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Soccer

Romania vs. Crotia

By HELENE ELLIOTT
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SITE: Stade Lescure, Bordeaux

TIME: 7:30 a.m. TV: ESPN, Channel 34. RADIO: KWKW (1330, Spanish).

* ABOUT ROMANIA: Won in Group G with two victories--over England and Colombia--and a tie against Tunisia. Over the years its level of play has improved enough for many of its players to have been wooed by prestigious European clubs.

* ABOUT CROATIA: Making a splash in its first World Cup appearance. Second in Group H after victories over fellow first-timers Jamaica and Japan and a 1-0 loss to group-winner Argentina. Forward Goran Vlaovic is questionable because of a knee injury.

* OUTLOOK: Romania plays with two strikers, Adrian Ilie and Viorel Moldovan, and midfielder Gabriel Popescu also supports the attack. Its team unity is reflected in its mass hair dying to a Dennis Rodman-like blond. Croatian striker Davor Suker, well marked by Argentina in Croatia’s final first-round game, leads Croatia with two goals. Croatia has been boasting that it stopped Argentina’s Gabriel Batistuta and Ariel Ortega in its previous game, but Argentina had nothing at stake in that match.

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Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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