WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : SPOTLIGHT : A COLOMBIAN TRAGEDY: AUTOPSY OF DEFEAT
They elected a president in Colombia on Sunday, but Colombians were more concerned about their 3-1 loss to Romania in Saturday’s national team World Cup debut in Pasadena.
“NIGHTMARE!” screamed one headline Sunday morning.
In addition to a front-page story, El Tiempo in Bogota dedicated the cover of its daily World Cup supplement to the match.
“Many things went through the mind,” reported El Tiempo’s Victor Rosas from the Rose Bowl. “The sad history of our soccer, the brilliant phase of the (Coach Francisco) Maturana era, a recent tour full of happiness and hope. But never did anyone stop to think about a left leg . . . that might cross what all of us supposed would be a road to glory. Yes. Its name is Gheorghe Hagi. . . .”
El Tiempo’s Jorge Barraza, in a column titled “Story of a great disappointment,” reported: “All it takes is to appreciate two images, as opposite as day and night, faith and discouragement. Those 60,000 Colombians who established absolute majority in this impressive Rose Bowl of Los Angeles, colorful, happy, noisy, full of faith before the start (of the game). Fallen, downcast, silent, ruined afterwards.”
El Espectador’s Esperanza Palacio Molina reported from Pasadena: “With anger, almost with rage, with treachery, Romania stabbed Colombia with three goals, causing it a wound first to the heart and then to the liver. The heart, because it left without illusion an entire people who dreamed of a first victory. . . . The liver, because playing its own soccer, Romania did not appreciate the pretty and well-played soccer of Colombia, and made Colombia lose its head and its unity. And so all of us were left with the hope packed up, the smile stored away and the anger on display.”
