World Cup ’94 : WORLD CUP USA ’94 / GROUP E PREVIEW : Great Expectations : Coach Arrigo Sacchi Is on the Hot Seat as Italy Aims to Cool Critics

They might return to national applause, but Italy’s beloved Azzurri departed for the World Cup on Tuesday to the derision of critics and whistling fans alarmed by a talented team’s failure to jell.

If Italy lives up to its pre-tournament billing as a potential finalist, it will take American fresh air and refreshing distance from hypercriticism. Judging from where they have been, New York must seem a kinder, gentler place to the Italians in their trademark blue shirts.

In its tuneup at home June 3, Italy won, 1-0, against gritty Switzerland but lost the crowd at Rome’s Olympic Stadium with a performance lacking personality and coherence.

Blame Arrigo Sacchi. Everybody else does.

The studious and genial Italian coach tested six dozen players in search of the 22 he took to America for the opening match against Ireland in Giants Stadium on June 18. There are sweet singers galore, but so far the chorus is flat.

Sacchi is a visionary. He dreams of building a national squad that plays with the brio and many-fanged explosiveness characteristic of his championship AC Milan team.

“I think it is important that the team have a dynamic, exciting style of play,” Sacchi said. “It is important that the players put on a show, and that the game be fun to watch.”

That particular statement of principle is more than two years old. For all his tinkering since, the New Age is yet to dawn.

If light begins to glimmer in New York and Washington, though, pay attention. Some of the best soccer players in the world are wearing Italian blue this summer--international icons whose consummate skill is leavened by poise that comes from experience.

On paper, Italy is too good for Ireland, too good for Norway, too good for Mexico, its first-round opponents. All three lost warm-ups last weekend, Ireland and Norway to non-starters Czech Republic and Sweden, respectively, and Mexico, 1-0, to the United States in the Rose Bowl.

For all their problems, the Italians should have little trouble in the early going. And if the Azzurri mesh, they might be too good for anybody.

Sacchi, smart man, has built his team around the veterans of Milan, the best club team in Europe, the only club team owned by an on-the-job prime minister, maybe the best club team anywhere.

Franco Baresi, the captain and a legendary sweeper who has played in more international matches--75 and counting--than any other active Italian player, is from Milan. So are left back Paolo Maldini, stopper Alessandro Costacurta, midfielders Roberto Donadoni, Demetrio Albertini and Alberigo Evani, and forward Daniele Massaro.

Gianluca Pagliuca, Sampdoria of Genoa’s goalkeeper, complements a formidable Italian defense built around Baresi.

In the midfield, where Sacchi’s concepts most often die aborning, the Milan contingent is joined by the all-star likes of Juventus of Turin’s Dino Baggio and Internazionale of Milan’s Nicola Berti, aptly nicknamed “the anarchist” for his incendiary, break-it-open style of play.

For offense, Sacchi looks hardly further than Roberto Baggio of Juventus. At 26, Baggio, no relation to Dino, has many distinctions beyond his ponytail. One is that he is Italy’s highest-scoring Buddhist. Another is that he is Europe’s player of the year.

Baggio would be scorer enough for most continents, but Sacchi also has Massaro, as well as Pierluigi Casiraghi of Lazio of Rome and his teammate, Giuseppe Signori. Signori has led all scorers in Italy for the past two years, and he scored the face-saving if not confidence-building goal against Switzerland. And never mind that he looked offside to everybody but the linesman.

Still, Sacchi tinkers--a safecracker who has all the numbers but not yet the winning combination.

Italy needs more punch. To find it, Sacchi seems to be turning from the now-universal 4-4-2 alignment and experimenting instead with a 4-3-3.

Against Switzerland, Sacchi benched Casiraghi, teaming Baggio with Signori and free spirit Berti. It was hardly a signal success against the bigger, more physical Swiss. But there were some moments.

For a nation of 57 million would-be national coaches, most of them more interested in victory than ballet-on-a-meadow, Sacchi is a disappointment and America’s World Cup tournament looms as a national embarrassment.

Warming up, the Italians not only lost to defending champion Germany and France but also to a third-division club team called Pontedera.

Disaster.

Not since 1982 has an Italian team preparing for a World Cup been as lackluster as the current one.

But it must be remembered who went home with the Cup when the dust settled in Spain that year. Hint: They wore blue shirts, lived just across the Mediterranean and ate pasta twice a day.

In handicapping this year’s spectacle, it also should be noted where opera was born. In Italy, it is in the last act that the fat lady usually sings loudest.