WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : It’s a Curious Yellow That Costs Romanians : Group A: Raducioiu’s second delay-of-game infraction means the striker will be barred from team’s second-round match.
Imagine, if you will, reaching the final 16 in any world sporting event and missing one of your top players because he committed two delay-of-game penalties.
Welcome to the world of yellow cards.
It’s an often arbitrary system in which the referee is judge and jury with the total authority to issue a yellow card if there is a blatant waste of time by a player.
On what should have been a thoroughly joyous day for Romania after a 1-0 victory over the United States, part of Sunday’s celebration was tempered by the knowledge that its star striker, Florin Raducioiu, won’t be playing in the second-round game at the Rose Bowl on Sunday.
Raducioiu received a yellow card for delay of game--knocking the ball away after he failed to reach a pass from defender Dan Petrescu, and it went out of bounds--in the 62nd minute from referee Mario Van Der Ende of the Netherlands. Immediately, Raducioiu knew he had brain-locked. But it was too late--the yellow card was in the air.
Two yellow cards and a player is out for the next game. Raducioiu had no room for error because he got a yellow card in Romania’s first game against Colombia on June 18, for, guess what? Delay of game in the 39th minute when he didn’t move back far enough when Romania was setting up a wall.
Mr. Delay.
Well, at least the guy is consistent.
Afterward, he was a bit chagrined, realizing his quick flash of anger at himself could cost the team.
“No, I don’t think I will do that again,” Raducioiu said, speaking in Italian to a translator. “It was a natural (reaction).
“I was upset with myself to do so. But the referee made the right decision.”
Said Romanian Coach Anghel Iordanescu: “He is one of the players that counts a lot.”
That is an understatement. The 24-year-old striker is the outstanding running mate of star midfielder Gheorghe Hagi. Hagi is the consummate playmaker and Raducioiu is the finisher. He scored a “golden hat trick,” four goals, against the Faroe Islands in September.
Raducioiu now plays for AC Milan, but he scored 13 goals in 29 games during the 1992-93 season for Brescia in the Italian League.
The concerns are obvious for Romania. How will Hagi function without a finisher?
“Hagi will not play alone . . . if I am missing,” Raducioiu said. “The Romanian team depends on each other. We’ll be together, all 22 of us. They know how to play together.”
Already Romania has survived a certain amount of adversity. Iordanescu, over and over, has mentioned the rigorous travel schedule when Romania flew from California to Michigan for its second-round game against Switzerland and then back to California for Sunday’s game. The players spoke about the three-hour time difference and the sauna-like conditions at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich.
Conditions at the Rose Bowl were worse. The on-field temperature was 120 degrees and the air temperature was 103 degrees at nearby Burbank during the first half.
Oddly enough, Iordanescu never took off his suit coat the entire game. He never seemed to sweat, opening a whole new realm of commercial possibilities.
Afterward, he took his suit coat off, during the postgame news conference.
“It’s the team suit,” he said, smiling. “That’s the way we are used to. If you want, I could put it back on.”
The players wilted but somehow held on for the shutout.
“I don’t remember such a heat,” Hagi said. “In the Detroit game, it was inside and we couldn’t adjust. Today, in the last five minutes, it was very difficult.”
Raducioiu had a better description for the setting.
“It is like we are playing in desert of Arizona,” he said.
