WORLD CUP USA ‘94: QUARTERFINALS : COMMENTARY : Dutch Wait, but Whistle Stays Silent

Dutch midfielder Rob Witschge was shirtless by the time he hit the tunnel, the “Clockwork Orange” turned “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”

Except for the face.

The face was tri-colore --crimson, scarlet and red--and it seemed to send off steam as Witschge was asked by a FIFA interpreter to assess this just-completed World Cup quarterfinal.

Roughly translated, Witschge charged the officials with stealing the shirts off the Netherlands’ backs.

“He says it is terrible,” the interpreter said. “He says the linesman is blind, absolutely blind.

“He says the Brazilian player was three yards offside--a terrible way to get a second goal.

“He says, ‘We got into it pretty good after that, but it is something you never get over.’

“He says it is one of the saddest things in his career.”

Witschge was talking about the second mute whistle to silence a Benelux country in this tournament.

First, it was a non-call on the foul in the penalty area in the game against Germany that eliminated Belgium.

Saturday at the Cotton Bowl, it was a non-call on an apparent offside before a goal by Brazil that halted Holland, 3-2, in a wild quarterfinal that Dutch Coach Dick Advocaat said had “all the elements football should contain. Strange calls, tension--this game had it all.”

Strange non-calls, too.

Brazil held a 1-0 lead when Brazilian defender Branco won a head ball at midfield and lofted a pass over the heads of two Dutch players trying to work an offside trap on Romario.

Stan Valckx and Ronald Koeman appeared to pull it off splendidly, too. Up went the ball, up stepped Valckx and Koeman . . . and there was Romario several yards back, all by his lonesome. Had this been the kind of football normally seen inside the Cotton Bowl, Romario would have signaled for a fair catch.

But Romario knows his futbol --and he also knew that trusty sidekick Bebeto was angling into the clear on the right flank. As the pass began to slice toward Bebeto, Romario, camped in center field, started to walk away from the ball.

It was a leisurely stroll, and Romario will tell you with a wink that he had it planned all along. Assuming Romario was hopelessly trapped offside, Valckx and Koeman froze and waited for the whistle.

As they fly back to Amsterdam, Valckx and Koeman are still waiting.

The ball landed just beyond the two Dutchmen with a plop, accompanied by no other sound than Bebeto’s feet.

He swooped in, pounced on the loose ball and took it home--drawing Dutch goalkeeper Ed De Goey out of his box and tapping into an open net.

The play sent Bebeto into a double-fisted jockey ride around the Dutch half of the field, in jubilant celebration of a 2-0 Brazil lead. But elsewhere, the reaction was delayed. In the press area, two Brazilian journalists leaped to their feet, then began to grimace.

“No goal,” one of them told an American writer with glum shake of his head. “Romario was offside.”

Yet the scoreboard showed Brazil 2, Netherlands 0 and it wasn’t going away.

There had been no linesman’s flag thrust into the air.

There had been no referee’s whistle.

The goal stood.

On the sideline, Advocaat was aghast. On the field, Dutch players stood with hands on their hips in disbelief.

Offside is often a judgment call--and referee Rodrigo Badilla Sequeira went to brink on this one. Because he was walking away from the play, Sequeira ruled, Romario was not involved in the play, and consequently, irrelevant to the play.

Conclusion: No offside.

“Terrible,” Witschge said again and again. “All of a sudden, there’s a different rule for offsides? If you’re walking, you can go off?”

From behind the podium, Advocaat bit his tongue so hard that it should drawn blood.

“I haven’t said anything about the referees so far in the World Cup,” Advocaat said when asked about the play. “I won’t start now.”

A few minutes later, Advocaat was asked again.

“I don’t want to talk about the referee,” he repeated.

It was a call that would have crushed most teams in this tournament. With 28 minutes to play, the Netherlands was down, 2-0, to the consensus World Cup favorite, a team that had yielded but one goal in its first four games.

But the Netherlands came back to tie, pairing goals by Dennis Bergkamp and Aron Winter in a span of 12 minutes.

Six minutes later, Branco busted through the Dutch wall with a blistering free kick, Brazil had regained the lead and the non-whistle was ringing louder than ever in Dutch ears.

“Both teams played evenly well,” Advocaat said, straddling the diplomatic tightrope. “But, the most lucky team won the game.”

Brazil would, no doubt, argue the point, but Advocaat will stick with that story. Call it a judgment call.