds like a loser in the shoot-out, doesn’t it?
“There has been no better way, no better solution reached yet, for breaking draws,” Beckenbauer said. “Certainly, it beats the flip of a coin.”
Sounds like a winner, of course.
The shoot-out featured 23-year-old German goalie Bodo Illgner, in his first World Cup, against 40-year-old Shilton, the record holder for international appearances. It was Illgner who had the magic, however.
Shilton just missed on several of West Germany’s shots, but could not stop Brehme, Lothar Matthaeus, Karlheinz Riedle and Olaf Thon.
England’s Lineker, Peter Beardsley and David Platt made their kicks before Stuart Pearce shot right at Illgner. He stopped it with his feet.
When Chris Waddle missed high and wide, the Germans were in their fifth final. They won in 1954 and 1974, lost in 1982 and 1986.
“The game could have been decided in the first 90 minutes, but the match was such a battle that it seemed it had to go to penalties,” Matthaeus said. “We were lucky.”
They also are lucky to be facing a depleted Argentina in the final. Four Argentines--midfielder Ricardo Giusti with a red card, midfielder Sergio Batista, defender Julio Olarticoechea and forward Claudio Caniggia with two yellow cards--are suspended.
“The panorama is black,” Bilardo said.
The panorama wasn’t very bright outside the stadium in Turin. Before the game, two incidents involving English, Italian and German fans resulted in the arrest of 43 Italians and the stabbing of a German in the back. The victim underwent surgery, and doctors estimated that he will need a month to recover.
There were some minor skirmishes early this morning, but no arrests or injuries were reported.
