World Cup ’94 : WORLD CUP USA ’94 / GROUP A PREVIEW : Feast or Famine : Up-and-Down Performances Leave Talented Romania in Dire Need of More Cohesiveness
The Romanian national soccer team has met the enemy, and it is Gheorghe Hagi’s cousin’s pizzeria.
Hagi, the biggest name in Romanian soccer, the so-called “Maradona of the Carpathians,” has connections, and this one figured to be particularly tasty. Since Hagi and his teammates were going to be in the neighborhood, scheduled to play the United States at the Rose Bowl June 26, Hagi’s cousin invited the entire squad to his Los Angeles pizza restaurant for an all-you-can-eat pepperoni fest, on the house.
Pompiliu Popescu, the Romanian team physician, put a swift kibosh on the offer, however, claiming that although “we are flattered . . . we can’t accept. If we accept, Romania can leave the U.S. without playing the first game, because pizza is a top performer’s biggest foe.”
Popescu then proposed a compromise.
“Our players can have their pizzas at one of Hagi’s cousin’s stores only if they win the Cup,” he said.
So what kind of crust will it be, Team Romania?
Thick, thin or none?
Given Romania’s record in previous World Cups--five appearances, never past the round of 16--Hagi and the boys can pretty much plan on holding the anchovies. Romania is ranked 12th in the world by FIFA but only second in Group A, where Colombia is the prohibitive favorite and the United States much improved over its status as the official hors d’ouvre of the 1990 World Cup.
The Romanians will have to push to advance beyond the second round, with or without the extra calories.
Qualifying for World Cup ’94 was an adventure in itself, symptomatic of Romania’s longstanding reputation as one of the flakiest outfits in world soccer.
Romania scored 12 goals in its first two games, trouncing the Faroe Islands and Wales, then lost to Belgium and the Representation of Czechs and Slovaks--a 5-2 defeat in June of 1993 that prompted immediate hysteria within the national soccer federation.
Cornel Dinu was deposed as coach and replaced by Anghel Iordanescu, a legendary Romanian player who had scored more than 150 goals during his career with Steaua Bucharest. Iordanescu took over with three qualifying games to play and won them all, enabling Romania to place first in its group.
It should not have been nearly so difficult, but maddening underachievement is a hallmark of Romanian soccer. (Bram Stoker never mentioned it in his book, but Count Dracula was believed to be a fan driven over the edge by one too many second-half collapses.) As an English soccer publication recently assessed the Romanians, “At their best they can beat anybody. At their worst, they could lose to a bunch of schoolboys from Idaho.”
Hagi, the Romanian captain and playmaker, is also caretaker of this tradition. He is regarded as one of the best attacking midfielders in the world and his lethal left-footed shot is feared throughout Europe, yet he often floats in and out of concentration on the field, dragging the rest of the team down with him.
In a Cup tuneup against Northern Ireland in Belfast, Hagi spat in an opponent’s face, drawing a red card and losing, temporarily, his captain’s armband.
When in the mood, however, Hagi is a creative distributor--and in striker Florin Raducioiu, he has a formidable finisher. While playing for Bari, Verona, Brescia and Milan in Serie A, the premier league in Italy, Raducioiu totaled 20 goals in 89 games. He had a “golden hat trick”--four goals--against Faroe Islands in the qualifying opener and produced the game winner in last October’s 2-1 clincher over Wales.
Sweeper Miodrag Belodedici, who defected to Yugoslavia during the final years of the Ceaucescu regime before returning in 1992, is the first man to have won European Cups on two teams--Steaua Bucharest and Yugoslavia’s Red Star Belgrade.
The talent is there, at least whenever Iordanescu is able to assemble it in the same place. After the fall of Ceaucescu in 1989, Romanian players were finally allowed to play abroad--and the result was mass exodus. Eight starters play professionally outside Romania, among them Hagi in Brescia, Italy; Raducioiu, AC Milan; midfielder Ionut Lupescu, Bayern Leverkusen, Germany, and defender Gheorghe Popescu, PSV Eindhoven, Netherlands. They are the holdovers from the ’90 Cup team that lost to Ireland on penalty kicks in the second round.
Iordanescu’s task, after reintroductions, is to blend all his expatriates into a cohesive, winning unit.
Under the best conditions, that’s asking an awful lot from Romania. But who knows? If the World Cup trophy is unable to motivate them, maybe a whiff of Hagi’s cousin’s pizza ovens will.
