WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : Granddaddy of an Opener at Rose Bowl : Showcase: Romania-Colombia matchup first of eight World Cup games at Pasadena venue.
By Gheorghe, are you ready for some futbol?
Today at 4:30 p.m. at the Rose Bowl, two of the finest athletic teams on the planet meet in a game that figures to produce 36 fewer points than Wisconsin and UCLA managed on the same field 5 1/2 months ago.
Wisconsin won that game, 21-16.
Colombia should win this one, 1-0.
Or it could be Romania, 1-0.
One or the other.
Today, the World Cup arrives in Pasadena, bringing with it the world’s grandest sporting spectacle, the quadrennial monthlong soccer festival that, in terms of global import, will dwarf every other event ever held in the Arroyo Seco, from the Rose Bowl to the Super Bowl to the 1984 Summer Olympic soccer tournament.
What possibly could be bigger than the Granddaddy of Them All?
How about the Gran Abuelo of Them All--the great-grandfather of all athletic competitions, guaranteed to captivate the undivided attention of 23 countries worldwide--the United States is also entered--with a projected cumulative television audience of 32 billion?
Archie Griffin swept right end here. So did Ernie Nevers. Ron VanderKelen, Frankie Albert and Jim Plunkett once filled the sky above with spirals. Some of the greatest names in the history of college football have staked their claim inside this arena, but this afternoon, the marquee gives way to stars of a different inflection.
The big names at the Rose Bowl today:
Romania’s Gheorghe Hagi, “the Maradona of the Carpathians.”
And Colombia’s Carlos Valderrama, “the Mad Hairdo of Santa Marta.”
The Romania-Colombia match is the first of eight World Cup games scheduled for the Rose Bowl, leading to the July 17 final. Sunday, Sweden and Cameroon will play, followed by the United States’ last two matches in Group A competition--against Colombia on Wednesday and Romania on June 26.
Those games should determine whether the United States advances to the second round for the first time since the inaugural World Cup in 1930. That will largely determine whether Americans finally catch soccer fever in 1994--or, as in the sport itself, refuse to touch it with their hands.
Advance and Miracle On Bermuda will transfix the nation.
Go three-and-out, however, and Alan Rothenberg’s Great American Soccer Campaign (“Everybody Plays . . . Will Somebody Please Watch?”) will be belly up before July 1.
Thus, the Rose Bowl stands ready to witness either the greatest breakthrough in U.S. soccer or its greatest heartbreak.
After group play is finished, the Rose Bowl will be the site of four games in the single-elimination “knockout”--one game in the round of 16, one semifinal, the third-place game and the final.
The final, expected to draw a television audience of 2 billion, is the glittering prize of any World Cup, and Pasadena won it primarily on its track record. The Rose Bowl’s large playing surface, wider than in most multipurpose stadiums, and its mammoth seating capacity make it the preeminent soccer facility in the country, with the turnstile figures to prove it.
In 1984, the Rose Bowl held the largest Stateside soccer crowd ever--101,799 for the Olympic final between France and Brazil--and this month, 91,123 watched the United States beat Mexico, 1-0, in a World Cup tuneup. Although the audience was overwhelmingly pro-Mexico--for one day, it was the Verde, Blanco y Rojo Bowl-- the crowd was the largest to watch a U.S. national soccer team play inside the United States.
For the World Cup, the Rose Bowl will seat roughly 92,000, with about 4,000 seats removed in the corners to allow for a wider field.
Given the reputation of international soccer fans, the stadium has been accordingly refortified, giving the place the distinct feel of a military compound festooned in brightly colored banners.
An extra 10-foot-tall chain-link fence now traverses the stadium’s original fence, creating an extra security wall. Temporary barriers have been installed just outside the press box elevator entrance. New tunnels have been constructed to ease evacuation in the case of an emergency.
Security has also been stepped up, with an intensive on-site force drawing from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles Police Department, the FBI and 40 other local, state and federal agencies. Spectators have been advised that pat-down searches and bag inspections will be conducted at all perimeter gates. All that is missing are signs reading, “Enter at Your Own Frisk.”
Aesthetically, this will not rank as the Rose Bowl’s finest moment, not with the blockades and the barbed-wire coils. But such is the price one pays when it is permitted to punch the World Cup’s ticket.
By the time it arrives Wednesday, the U.S. team will wish it were half so well-defended.
Today’s Game
WHAT: Colombia plays Romania in a World Cup Group A game.
WHERE: Rose Bowl.
WHEN: 4:30 p.m.
TV: ESPN, Univision.
