World Cup ‘94: 1 Day and Counting : Keeping the Faith : Fans Aren’t Sure What to Make of Italy’s Roberto Baggio, a Soft-Spoken Buddhist Who Is the Best Player in Europe

Is Roberto Baggio’s value as a soccer player enough to justify a two-day riot?

It’s the kind of philosophical question that Baggio the man would enjoy turning over. But at the moment, Baggio, Europe’s best soccer player, is repulsed by the memories of what he, indirectly, wrought.

Baggio is one of the world’s most charismatic and intriguing players, and also one of the most misunderstood. Baggio is preparing for his second World Cup, and Italy’s considerable hopes in the monthlong tournament starting Friday are resting on this reserved 27-year-old athlete.

While Baggio is recognized as one of the world’s best players, his reticence about embracing his celebrity and his ambivalence on the concept of fame have soccer fans puzzled. Baggio is so different from other stars that this difference creates more fans.

The agony for the Italian public is to know that its love is spent on an icon that neither seeks adulation nor much acknowledges it. Baggio is an infuriating superstar. The three sponsors his IMG agent does allow into the endorsement fold want more out of the private man. The fans wish only that he dedicate every lovely goal to them by racing to the edge of the field and saluting them rather than jogging back to his place in midfield.

Baggio allows no one that power. He learned the full scope of the fickle nature of fans after he was sold by Fiorentina of Florence to its bitter rival, Juventus of Turin. It was in May of 1990, just as the Italian World Cup team was assembling in a suburb of Florence and Baggio had been sold for a then-record transfer of $15 million.

Fiorentina needed the money, but the sale of its most popular player was more than most fans were able to bear. When news of the transfer reached Fiorentina fans, the club’s offices were besieged by an angry, brick-throwing mob. Riot police succeeded in dispersing the crowd only after it had been thoroughly tear-gassed. The fans returned the next day and resumed their violent vigil. The toll over two days: 50 injured.

That was only in Florence. The Italian World Cup team opened its training camp in nearby Coverciano. The first day, about 2,000 Fiorentina fans confronted Baggio and four other national team players from Juventus. The crowd taunted the four players and demanded that Baggio tear up his new contract. The incident was interrupted when Italian Coach Azeglio Vicini sent the players to the showers early.

The next day it was worse. The mob had grown to 5,000, and the invasion of the team’s practice caused the president of the Italian Soccer Federation to take the unpopular step of closing all future practices to the public.

For Baggio, being in the middle of the storm was awful.

“Unfortunately, it was the end of months of tension where things were never really clarified and people hoped I would stay in Florence,” Baggio said while relaxing recently in an office at the Juventus training center just south of Turin. “Suddenly, when I was sold, people felt betrayed by me and the team and reacted badly. When it was happening, I couldn’t believe it was happening to me.”

Baggio may have spared himself the further attentions of Fiorentina fans with his subdued performance in the World Cup the next month. After scoring what many believed to be the most beautiful goal of the tournament, against Czechoslovakia, Baggio was used only sparingly. By the time Italy worked through to the semifinals, Baggio was benched for the game against Argentina.

Italy was knocked out in that game. The high hopes of Italian fans were shot down, and they took their frustration out on the team, saying it took too much for granted. Others said Italy should have been able to take better advantage of playing at home.

“It was a big, big disappointment,” Baggio said. “Everybody said we were convinced we would reach the final. The World Cup is full of surprises. Sometimes having the crowd with you and playing at home doesn’t mean anything. Because the man who thinks everything is against him will concentrate better.”

Baggio’s performance in the World Cup was not so much a disappointment as an enigma. His potential was easy to see, but seldom did he deliver on it fully. Neither pure striker nor strictly a midfielder, Baggio is a playmaker who does best when allowed to roam from the back in a supporting role and forward on the attack.

This freedom is not easily bestowed by coaches and not readily understood by fans. Because of his unconventional combination of skills, Baggio often disappoints. Coupled with his unusual life choices, Baggio presents an odd face to the public.

And that public is often cruel. Baggio’s transfer to Juventus took nearly a year to set. Six months after he was sold, Juventus played Fiorentina at Florence. Fiorentina went ahead by a goal, but Baggio was fouled for a penalty kick. As he was also the team’s designated penalty-taker, Baggio was expected to take the kick, but refused. Teammate Gigi De Agostini’s shot was saved, and minutes later, Baggio was taken out of the game. As he left the field, Baggio stooped to pick up a Fiorentina scarf a fan had thrown, incensing the Juventus fans.

Despite his gesture, Baggio was mercilessly booed by Fiorentina fans--traditional behavior toward former crowd favorites.

“All the players who left Fiorentina had always had the same treatment,” Baggio said. “I didn’t expect that I wouldn’t get the same treatment. Unfortunately, that’s how it is. You are a professional.”

Baggio coped with the controversy by finding solace in his Buddhist religion, further infuriating an overwhelmingly Catholic populace.

Many stories have been written attributing Baggio’s conversion to Buddhism to a period in his life when he underwent three surgeries on his right knee. Baggio missed two years, and many wrote off his chances of returning to professional soccer.

The stories share a similar overwrought theme: man facing his own mortality turns to God. Baggio dismisses the approach as a need for others to rationalize his unusual choice. For some Italians, Baggio’s leaving Catholicism was yet another display of his disappointing nonconformist behavior, which includes his insistence on wearing a ponytail. Why couldn’t he be as they wanted him to be?

“No one has created problems for me (about Buddhism),” Baggio said of his conversion in the late 1980s. “I felt it really deeply. I read and studied. I realized that the key thing is to be at peace with myself. It really helps a lot not to be burned by the profession.

“In Buddhism, you have to believe in yourself. You don’t believe that something external guides your life--basically, it’s you. You understand your defects. You learn to be happy. Everyone wants to find internal happiness, no matter the religion.”

Baggio tries not to draw attention to his beliefs, but he does carry a reminder on the field. In place of the usual armband that each team’s captain must wear, Baggio wears an armband given to him by his Japanese Buddhist master, Daisaku Ikeda. Written in Japanese characters, it reads: “We must win.”

To the extent that Baggio’s soccer playing is aided by Buddhism, the Italian public appears to be tolerant of his choice. Baggio remains an inaccessible star with unfathomable ideas and unconventional approaches. Finally, he is at peace with both his life and his fans’ expectations. Soccer is important, but it is not everything.

“Buddhism helps me to be happy inside,” he said. “Anytime I am happy inside . . . anything you do is better. Buddhism isn’t about the game, only. One day football is going to be over. Life is more important.”

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* Name: Roberto Baggio.

* Born: Feb. 18, 1967, Caldogno, Italy.

* Height: 5 feet 7.

* Weight: 159 pounds.

* Position: Forward/Midfielder.

* Club: Juventus (Turin, Italy).

* Date of international debut: Nov. 16, 1988.

* Debut opponent: the Netherlands.

* Caps (international appearances): 36.

* Goals: 19.

* Little-known fact: In his professional career, Baggio has scored an average of a goal every other match.

* Honors: On the 1990 World Cup team; led Juventus to the UEFA Cup in 1993; European player of the year in 1993.