WORLD CUP USA ‘94: SEMIFINALS : COMMENTARY : Stars Leave Early, but Workers Never Quit

Italy beat Bulgaria, 2-1, in the semifinals of World Cup ’94 before a crowd of 77,094 Wednesday at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands. The stars of the game were Demetrio Albertini and Pierluigi Casiraghi for Italy and Trifon Ivanov and Yordan Letchkov for Bulgaria.

What about Roberto Baggio and Hristo Stoitchkov?

Forget them. You can read 25 stories and 25,000 words about those two today.

Elsewhere.

They are the superstars. They scored all the goals, Baggio two for Italy and Stoitchkov the one for Bulgaria. They will be idolized, romanticized and drooled over in newspapers from Harrisburg to Heidelberg.

Their huge talents notwithstanding, they’re a bit too much upon occasion--soccer soap operas, if you will. Wednesday was one of those occasions.

Baggio’s two goals, scored five minutes apart midway in the first half, were things of beauty and joys forever for the highlight film guys. Stoitchkov, with his exceptional left foot, scored a penalty-kick goal after a teammate was fouled in the area.

That made it 2-1 going into the second half. After that, the game degenerated into a full-scale Shakespearean drama, with a couple of minutes of soccer sprinkled in here and there.

In the 67th minute, Baggio made a one-on-one run into the penalty area, but the ball was stolen from him as he was about to make his final reverse move. He stopped dead-still while the play headed back upfield, then limped a bit and slowly made his way to the sideline to be attended to. He left his team a man short for a minute and a half, then returned for a few halfhearted minutes before leaving for a substitute.

Baggio said he “felt a very sharp pain,” and his coach, Arrigo Sacchi, said the injury was to “a stretching muscle in one of his two legs.” The Italians said they would know more today about Baggio’s status for Sunday’s final in the Rose Bowl. Take all the money you’ve got and bet that he’ll play.

Stoitchkov, for whom the term prima donna was invented, strutted and sulked through most of the game and berated his teammates when the ball was not placed perfectly on his left foot, within 15 yards of the goal, which, of course, it never was. Stoitchkov strolled the flanks, took a few halfhearted runs at long passes and showed his intensity mostly while sprinting to spots to take free kicks and the penalty kick earned by the hard digging of others.

In the 75th minute, Stoitchkov took a long run to the penalty area, similar to Baggio’s about eight minutes earlier. He, too, lost the ball. He, too, stopped, bent over for a while, then moved slowly back into play. Four minutes later, he, too, was relieved.

That’s right, with still more than 10 minutes to play, his team trailing by only one goal and a spot in the World Cup final on the line, Stoitchkov came out.

Afterward, he said he “had trauma” in his leg and his coach, Dimitar Penev, said he took Stoitchkov out so he would be OK for the third-place game. The third-place game. He actually said that. Maybe this game won’t make it in this country, after all.

All this time, as the theatrics of the stars held center stage, the worker bees, the blue-collar guys from both teams, were running and tackling and digging deep with every ounce of energy they could summon.

Italy’s Albertini set up the first goal with a pretty lead pass to Baggio, then kept the game flowing nicely Italy’s way with his smooth play at midfield. Casiraghi, the Italian striker who isn’t Baggio, worked hard for angles and passing lanes and ran the forward wings tirelessly.

Bulgaria’s bearded Ivanov and balding Letchkov, the hair-everywhere and hair-nowhere duo, also worked all day.

Ivanov started guarding Baggio after the Italian star had scored his second goal and was threatening to turn the game into a rout. Soon, he had bashed heads with Baggio, badly bruising his own shoulder and breaking part of one of Baggio’s teeth. At the end, long after Baggio and Stoitchkov had left and everybody else was on the verge of exhaustion, defender Ivanov was sprinting down on offense and taking flying headers off wild passes.

Letchkov, whose penalty kick after overtime had clinched Bulgaria’s advancement against Mexico, and whose header beat Germany in the quarterfinals, also worked nonstop until the final whistle. When Stoitchkov left, Letchkov was the only real chance Bulgaria had, and he never quit attacking.

Albertini, Casiraghi, Ivanov and Letchkov were the guys in the trenches, the pulling guards and pass-blocking tackles. If they played baseball, they would squeeze home the winning run; in basketball, they would dish off on a two-on-one break.

While those guys showered, Baggio and Stoitchkov took their curtain calls.

Baggio, who had wept in the middle of the field at game’s end and timed his exit to be last off the field, told reporters, “I cried so much because this is my work, my life. It is made of sweat and tears.”

Stoitchkov blamed the referee for the loss, saying he called a bad game against the Bulgarians because he was French and Bulgaria had beaten out France for a spot in the World Cup.

He also praised Baggio like a man who had a gun to his head: “He did what the team expected of him.”

By then, Albertini, Casiraghi, Ivanov and Letchkov were long gone, probably out gassing up the team buses.