WORLD CUP USA ’94 / QUARTERFINALS : Spotlight : TOUGH CHOICE

How important is today’s game against Spain for Italy’s coach, Arrigo Sacchi? This important, according to the Turin-based daily La Stampa under a Page 1 headline: “Tomorrow . . . the coach risks the guillotine or the altar.”

Writes Curzio Maltese: “Is he crazy? A genius? Simply unlucky? Dictator? Fanatic? Scapegoat? Half of Italy is gnawing at the clinical and judicial ‘case’ of Arrigo Sacchi. . . . (Nothing will) distract the popular tribunal made up of 30 million Italians who are summoned tomorrow night to see the Italian team win, or the rolling of a bald head with glasses.”

Reports Giorgio Tosatti in the Milan daily, Corriere della Sera: “The country is disputing over Sacchi, who would be well advised to admit to some small errors, seeing as how we have been almost eliminated twice.”