WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : Sorry, Bora, but This One Is a Snora

Is that it? Is the soccer revolution over?

No, not at all. Keep your shirt on. The United States is still alive and kicking in World Cup XV. But I won’t kid you, our star-spangled boys could not have chosen a worse time to play their worst game, sleeprunning through a 1-0 defeat to Romania on a day when temperatures and tempers ran hot, including John Harkes doing a deadly impression of John Starks.

Too bad.

You had us, you U.S. guys, right in the palms of your otherwise idle hands. Don’t let us go.

Before a captive audience on a Sunday afternoon when the only other thing on television worth watching was the Dave Stockton Father-and-Son Golf Tour, a young soccer squad that had just enthralled millions of Americans four days earlier ran onto the same field and did 90 minutes of nothing. Virtually qualifying for the next level of a tournament by losing, 1-0, was tantamount to winning a Purple Heart by shooting yourself in the foot.

Nevertheless, let us not forget that trusted old first law of soccer:

Qualifying beats not qualifying.

Let’s see. As I understand it, in this remarkably complex scheduling format, the United States either will next play Germany in Chicago, Brazil in Palo Alto, Stanford in Rio de Janeiro or the Romanian women’s team in Bucharest. I’d have better luck doing a jigsaw puzzle with my feet than explaining this World Cup system to you.

Germany or Brazil, most likely.

“We’ll be playing one of the giants of World Cup,” U.S. player Paul Caligiuri said.

And our heroic dodgers will be playing these mean old giants without Harkes, who might never play another World Cup game with the Americans should they be given a knockout punch in the next round. Harkes chose a particularly inopportune moment to be yellow-carded for the second time, disqualifying the 27-year-old midfielder from the tournament for one game, just when his team needs him most.

The most emotion the U.S. team showed all day was when Harkes stood squabbling with teammate Marcelo Balboa, who kept giving his compatriot some good, sound advice: “Shhhhh.”

Didn’t work.

The two Americans might have kept up the argument, but it probably isn’t a good idea to get into a big fight with a Balboa.

Harkes was hardly mellow about his yellow. In fact, he was indignant.

He said, “I didn’t do anything wrong. It’s disgusting.”

The end of an imperfect day.

This was hardly U.S. soccer at its best. Eighteen minutes into the game, Romania’s team captain, Dan Petrescu, went around Harkes so quickly, you would have thought his feet were on fire. Which, with a field temperature estimated somewhere between 115 degrees and the center of the Krakatoa volcano, perhaps they were. Petrescu saw a gap between goalkeeper Tony Meola and the near post, aimed, fired and scored.

That was the old ballgame.

Very little the Americans did during the remaining 72 minutes of play made the opposing goalkeeper put down his water bottle. There was a header by Thomas Dooley that nearly grazed a post, another by Ernie Stewart that went a tad too high and a three-hopper by Caligiuri that was fielded cleanly by Florin Prunea, the roamin’ Romanian in goal.

It was a letdown for players and public alike.

“I think we were still on a high from Wednesday,” U.S. player Tab Ramos said.

Even so, that funny stand-up comedian Bora Milutinovic followed the contest by calling it his team’s “best game of the tournament,” making some wonder if possibly our happy-go-lucky old coach stayed out in the sun too long.

But OK, you want to put your best foot forward, put your best foot forward.

“There’s no reason anyone should see this game as being bad for the American perception of soccer,” said assistant coach Sigi Schmid, Bora’s right-hand man. “When you play in summer heat, it slows the game down. Plus, you had one team sitting on a lead and playing for a certain result. We still had some good goal-scoring chances, so it wasn’t a bad game when you look at it in that context.”

OK. Fair enough.

Let’s look at it in that context, shall we?

Bring on those Germans or Brazilians. They might be giants. But bigger they are, harder they fall.