WORLD CUP USA ’94 / QUARTERFINALS : Spotlight : VICTORY, ITALIAN STYLE

Italians were dancing in the streets again late Tuesday night after Italy’s defeat of Nigeria, which put Italy in the quarterfinals.

In the front-page commentary of the Milan daily, Corriere della Sera, Gianfranco Teotino said, “On the brink of the precipice, Italy had not been put down by the modest Nigerian team of excellent athletes, robust kickers, and inexpert footballers, but primarily through its own fault, and then by some demented refereeing. . . . (It was) incredible, the expulsion of (Gianfranco) Zola, thrown out 12 minutes after entering the field, for not having committed a foul.”

“It’s an Italy Which Is All Heart” was the headline in the national sports daily, Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy’s most-read sports daily.

The Gazzetta’s editorial was entitled, “From Prison to Paradise,” and started: “Again in 10 against 11, refereed by a crazy Mexican, who throws Zola out for a mysterious foul and has to see four goal kick fouls in order to concede one, the Italian team creates one of the most exciting events of its history.”

La Gazzetta also collected comments from soccer enthusiasts and experts. Film director Franco Zeffirelli from Jerusalem, where he is working, said: “Tonight I am really very proud to be Italian. This national team is making us suffer, but in the end it is repaying us for all our sufferings.”

“Italian Team to Give You a Heart Attack,” was the headline of the Rome daily La Repubblica. The front-page comment by Gianni Mura from Boston, said victory came, “Despite (Coach Arrigo) Sacchi and that referee . . . “ and referred to an “ugly and useful victory, once more in 10 men against 11, and then that small joy is disrupted by the news that in Italy, to celebrate, someone starts shooting and kills a child.”

A boy in Herculaneum, near Naples, took out his father’s illegally owned pistol and accidentally shot a 7-year-old cousin.