WOLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : Klinsmann Uses His Head to Tie Spain : Group D: German forward scores one goal in second half and just misses on the winner.

Ten years ago nearly to the day, Spain embarrassed Germany with a defeat that sent German soccer into turmoil. This time, Germany had Juergen Klinsmann.

Klinsmann scored with a fine header in the 48th minute to salvage a 1-1 tie Tuesday for the defending World Cup champions against a determined Spanish team.

“Spain played an excellent game,” Klinsmann said. “They made it very, very hard for us in the first half. They just stayed back and waited for our counterattacks.”

Those counterattacks ultimately produced the tying goal, which Klinsmann got with a header in the 48th minute. He almost won it, too.

“The bad news was that I didn’t score the second goal,” he said after his right-footed boot just missed the right corner of the net. “There are days when you just try everything.”

Spain beat Germany, 1-0, on June 20, 1984, at the European Championships in France, preventing the Germans from advancing to the second round.

Coach Jupp Derwall was fired on the spot and Franz Beckenbauer was brought in to rescue German soccer. His mission was completed with the 1990 World Cup title in Italy, and Berti Vogts, his assistant, took over.

Vogts almost certainly has Germany into the second round of this tournament. The Germans, who beat Bolivia in the opener, have four points in Group C. Spain, which tied South Korea, has two. The Koreans play the Bolivians on Thursday.

“Right now, we are just happy that we came back against a strong team,” Vogts said. “We foolishly wasted some scoring chances, but the result was fair.

“We still must improve--and we will.”

Spain, playing without its captain, sweeper Miguel Nadal--he was suspended for two games after a rough tackle against South Korea--took the lead on a 14th-minute goal by Juan Antonio Goikoetxea. He floated the ball into the net from the wide side on the right wing with what he planned to be a pass.

“I intended a cross, but it worked the way it did,” he said.

The Germans were stunned by the goal and suddenly looked very ordinary. Spain pressed, but never beat goalkeeper Bodo Illgner again.

Instead, it was Klinsmann who tied it and nearly won it in the second half.

In the 48th minute, Klinsmann leaped above two defenders to meet Haessler’s free kick and head the ball powerfully downward. The ball bounced up over goalie Andoni Zubizarreta’s head and was already over the goal line when Stefan Effenberg leaped forward to make sure with a diving header.

That set the German fans in the crowd of 63,113 at Soldier Field to chanting and singing. They almost had even more to celebrate with three minutes to go, when Klinsmann stroked a shot just wide of the goalpost.

“What really upsets me, in spite of our overall success, is that I was unable to score the second goal,” he said of his right-footed boot that barely missed. “I should have been able to.”

The Spanish seemed satisfied with the tie.

“I think the Spanish performance you saw today is the real Spain,” Goikoetxea said. “The thing that helped today, at least in my case, was the temperature, which was not as high as the day we played Korea. That day the tie was made possible by heat.”

This day, the tie was made possible by Juergen Klinsmann.