WORLD CUP USA 1994 : A Very Good Year : Vintage ’94 Has Had Full Stadiums, Well-Played Games--Everything but a Superteam

Like a fine wine, the World Cup requires a little aging before it can truly be enjoyed.

Trying to analyze what was good or bad about a tournament still in progress serves little purpose. Impressions gathered over the course of a month need time to mature.

Later, what seemed meaningful at the time might be regarded as meaningless, and events that appeared inconsequential might take on added significance.

However, it is possible to tell a good year from a bad almost immediately, and already it is clear that 1994 has been a vintage World Cup, one that will be enjoyed in retrospect for years to come.

That, at least, is the early consensus of the experts, those writers whose World Cup experience is counted, not in years but in decades.

“On the field, I think it’s been one of the best for quite a long time and certainly far better than in 1990,” said author, playwright and journalist Brian Glanville, who has covered all 10 tournaments since 1958 and whose book, “The History of the World Cup,” is widely regarded as the definitive text on the event.

“The football has been much more open and immensely more entertaining than 1990, which was horrific. Then, you really felt the end of the World Cup was nigh.

“At the same time, in a curious way, I think the tournament is going to be won by default because I don’t see any great teams, as evidenced by the fact that a team like Bulgaria, with all due respect to it, can get as far as the semifinals; and so can a team like Italy, which isn’t a patch on the Italian teams of, say, 1978 and less still of 1982.

“I don’t see any great players, either, with the possible exception of Romario. It’s a very diminished Brazil. . . . But when you’ve got a player like Romario, anything is possible. He can win any game for you.”

Carlos Maranhao, executive editor of Vega, a weekly news magazine in Sao Paulo, Brazil, first attended a World Cup in West Germany in 1974. This tournament, he said compares favorably to most that he has seen.

“In terms of the soccer, I think it’s a very good World Cup with some very brilliant matches, like Bulgaria-Germany, like Brazil-Holland, like Romania-Argentina,” he said. “But you don’t have at the moment a new king of football. This is bad. But it’s better than Italy and, in my opinion, better also than Mexico in 1986, but not as good as Spain in 1982.”

What has impressed Maranhao has been the fans. “I think this is the most beautiful World Cup I have seen in terms of the participation of the public,” he said. “The stadiums are always full. They are not full with people who came from Germany or Brazil, but with Americans. This is because the U.S.A. is a country of great ethnic diversity.

“I think the match that most impressed me in this way was Ireland-Italy here in New Jersey. Most people supposed the Italians would fill the stadium, but there were about 70% or 75% of Irish fans who didn’t come from Ireland. This is possible only in the United States.”

New York-based columnist Paul Gardner, author of “The Simplest Game” and a writer who has covered six World Cup tournaments, was one of many who doubted whether the United States could produce a proper World Cup atmosphere. He too has been pleasantly surprised by the fervor and involvement of American fans.

“The atmosphere in the stadiums has been fantastic,” Gardner said. “Going into one of the stadiums, you could be in Rio or Milan or anywhere. There’s been a lot of cheering, a lot of flavor, a lot of excitement and passion inside the stadiums and immediately around the stadiums. The party atmosphere has been terrific.”

One reason, of course, is that the quality of the soccer has been better than in quite some time. The success of the tournament always was going to depend on the attitude of the players, and they have come through, despite the appalling temperatures at some games.

“I think it’s been utterly disgraceful that players have been obliged to play in this heat,” said Glanville, switching to his curmudgeonly mode. “I think they (the players) have been totally heroic. It’s wonderful the way they’ve resisted physically. They are absolutely phenomenal.

“It was disgraceful to choose Orlando (as a World Cup venue), knowing that they’d have to play at midday when it was going to be filthy hot and vilely humid. And the (Pontiac) Silverdome was always a stupid idea. Pseudo-innovation, I suppose. The only thing you could say for it was that it wasn’t any worse than playing outside.

“It’s a disaster without air conditioning, and it was perverse to have to grow the grass in California and bring it out there. And for what? So they played indoors? Well, OK. Now let’s forget about indoors.”

As uncomfortable and trying as the heat and humidity were, there were other factors that disturbed some World Cup reporters.

“I think overall it has been a good World Cup,” said Andres Cavelier, correspondent for El Tiempo in Bogota, Colombia, “but the nine venues are located too far away from each other, and it’s difficult and expensive for the journalists and for the fans to go to all of these places and to get a feel for a real World Cup.

“Other than that, the U.S. has shown the world that it could organize the World Cup. Four or five years ago, we were talking about taking the World Cup away from the U.S. I was skeptical, as most (overseas) people were.

“I think most of the articles that we wrote in the last six months or a year were very critical of everything concerning soccer in the United States. We believed that the World Cup would not be as enjoyable and as much fun as others were, and that America wasn’t ready for it.”

But the United States was ready and, with the help of a few long-overdue rule changes, the tournament caught the public’s imagination.

David Miller, of the Times of London, has covered each of the tournaments since Sweden ’58 and believes that USA ’94 ranks among the more enjoyable.

“I think the tournament has been encouraging in a whole lot of ways,” he said. “First, I think it’s been encouraging for football. Belatedly, FIFA has tried to take steps to encourage inventive and creative play. This has resulted in some criticism of overreaction by referees, too many yellow cards and so on, (but) I think a swing of the pendulum was essential.

“With one or two exceptions, we’ve had 20 years or more of defensive football at the expense of entertaining, spectacular football, which is the kind of thing that people want to see, that they pay money to come and watch.

“We’ve had defensive football killing this and getting away with it. Illegal tackling, illegal shirt-pulling and so on. Many, many kinds of subtle, specialist fouls . . . and referees not responding.

“In most World Cup matches that I’ve seen, say in the last six World Cups--having seen 10--I would have said without hesitation that there should have been at least one penalty in every match, sometimes two or three. And in most matches at least one person should have been sent off, if the referee was interpreting the laws as they are written. That is, you get sent off for a seriously aggressive foul or, much more important and more subtle, and it’s within the laws, you get sent off for persistent fouling.

“It’s persistent fouling that kills the game. Your little niggling trips, pulls, obstructions and so on. All you’re doing is trying to stop the other side playing. This is what’s gone on for 20 years.

“Now, we’ve got the pendulum going the other way, and a few people are screaming, notably, of course, the coaches, who don’t like it because it’s making life tough for them and they’re going to have to think a bit harder. But I’m glad to see the pendulum going that way.”

Gardner agrees.

“There have been more exciting games than there were in Italy, that’s for sure,” he said. “We’ve had more goals. We have had more excitement. It would have been difficult to have had less.

“Maybe the FIFA rule changes have had something to do with that. Maybe the tackle-from-behind rule has put fear in defenders that maybe they shouldn’t just mow people down from behind--although, as far as I can see, the referees are not sending people off for it.

“The offside rule change has clearly helped. We’ve seen goals scored, particularly Spain’s first goal against Switzerland and Brazil’s second goal against Sweden, where players in a passive offside position were not called. Play was allowed to flow. That’s a huge plus, without a doubt.

“Some of the referees have been a bit overenthusiastic. Maybe we’ve had too many yellow cards in some games. But on the whole I think that’s been fairly acceptable.

“Yes, a good tournament on the field. An exceptional tournament? No. Frankly, among the teams that are left I don’t see an exceptional team. I really don’t. That doesn’t mean we can’t have an exciting game.

“I think if Brazil is involved, we will.”