WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : SPOTLIGHT : WE BEG TO DIFFER

By HELENE ELLIOTT

June 25, 1994 12 AM PT

Irish goalkeeper Pat Bonner and midfielder Roy Keane weren’t buying claims from Alan Rothenberg, chairman and CEO of World Cup USA, that the heat and humidity aren’t affecting games in Orlando.

Keane described conditions Friday as “unbearable. . . . It was almost impossible at times.” Yet, as he spoke, Rothenberg was saying he had yet to hear a winning team complain. That, after all, the weather is the same for both teams. Bonner shook his head. “What a load of nonsense,” he said, walking off.

Eight people were hospitalized after the game, played in temperatures of up to 110 degrees on the field.

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Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : SPOTLIGHT : WE BEG TO DIFFER

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