WORLD CUP USA ’94 / ROUND OF 16 : ANALYSIS : Now Fun Really Begins : Second round: With sudden-death elimination, teams can’t afford to coast.

Officially, the 1994 World Cup began at Soldier Field two weeks ago, when Oprah Winfrey fell on her face and Carlos Leonel Trucco fell on another part of his anatomy.

Unofficially, it begins today, and from now on falls from grace will be a lot more painful.

Winfrey’s abrupt exit from the opening-ceremony stage was the cause of mild amusement on June 17, especially when it was learned she had injured nothing more serious than her dignity.

Goalkeeper Trucco’s pratfall caused amusement of another kind, especially in the German camp, since it allowed Juergen Klinsmann to score the tournament’s opening goal and started Bolivia on its way home.

Since then, seven teams have joined the Bolivians in making an early exit from the World Cup, the most notable of these being Colombia, whose decaffeinated performance was not worth a hill of beans, coffee or otherwise.

That leaves 16 nations still in the running for international sport’s most coveted trophy. By Tuesday night, that number will have been cut in half.

“Now is the round it really gets going,” Klinsmann said earlier this week. “In the (first-round) matches, you tend to take it easy. You don’t go into the duels as hard because you know if you get injured you don’t get through the World Cup.”

That will not be the case in the second round. From now on, it’s win or catch a cab for the airport. There are no more ties, no more appallingly dull, foul-plagued exhibitions such as Thursday’s Bulgaria-Argentina disgrace.

Games that are all square at the end of 90 minutes will be extended for 30 minutes of overtime. If that doesn’t end the tie, penalty kicks will, starting with the best of five, then going to sudden death.

It is not the most pleasant way to be eliminated from the World Cup--as top-notch teams such as France, Brazil and Italy will attest, having been penalty-kick victims in the past--but it does make for some dramatic television.

Chances are, at least one of the remaining teams will have been beaten on penalties by the time the eight second-round games are complete Tuesday.

The 16 teams include four former World Cup winners--Argentina, Brazil, Germany and Italy--and the only four unbeaten teams after the first round of 36 matches--Brazil, Germany, Spain and Sweden. They also include two teams--Nigeria and Saudi Arabia--playing in their first World Cup and another, the United States, playing in the second round for the first time since 1930.

The pairings have produced some formidable games, not the least of which is today’s clash between defending champion Germany and its strongest opponent to date, Belgium.

“They are the outgoing world champions and I know they are afraid of us,” Michael D’Hooghe, president of the Belgian soccer federation, said when the team left Brussels for the United States.

“We might not be stronger than others, but then again the others are not any stronger than we are,” added midfielder Enzo Scifo, the Belgian captain. “We can take on any team.”

The Belgians proved that in the first round when they held a technically superior Dutch team scoreless in a 1-0 victory at Orlando, Fla. That, combined with a 1-0 defeat of Morocco, meant that Belgium’s surprising 1-0 loss to Saudi Arabia in the third game was nothing more than that, a surprise.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspects of today’s game will be the battle between Klinsmann, who has scored four goals and needs two more to catch leading scorer Oleg Salenko of Russia, and Belgium’s Michel Preud’homme, far and away the best goalkeeper in the tournament so far.

At the other end of the field, Belgium’s Croatian-born striker Josip Weber, who has yet to hit full stride, will be testing the increasingly shaky German defense, which will have yet another new look now that Stefan Effenberg has been sent home in disgrace for his sign-language message to the crowd in Dallas, where Germany clung to a 3-2 victory over South Korea.

This game could go either way and the winner will have to face nothing more fearsome than Mexico or Bulgaria in the quarterfinals.

Today’s second game, between Switzerland and Spain in Washington, is equally difficult to call. Neither team has risen to any great heights and neither has a player who has seized the tournament by the throat and made it his own.

Instead, both are fairly ordinary teams that are in the second round thanks more to the weakness of their first-round groups than to any exceptional effort on their own part.

The inconsistent Swiss were tied by the United States in their opener while still staring at the Pontiac Silverdome roof, then humbled Romania before falling to a resurgent Colombia.

Spain, meanwhile, survived the loss of team captain Miguel Angel Nadal for two games after his expulsion in the opening-day tie with South Korea and went on to tie Germany on an admittedly fluke goal before beating Bolivia.

Sunday’s first game pits the surprise team of the World Cup, Saudi Arabia, against the tournament sleeper, Sweden, at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

This will be the Swedes’ first exposure to really intense heat, their first game having been played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena and their next two at the Silverdome. The Saudis, on the other hand, will not be overly troubled by the temperature.

In Tomas Brolin and Martin Dahlin, Sweden has scorers who could break open the game at any time. But the Saudis have speed that can stretch the Swedish defense and are sky-high after beating Belgium.

Sweden’s accomplishments have been largely overlooked. The nightmare of 1990--three games and three losses in Italy--has been put to rest. A third-place finish in the 1992 European Championship and only a single loss in 10 qualifying games indicate that Coach Tommy Svensson knows exactly what he is doing.

That Svensson could cook up a game plan to tie the hitherto unstoppable Brazilians suggests his team will be more than the Saudis can handle.

But this has been a tournament of upsets. As German Coach Berti Vogts pointed out this week, “The gap (between teams) is no longer as wide as it used to be.”

The second game Sunday easily could turn into a repeat of Thursday night’s fiasco. Once again, it features Argentina, a team shattered by the loss of Diego Maradona because of a failed drug test.

The Argentines’ opponent at the Rose Bowl will be Romania, a team not unlike the Bulgarians but with perhaps a shade more World Cup pedigree. Romania was one of the unfortunate teams to be ousted on penalty kicks four years ago.

Earlier in the 1990 tournament, it played Argentina in a cynical, foul-ridden game in Naples that ended in a 1-1 tie. The absence of Maradona normally might be enough to give the edge to Romania this time but for the fact that it too is missing a star, Florin Raducioiu, who is serving a suspension after picking up two yellow cards in the first round.

Against Bulgaria on Thursday, the Argentines produced their usual theatrics, diving at the merest hint of a challenge, writhing about as if they had been shot and generally fooling Tunisian referee Neji Jouini, who was well out of his depth and showed it. On one occasion, the television camera caught forward Gabriel Batistuta spitting at a Bulgarian player.

The Romanians have a chance to win Sunday’s game and put the tournament out of its misery by sending the rest of the Argentines home to join Maradona. But they will have to be very careful. It is unlikely that the Argentines again will miss the scoring opportunities they squandered on Thursday.

Monday brings potentially the most historic doubleheader in American soccer history--Ireland against the Netherlands in Orlando and the United States against Brazil in Palo Alto.

The Florida Citrus Bowl was a sea of green when the Irish played there in the first round and awash in orange when the Dutch came to town. What it will look like with both teams’ fans there staggers the imagination. Bring sunglasses.

It will be hot, it will be humid, it will be fiercely fought and it very well could be decided on penalty kicks.

When Ireland and Holland met in Palermo in the first round of the 1990 tournament, the Dutch took an early lead and continued to attack while the Irish defended and eventually earned a tying goal late in the game. That pattern will be repeated.

But two elements will be missing Monday--the two scorers from 1990, Holland’s Ruud Gullit and Ireland’s Niall Quinn. The 1-1 tie four years ago also produced something else that the Dutch, in particular, will want to erase from their memory.

Because of the tie, the teams had to draw straws to see which finished second in the group and which finished third. Ireland won, went on to play Romania and eventually reached the quarterfinals. Holland lost, had to play West Germany and was ousted.

Both teams have suffered in the Florida heat, but Ireland Coach Jack Charlton has complained about it a lot more than the Netherlands’ Dick Advocaat.

The Irish are playing to the best of their ability, whereas the Dutch have yet to fulfill their considerable promise. Dennis Bergkamp should have been challenging for the scoring title by now, but he has only one goal.

The Dutch will find the Irish defense every bit as difficult to penetrate as the Belgian defense was, but it seems unlikely that they can create as many chances as they did in that game and again come away empty-handed.

The fans, meanwhile, could be Ireland’s secret weapon. The Dutch have their outrageous costumes and their brass band in the stands, but the Irish fans are every bit as passionate in their support.

“They make a difference,” Irish goalkeeper Pat Bonner said. “They enjoy themselves. They’re not there probably having too much expectation. They’re there just to enjoy themselves and so far everything’s gone well for them. It’s a big holiday for them.”

Also wanting to celebrate another kind of holiday--Independence Day--the Americans travel to Palo Alto knowing they have never beaten Brazil and if they do so they will have taken the most attractive and popular team out of the tournament.

The United States’ victory over Colombia was a tremendous and unforgettable achievement, but a victory over Brazil would make it pale into insignificance by comparison.

But it’s not going to happen. Brazil is an altogether different team than Colombia. Whereas Colombia was predictable, Brazil is innovative. Improvisation is the hallmark of Brazilian players, who can be counted on to do the unexpected.

Colombia attacked down the middle and only down the middle. Brazil will attack from every position on the field. If the ball is in the Americans’ half, watch out. This is not the best Brazilian team ever assembled and even Pele has pointed out what he regards as deficiencies in its starting lineup, but in terms of raw talent, it stands head and shoulders above the U.S. squad.

U.S. Coach Bora Milutinovic has achieved his miracle for 1994 and should be able to rest on his laurels for another four years. This World Cup has Brazil’s name stamped on it and no amount of American pluck, grit, determination, work or even luck is going to erase that.

Not even on the Fourth of July.

Six years to the day after being awarded the World Cup, the United States will see it taken away.

The loss of the United States from the tournament need not necessarily be the end of North American involvement in the World Cup, however.

One Tuesday, the final pair of second-round games includes Mexico playing Bulgaria in a match it very easily could win. Before that, however, there is the intriguing prospect of Nigeria-Italy at Foxboro Stadium near Boston.

The Italians have come and seen but they have not conquered. Scraping into the second round as a third-place team is not what Coach Arrigo Sacchi had in mind when he set out for the New World, and the Italian press has let him know its feelings in no uncertain words.

It is difficult to pinpoint Italy’s troubles, but an inability to function as a team seems to be foremost. The players all have individual skills and their experience playing in the toughest league in the world is evident.

But there is no joy to the Italians’ game, no free-flowing movement of the ball, no inspiration from those who should inspire, especially Roberto Baggio. It is as if the players are merely going through the motions.

Against Nigeria, they will have to do better than that. Coach Clemens Westerhof stated flatly before the tournament that Nigeria’s goal in 1994 was to do better than Cameroon had done in 1990. Since Cameroon reached the quarterfinals, Nigeria will have to defeat Italy on Tuesday to have a shot at that goal.

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility, and with nothing more than Spain or Switzerland facing the winner, even a place in the semifinals is within reach.

Somehow, though, it just seems time for the Italians to awaken and impose themselves on the tournament.

Finally, there is Mexico. It plays badly depleted Bulgaria in the last second-round game at Giants Stadium.

History is on Mexico’s side. The teams met in the second round of the 1986 World Cup and Mexico won, 2-0, in a game that featured one of the great World Cup goals of all time--a scissors kick by Manuel Negrete that brought awed the crowd of 114,580.

The Bulgarians have been collecting yellow cards by the barrow load and will be minus the services of several key players. Two who will be there, however, are forward Hristo Stoichkov, whose three goals leave him in striking distance of the scoring title, and midfielder Krasimir Balakov, the team’s most talented player.

If Coach Miguel Mejia Baron’s team can stifle those two, and if forward Luis Garcia can retain his scoring touch and if goalkeeper Jorge Campos can keep luck on his side and if. . . . But the second round of the World Cup is always full of ifs, and the only sure thing is that in four days the eight quarterfinalists will be known.

The stage is set. There’s no need for Oprah. In the next few days, eight teams will find a way to trip themselves.