WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : Spotlight : AMERICAN FUTBOL

Andres Cavelier, a correspondent for the Bogota, Colombia, daily El Tiempo, wrote about covering the World Cup alongside a novice American reporter.

“The day of the inauguration in Chicago, I was assigned to press seat number 298. Next to me was a gringo reporter. Dark glasses, a Chicago Bulls cap, chewing gum and with a pale face, almost white. I would still like to know if that was the natural color of his skin, or if the fright at having to cover a soccer game for the first time in history made his skin turn as white as milk. He was friendly, that’s for sure. Immediately began talking to me--in English, confused by this Colombian’s gringo looks. He was so frank that he immediately confessed that he had never ever covered an international soccer game.

“He also confessed to having taken part in the campaign begun in this country a while back to change the rules of soccer. ‘You have to make it more entertaining. One or two goals a game isn’t worth it,’ he said. And he went on talking about how the out-of-bounds ought to be abolished and how the size of the goal ports ought to grow. In other words, adapt the soccer that is played in more than 150 countries to ‘Soccer Made in the USA.’

“I’ll never forget my colleague’s first observation: ‘What a jerk!’ he said of a fan who, upon catching a stray ball, returned it to the field--just as the law of soccer requires. I understood that my colleague is used to covering baseball. I kept my smiles to myself. ‘Cavelier,’ I told myself, ‘welcome to the World Cup 1994.’ ”