WORLD CUP USA ‘94: ROUND OF 16 : Italians Come Back From the Precipice
If you should wonder, Italy is dancing today to the jerky, heart-shaking beat of an unsettling new band, the Grateful Undead. It plays two hit numbers, “Man Short,” and “Brinkmanship.”
“It seems our destiny to suffer,” Coach Arrigo Sacchi said with a sigh. “We fell behind, 1-0, and that made it very difficult. Then--worse--we were playing with 10 men and sometimes nine. If you think about it that way, to win was almost heroic.”
If you think of it another way, for 88 minutes, Nigeria’s Super Eagles laid it to a misfiring flight of high-priced Italians who more resembled flailing butterflies.
The game was all but over. Italy was heading home in well-merited disgrace, bound surely to what Antonio Matarrese, that nation’s soccer federation president, said would have been “summary judgment” as one of the 1994 Cup’s top underachievers.
Then Roberto Baggio limped to the rescue. The lame man kicked. The fat lady sang.
“We saw an Italy that doesn’t ever give up,” Matarrese said, mirroring national wonder at the latest exploits of the Gang That Should Be Gone. “It shows strength of character in difficult moments.”
Even before the final whistle, the Italian press had discovered a--you guessed it--”Miracle in Foxboro.”
“It’s Enough to Drive You Crazy,” says one of Italy’s sports newspapers in a banner headline this morning.
“Victory was two minutes too far,” Nigerian Coach Clemens Westerhof said. “We were not afraid. Italy was lucky.”
Sacchi didn’t see it that way, patrolling the sidelines with enough vigor and nervous energy to bring FIFA officials to restrain him within the chalk-marked coaching box.
“I feel lucky, but also unlucky,” Sacchi said after a fretful overtime victory, Italy’s second triumph while playing a man short. “I felt in those last few minutes that we might be out, and it didn’t feel just. We deserved to win. We were better.”
Sacchi said Italy set the pace and the tenor of the game against a strong, tall and superbly conditioned Nigerian team.
“We took control in the beginning and won that way,” Sacchi said. “Strong will and determination prevailed.”
To many in the largely Italy-cheering crowd, though, as well as to commentators in Rome, the Azzurri looked listless, playing fitfully.
“The players seemed perplexed and disappointed,” commentator Bruno Pizzul said. “We were facing the prospect of being pushed out of the Cup without a trace. Then the team miraculously got itself back on its feet. It’s a day we won’t easily forget, for they made us fear the worst.”
Said former Italian national Coach Enzio Berazot, “I’ve never seen a team so open to attack as Nigeria, but Italy only got through by chance.”
Sacchi, who tried six dozen of Italy’s premier players before settling on the 22 to bring to the Cup, has been criticized for his team’s lack of spark.
In the first round, Italy beat Norway, tied Mexico and lost to Ireland, managing only two goals in the process and finishing third in its group. On Tuesday it was equally disappointing--right up until the moment it became breathtaking.
“In the last minutes Italy seemed resigned, then Baggio turned the game upside-down,” said Azeglio Vicini, coach of the Italian team that finished third in the 1990 Cup.
Baggio, one of the world’s best strikers, had a lackluster first round, going scoreless and complaining of an Achilles’ heel problem that had him limping again Tuesday.
“It was 90 minutes of suffering, but it was a good game,” he said. “On offense, if we don’t have a chance to score it seems like we are not doing anything, but we were trying. I don’t get many chances early, but then at the end of the game I was able to put the ball where I wanted to. Now that I have scored, I feel much better.”
There were moments deep in the second half when it seemed even to his teammates as if Baggio could not run any further. But his first tournament goal, as pretty as it was late in coming, lent him wings.
Said the affable Sacchi, “I’m not lying when I say that Baggio is great. He loosened up after the goal and then he was extraordinary.”
Says the Rome newspaper L’Unita in its main headline this morning: “At the 90th Minute, Baggio Liberates Everybody.”
Italian commentator Paolo Rossi, who led scorers in the 1982 Cup that Italy won, says Baggio’s two goals Tuesday--the second on a decisive penalty kick--will prove pump-priming.
“Baggio needs to unblock himself by scoring,” Rossi said.
Having now fashioned (or simply endured) two improbable man-short victories, Sacchi left Foxboro Stadium a wiser man Tuesday.
“Soccer is a game you never stop learning. You think you have seen it all and then . . . “ He smiled, borrowing a phrase from Italian soap opera announcers, “On to the next episode.”
