WORLD CUP USA ’94 / MEMORIES : CHRIS DUFRESNE : Long Day’s Journey Into Night . . . and Day . . . and Night . . .
Mom affixed the name tag to my pressed rayon shirt and wetted down my cowlick. I kissed her on the cheek and set off on this World Cup soccer assignment. . . . kicking and screaming.
I didn’t want to meet the new kids.
Like most Americans, I considered unworthy variants of football not flanked by the words National and League.
I expected to grow sick and tired of soccer and, initially, this was the case. To the point, I was poisoned at the first soccer match I ever attended, a “friendly” between Mexico and the United States at the Rose Bowl. The culprit was a media box lunch. Two words: spoiled mayonnaise.
Salmonella 1, me nil.
The next day I prayed to the porcelain Pele while clutching a 1994 NFL schedule, only to recover in time to open my travel itinerary.
The boss apparently thought it would be interesting to test his theories on sleep deprivation. One segment of my 15-day “death march” asked that I cover a Friday night game at Pontiac, Mich., a Saturday match at Foxboro, Mass., and a Sunday morning contest at Chicago.
I called the airlines to see whether such routing was possible.
Smart-alecks.
When my head finally hit pillow in Chicago on June 26, I had been awake, more or less, 60 consecutive hours, not counting a cat-nap I took on the shoulder of a woman in a middle seat on the Boston-to-Chicago flight.
I’m guessing the Who got more sleep on tour.
In the blur of a weekend, I saw 270 minutes of soccer involving teams from Sweden, Russia, Argentina, Nigeria, Greece and Bulgaria. Don’t ask me which teams played which.
Staring at Greece’s lineup that Sunday morning in Chicago--the names jumping off the page: Tsalouhidi, Apostolakis, Atmatzides--was the eye-chart test from hell.
I ate at Denny’s so often that weekend I once begged the manager to refuse me service. During pit stops at Butch’s diner at Chicago O’Hare, I watched a waitress named Louise sling insults and hash with equal aplomb.
Louise? Imagine Dick Butkus in an apron wearing Aunt Bea’s wig.
Louise donned a button that read, “You gotta problem with that?”
When I ordered a muffin, she offered, “Oh, need to clean out your colon?”
Check please.
I didn’t get to know many soccer players, but I forged bonds with service industry workers across America. (Aside to bellhop Bobby at the Logan Airport Hilton: Stay in school, son, don’t be a fool. And, yes, I think Cindy still loves you.)
The trip might have been salvageable if not for an abrupt detour out of Detroit on June 24. After wrapping the Sweden-Russia game story around midnight, I raced my rental toward a hotel adjacent to the Detroit Metro Airport, hoping to catch a few winks before a 9 a.m. flight to Boston.
About 12:30 a.m., on the transition road Interstate 75 south to 94 west, I got stuck in traffic, eventually turned off the engine and waited . . . four hours!
At 3:30, in a scene out of “Night of the Living Dead,” drivers who had been backed up for miles started walking like zombies out of the mist into the glare of headlights.
A state trooper broke the news to us that a truck had jackknifed in the rain. The driver was presumed dead. The truck had spilled diesel fuel, making the road impassable until sand trucks could be called in.
At this point, another trucker walked up with a lighted cigarette in his hand.
“Are you nuts?” I screamed.
Apparently so, because the man laughed and flicked his Bic in defiance.
I ran back to my car and locked the door.
Checked into hotel at 5:30. Checked out at 7:30.
Not much in the mood for soccer, I approached some matches cynically. Yet, the more I watched soccer the less I came to despise it.
A second-round match between Germany and Belgium actually raised my pulse rate. Still, I find it amusing soccer writers would dare attempt to compare the athletic abilities of Brazil’s Romario to Michael Jordan’s.
I’ll believe that the day Romario jumps over the back of the goal and scores on a header.
My prejudices are deep-rooted. I am not convinced the game has much of a chance to make it in America. Sweden’s play in the semifinals might have sealed soccer’s American fate.
That said, I do hereby recognize that soccer at the highest level can be a game of beauty.
I would prefer this not get around, but I . . . sort . . . of . . . liked . . . it.
