SOCCER / GRAHAME L. JONES : Once Again, It’s No Jungle Out There for No. 1 Brazil
Deep in the Amazon, in the jungle town of Manaus, Brazil completed its 1995 calendar last week by defeating Colombia, 3-1, to finish the year with only one defeat.
That lone loss, on penalty kicks to Uruguay in the final of the Copa America, was not a serious enough blemish, however, to prevent FIFA from naming Brazil its No. 1 team for 1995, the second year in a row the Brazilians have held the top spot.
Finishing second in the final FIFA rankings was Germany, moving up three places from the year before. Italy came in third, up one notch, while Spain was fourth and Russia fifth.
The United States, which hosted and won U.S. Cup ’95 and surprised almost everyone by reaching the semifinals of the Copa America (where it lost, 1-0, to Brazil) is ranked 19th.
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Mario “Lobo” Zagalo, Brazil’s coach, has opted to leave three of his best players with their club teams in Europe rather than bring them to the CONCACAF Gold Cup in Southern California next month.
Not headed this way are Ronaldo of PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Juninho of Middlesbrough in England and Roberto Carlos of Inter Milan in Italy.
Zagalo said the three, who cost their clubs a combined $20 million in transfer fees, are being saved for future--read Olympic--games.
The Olympic gold medal is the only honor Brazil has not won, and Zagalo has pledged to correct that situation in Atlanta next summer.
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U.S. national team Coach Steve Sampson, unlike Zagalo, does not have the luxury of leaving his top players off the Gold Cup roster.
Sampson, from Agoura Hills, has selected the most experienced--some might say over the hill--team to compete in the nine-nation championship Jan. 10-21.
The 20 players include 16 with World Cup experience and there are no new faces. An overwhelming majority of the players--17 in fact--are currently playing for clubs in Mexico, Denmark, Germany, Turkey, England, Brazil, Italy, Scotland and Holland.
The U.S. team will train Jan. 4-11 at the ARCO Training Center in Chula Vista, then stay in San Juan Capsitrano Jan. 11-22. Its first Gold Cup game is against Trinidad & Tobago Jan. 13 at Anaheim Stadium.
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Ajax Amsterdam this year won the Dutch, European and world championships with a team that had an average age of less than 23.
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Alexi Lalas, hailed as a hero last season when he helped his Italian club, Padova, avoid relegation from the first division, now has been cast in the role of goat.
The U.S. national team defender has been benched by the club and is not taking kindly to the move.
“When things go wrong, a lot of people say ‘Blame the American,’ ” Lalas told Soccer America magazine. “It’s not easy to talk about without coming over as a crybaby, but it’s hard to describe how excessive and blatant the trash-talking has been.”
Looking for options, Lalas has been talking to officials from Albacete in the Spanish first division, even though he is supposed to be playing for Major League Soccer’s New England Revolution come spring.
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Not even death has been able to separate one Spanish fan from his beloved team.
In its January issue, London’s World Soccer magazine reports that at each of Real Betis’ home games, one of the seats at Benito Villamarin stadium in Seville is occupied by the ashes of a fan who died last year.
The fan’s son, obeying his father’s dying wish, takes his cremated remains to each game, having renewed his late father’s club membership and season ticket.
For security reasons, however, stadium officials would not allow the ashes to be brought in a glass container.
The son’s solution? His father’s remains now come to each game in a milk carton.
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Soccer Notes
World Cup ’90 and ’94 veteran Paul Caligiuri, of Diamond Bar, has been released by his German club, St. Pauli, and, at 31, is likely now to pursue an MLS career, possibly with the Los Angeles Galaxy. . . . U.S. Olympic Coach Bruce Arena said he would like to have Princeton Coach Bob Bradley and Glenn Myernick, the U.S. Under-17 national team coach, as his assistants for the Atlanta Games. . . . Lauren Gregg has resigned as women’s coach at Virginia to devote fulltime to her job as assistant to Tony DiCicco on the U.S. women’s Olympic team. . . . MLS has assigned U.S. national team forward Frank Klopas to the Kansas City Wiz. Klopas, 29, has scored 13 goals in 45 national team appearances.
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FIFA YEAR-END RANKINGS (1994 rankings in parenthesis)
The Top 10:
1. Brazil (1)
2. Germany (5)
3. Italy (4)
4. Spain (2)
5. Russia (13)
6. Netherlands (6)
7. Argentina (10)
8. France (19)
9. Denmark (14)
10. Norway (8)
11. Romania (11); 12. Mexico (15); 13. Sweden (3); 14. Czech Republic (34); 15. Colombia (17); 16. Portugal (20); 17. Bulgaria (16); 18. Switzerland (7); 19. United States (23); 20. Ivory Coast (25); 21. England (18); 22. Tunisia (30); 23. Egypt (22); 24. Belgium (24); 25. Zambia (21).
