by Nick Holt
Germany looked stunned. The rest of the world screamed for Bulgaria to hold on, and they did. Beckenbauer’s arrogant prediction from 1990 had come to roost, and an ageing side full of self-belief but little else, was out of the competition. It was the end of the road for a whole generation of uncompromising German athletes; Buchwald, Berthold, Illgner, Riedle, Brehme and Völler all played their last game in the Giants Stadium. It must have seemed a long flight home.
Another good game, though it was without the charged atmosphere of Romania’s game against Argentina. The Palo Alto stadium was huge, but more austere and distant than the Rose Bowl.
Most of the action was packed into the last half of the match, although, had Dahlin’s header gone inside of the post instead of hitting it after three minutes, there might have been more drama early on. There were only ten minutes remaining when Brolin sneaked behind the wall to get on the end of Mild’s well-rehearsed and clever free-kick, and only two left when Raducioiu belted home a lucky deflection that came his way. When Raducioiu pounced on another loose ball in the first period of extra-time and Stefan Schwarz was sent off a minute later for a second bookable offence the game was surely up for Sweden. Kennet Andersson had other ideas, beating Prunea, who was slow to come, to a long punt into the area. Substitute Henrik Larsson, complete with outrageous dreadlocks, missed a great chance to finish Romania off, but it went to penalties. Mild missed the first one badly and then all the classy attackers on view scored until Dan Petrescu hit a tame effort straight at Ravelli. Petrescu had looked a terrific player going forward and played only one season at Sheffield Wednesday before Chelsea picked him up and he became an integral part of their upgrade. Dumitrescu kept Romania in the hunt with a bottle penalty and Larsson atoned for his earlier miss by slotting home the first sudden-death kick. Romania’s great sweeper, Belodedici, missed the vital kick to hand a semi-final place to Sweden; he never looked confident, stuttering twice in a long run up and Ravelli got a good palm to the ball. Belodedici would be in good company – another great defender was about to miss a penalty.
SEMI-FINALS
THIRD-PLACE MATCH
The semis were something of an anti-climax after those quarter-finals. Italy won their game through Baggio’s inspirational strikes, Brazil theirs through organisation and patience.
Roberto Baggio scored two outstanding goals. For the first he wandered in at a leisurely pace off the left wing, strolled around a couple of defenders and bent a shot inside the post, for the entire world as if he were playing on the park against a bunch of kids. The expression on his face as the ball went in told us otherwise, as did the pandemonium in the cacophonous Giants Stadium – no Irishmen poaching the Italians’ tickets this time. For the second goal he hit an instant shot across Mihailov from Albertini’s pass.
Bulgaria kept their heads up and Sirakov won a penalty when he turned Costacurta and was brought down. Stoichkov scored it – he rarely missed from the spot. The goal left him joint top scorer with Salenko, but he would have bigger and better memories of the tournament than the Russian. The game was easier for the Italians than 2–1 suggests, but Baggio limping off after seventy minutes was a worrying sight for Sacchi and the Italian fans.
Brazil, too, won more comfortably than their scoreline suggests; Sweden just looked a bit spent after their exertions in the quarter-final. Brazil missed chances, Ravelli made three very good saves – he had an excellent tournament – and it needed another quality finish from Romário, reading a long cross better than the Swedish defenders, to settle the issue.
Sweden recovered some energy and composure in time for the third-place game and beat a listless Bulgaria 4–0. Both sides had cause to be pleased with their campaign.
World Cup Heroes No.27
Yordan Lechkov (1967–)
Bulgaria
Lechkov is one of those excellent football characters we would never hear about were it not for the quadrennial bunfight that is the World Cup. Lechkov started with his local club, Sliven, as a teenager, and he scored in their momentous (and solitary) Bulgarian Cup win in 1990. His form for Sliven earned him international selection and a move to CSKA Sofia and after a single season he joined Hamburg in the Bundesliga, taking advantage of the freedom of movement offered in the post-Communist Eastern Europe.
An attacking player at home, he played a more conventional midfield role at Hamburg, and his probing runs from deep and excellent passing made him a key player. No one noticed outside Germany and Bulgaria. No one actually noticed Bulgaria were any good until they knocked France out. Lechkov played well in the group matches in the USA, and his energy and fitness were a great asset in the heat as many of the European sides struggled. His crowning moment was unquestionably the headed goal that eliminated Germany; it remains Bulgaria’s greatest victory. Lechkov lived up to his enhanced reputation with some good showings in the 1996 European Championships.
Lechkov had a reputation as a grumpy so-and-so and a move to Olympique de Marseille in 1996 was short-lived when he fell out with Gérard Gili, the coach. A move to Besiktas was even worse, when a dispute with John Toshack, himself a stubborn individual, meant Lechkov missed three years, including the 1998 World Cup Finals, when FIFA blocked his registration.
Lechkov spent the time building up a successful business and after a brief return to football he ended his career back at Sliven, where he later became Mayor, surviving a couple of scandals along the way. My Bulgarian is non-existent so I am afraid I can provide no detail of these episodes!
Hardly an all-time great, even many who saw him may not remember his name – but they probably remember the bald geezer who knocked out the cocky Germans.
WORLD CUP FINAL No.15
17 July 1994, Rose Bowl, Pasadena; CA. 91,194
Referee: Sándor Puhl (Hungary)
Coaches: Carlos Alberto Parreira (Brazil) & Arrigo Sacchi (Italy)
Brazil (4–4–2): Claudio Taffarel (Reggiana); Jorge de Amorim, known as Jorginho (Bayern Munich), Aldair Nascimento (Roma), Márcio Santos (Bordeaux), Claudio Vaz de Leal, known as Branco (Fluminense), Mauro da Silva Gomes (Deportivo La Coruña), Iomar do Nascimento, known as Mazinho (Palmeiras), Carlos Beldorn, known as Dunga (Stuttgart), Crizam de Oliveira, known as Zinho (Palmeiras); Romário (de Souza) (Barcelona), José Gama, known as Bebeto (Deportivo La Coruña). Subs: Marcos Evangelista, known as Cafú (São Paulo) 21m for Jorginho; Paulo Sérgio Rosa, known as Viola (Bayer Leverkusen) 105m for Zinho
Italy (4–4–1–1): Gianluca Pagliuca (Sampdoria); Roberto Mussi (Torino), Franco Baresi (Cpt, AC Milan), Paolo Maldini (AC Milan), Antonio Benarrivo (Parma); Roberto Donadoni (AC Milan), Dino Baggio (Juventus), Nicola Bert (Internazionale), Demetrio Albertini (AC Milan); Roberto Baggio (Juventus), Daniele Massaro (AC Milan). Subs: Luigi Apolloni (Parma) 34m for Mussi; Alberigo Evani (Sampdoria) 94m for D Baggio
Cautioned: Mazinho (Bra) 4m, Apolloni (Ita) 40m, Albertini (Ita) 42m, Cafú (Bra) 87m
A weary end to an exhausting tournament played in debilitating conditions at the behest of clueless buffoons in suits and greedy TV moguls.
Some of the game’s best players were patched up and struggling; Baggio’s thigh was strapped, Baresi had an operation, incredibly, twenty-four hours before the game and Romário had to pass a late fitness test. Both right-backs were off the field just after the half-hour, Jorginho replaced by Cafú and Mussi by Apolloni. Maldini stayed in the middle in lieu of the suspended Costacurta – how unlucky, to miss both the European Cup Final and World Cup Final through cards given earlier in the tournament. Dunga and Mauro Silva held the Brazilians together, stifling Albertini and starving Baggio and Massaro of possession, so the Italians created little of note. Romário missed a chance that he might have put away if fit, while Baresi and Maldini had Bebeto in their pocket. Pagliuca was equal to the long-range stuff he was peppered with – his one fumble came back to him off the post.
Everyone, every single football writer going, complains about penalties as a means of settling a game, a
s does every commentator in every language you can think of. None of them ever suggest a better idea. The replays which left one team exhausted for the next round were unfair. The Golden Goal was gimmicky and took away the excitement of a comeback. Penalties are harsh on the losing team, but they are an equal test, they are dramatic, they require skill and nerve and some thought. Why not? Another half an hour of this match would have been tedious indeed – and someone would have collapsed from the heat.
Baresi and Baggio put their penalties over the bar, that’s what everyone remembers. Two of Italy’s greatest players cost them. Gross over-simplification. Italy did well to reach the final. Sacchi made the correct decisions on team selection most of the time (although he should have included Vialli in the squad) and Baggio was heroic in the latter stages of the competition. How unfair it must have seemed that the newspapers all carried a picture of him, ponytail drooping, shoulders slumped, while Taffarel, an average goalkeeper, was Brazil’s hero. Brazil’s hero was the manager, actually. Carlos Parreira had made them into a World Cup-winning side; they may have been the least exciting Brazilian side to do so, but Parreira could only play the hand he was dealt and there weren’t oodles of brilliant attacking players sitting at home wondering why they weren’t playing.
A little footnote: Brazil took a youngster to this World Cup for experience, after only half a season with Cruzeiro, a young lad they hoped would become a truly great player. He was Ronaldo Luis Názario de Lima. Remember the name.
World Cup Heroes No.28 Roberto
Baggio (1967–)
Italy
The most gifted Italian player of his generation only played fifty-six times for the Azzurri, a statistic not explained away just by injury. He made his debut in 1988 and played the bulk of those games over the next decade, although his final appearance was a special friendly against Spain in 2004 to mark his retirement from the game.
A difficult player, who fell out at some point with pretty much every coach he worked with, Baggio was still a great trier and never did his sulking on the pitch. He developed at Vicenza, improved and was revered at Fiorentina and won the title at Juventus. He won another at Milan a year after being discarded by Juventus, which must have been satisfying. Moved on to Bologna he responded with his best goal tally in a season as a team earmarked for the drop finished eighth and Baggio won back his place in the Italy squad in time for the 1998 World Cup. It was a disappointing campaign, but like Stuart Pearce for England in 1996 Baggio had the guts to bury a ghost and score a penalty in a shoot-out to atone for a famous miss.
Baggio’s resilience in coming back from injury was remarkable. He suffered five serious fractures at Juve, and in his last years at Brescia came back from a ligament injury at thirty-five to save the club from relegation. Baggio called time in 2004: fittingly his last match was at one of the great stadia, the San Siro, and a full house (unheard of for a match against unfashionable Brescia) gave him a wonderful ovation when he was taken off on eighty-eight minutes.
Michel Platini once described Baggio as a number nine-and-a-half. He meant that while Baggio wasn’t a straight goalscorer, nor was he a withdrawn second forward. Baggio was a bit different. He had brilliant close control and liked to take defenders on, but didn’t have the flat-out pace to leave them for dead, so it made sense for him to play slightly withdrawn, where there was space, but not too withdrawn, because he liked defenders near him to turn and flummox. In his later years he played deeper still and showed a fine range of passing and awareness of movement.
While never regarded as a goalscorer, Baggio’s strike rate for Italy (almost one in two games) is better than most of their contemporary strikers (Vieri, Rossi, Vialli, Altobelli, Inzaghi) and much better than that of his natural successor Alessandro Del Piero.
Loved by fans, if not by coaches, Baggio was Italy’s greatest attacking player of the last forty years.
Team of the Tournament, 1994:
Ravelli (Sweden)
Jorginho (Brazil) Belodedici (Romania) Marcio Santos (Brazil) Maldini (Italy)
Lechkov (Bulgaria) Dunga (Brazil) Hagi (Romania)
Baggio (Italy) Romário (Brazil) Stoichkov (Bulgaria)
Official Team of the Tournament: Very little difference, for once. The official team had only three defenders – don’t really see Hagi or Brolin putting in a shift at wing-back, myself. They always weight these teams towards attacking players. It’s a team, fellers, look the word up. They had Preud’homme for Ravelli (not much in it) and Brolin and Balakov for Belodedici and Lechkov (Balakov was a better player than Lechkov over his career, but not here).
Leading scorers: Salenko & Stoichkov (6); Klinsmann, Baggio, Romário & K Andersson (5)
Heaven Eleven No.12
Italy
Coach:
Vittorio Pozzo: I know, we said post-war, but I only meant the players . . . and there’s always Bearzot if you don’t like it.
Goalkeepers:
Gianluigi Buffon: tough choice between him and Zoff
Dino Zoff: see above
Enrico Albertosi: part of 1970 team, definitely third choice here
Defenders:
Giuseppe Bergomi: cool teenager to old hand
Giacinto Facchetti: first great attacking back in the catenaccio system
Paolo Maldini: awesome
Gaetano Scirea: grace under pressure
Franco Baresi: also awesome
Fabio Cannavaro: colossal, massive heart
Gianluca Zambrotta: mobile, adaptable, reliable
Claudio Gentile: if there’s a man to mark . . .
Midfield & wide:
Alessandro Del Piero: creative talent to burn
Bruno Conti: excellent winger on either flank
Marco Tardelli: enforcer who could also play
Andrea Pirlo: great deep-lying playmaker, a footballer’s footballer
Sandro Mazzola: great energy and vision and passing
Gianni Rivera: effortless air and an eye for goal
Roberto Donadoni: gave the team great width without ever just being a winger
Francesco Totti: has been an excellent, sometimes undervalued servant
Strikers:
Roberto Baggio: everyone’s favourite Buddhist
Luigi Riva: cracking left foot and serious pace
Paolo Rossi: great opportunist, great movement
Roberto Bettega: forceful attacker and did well when the team were struggling
Omissions: Some quality defenders, amongst them Nesta, Costacurta, Cabrini, Burgnich. What other country could leave Antonio Cabrini out? It is just possible that the game’s best three left-backs have all been Italian. Antognoni was a fine midfielder, Romeo Benetti was a terrifying presence (but we ain’t short of them) and Franco Causio was a dangerous winger with a dangerous moustache. Up front Vialli never quite scored enough and Graziani was a tiny bit short of this level, but with the heart of a lion.
Likely first XI:
Buffon
Bergomi Cannavaro Baresi Maldini
Tardelli Pirlo
Baggio Del Piero Riva
Rossi
7.3 OVER-RATED PLAYERS
Time for a bit of fun.
Here are two selected elevens, chosen carefully by a panel of experts. (Me and my friend, Guy.)
In the unlikely event of any of the players reading this: fellers, don’t worry, you have a World Cup Winner’s medal, which is more to show for your career than I, or any other bitter scribe will have. Except Tarantini, you really were rubbish.
The Worst XI to own a World Cup Winner’s medal:
Goalkeeper: Félix (Brazil, 1970) – by a mile, a complete travesty.
Right-back: Djalma Santos (Brazil, 1962) – in 1954 he was massive and scary, in 1958 he was scary and brilliant, in 1962 he was just massive.
Left-back: Alberto Tarantini (Argentina, 1978) – a thug with a thumbnail of talent.
Centre-back: Klaus Augenthaler (West Germany, 1990) – I never got him, he was slow a
nd easily brushed off the ball, but had massive guys like Köhler and Buchwald to babysit.
Centre-back: Frank Leboeuf (France, 1998) – not Frank’s fault Blanc was suspended, but deeply unfair he got the medal instead of his skipper. Nice guy, though.
Midfield: Mazinho (Brazil, 1994) – a right-back used as an extra defensive midfielder, Pelé must have shuddered at the sight.
Midfield: Héctor Enrique (Argentina, 1986) – one of a number of sub-standard players carried by Maradona in that team.
Midfield: Nobby Stiles (England, 1966) – did a job, but wasn’t really an international-standard footballer, let alone a World Cup winner; one of a breed/generation who would be in Division 2 nowadays.
Forward: Bernd Hölzenbein (West Germany, 1974) – not much good and unsporting.
Forward: Stéphane Guivarc’h (France, 1998) – lucky to get the gig, Dugarry was marginally better, and even had a stinker while France dominated the Final.
Forward: Pedro (Spain, 2010) – two years later Spain played without a proper striker rather than play Pedro, ’nuff said.
Over-hyped XI
An XI who have arrived at the World Cup and not been as good as either the press, or maybe the player, think they are.