COMMENTARY : Nationalism Is What Keeps Game Afloat, Despite Stall Tactics
FLORENCE, Italy — Surely it is the nationalism that makes the World Cup riveting. It can’t be the soccer--the stultifying, four-corners, sit-tight-and-hope-we-win-the-penalty-shoot-out mentality that has clamped down even tighter since first-round pool play ended 10 days ago.
The argument that the sport is not broken is the estimate, by organizers of Italia ‘90, that a record 1 billion will watch the July 8 championship game on worldwide television, that a TV audience of 26.5 billion will have seen the monthlong tournament and that the 52 World Cup games will have been attended by an average of 53,000 per game.
But the argument that soccer needs fixing is on the field, where nothing happens most of the time and not much happens all of the time. Even people who dearly love soccer--Europeans and South Americans who have grown up following the game passionately--sat fidgeting and sighing in front of the dreadful, no-initiative quarterfinal between Argentina and Yugoslavia. Asked late in the game if the score still was 0-0, one of the faithful grumbled: “At the very best.†A 0-0 score gave that game too much credit.
Today, the semifinals began with what appears to be a worthy final four of soccer powers: host Italy, three times the World Cup champion, against Argentina, the defending champion. It is followed Wednesday by England, lordly inventor of the sport, against West Germany, now in its eighth semifinal in the last 10 World Cups.
In fact, though, two of those sides are still alive mostly because of soccer’s vagaries: Argentina (2-1-2) has been described as “looking as though it is tired of holding the Cup.†And England (3-0-2, with two of the wins coming in overtime) mostly has appeared incapable of hitting the water if it fell out of a boat.
Even Italy (5-0-0) has scored only seven goals, and four of those by former bench warmer Salvatore Schillaci. “Salvatore†means “Savior,†and for all of Italy’s lovely passing in midfield, it certainly needed saving.
At least West Germany (4-0-1) can score a bit; it has 13 goals so far, although nine of those came in the two first-round games against the United Arab Emirates and Yugoslavia.
Naturally, winning coaches will not stand still for criticism of their styles of play, and criticism is hurled at them daily by the soccer-daft Europeans. But the level of excitement has been sinking so low in this tournament, most of the talk is of boredom. Through the first two rounds--the first 44 games--there was an average of one goal per 40 minutes of playing time.
Yet winning counts more than creativity, as Brazil, more artistic than most but less so than it used to be, learned when it was upset by Argentina, which may be the worst team in this World Cup if not for two brief works of art by Diego Maradona--and Sunday’s crazy penalty shoot-out.
So far, the desperation that Cameroon’s instinctive play wrung from its opponents has given the tournament its best time. But Cameroon is gone now, and old discussions of possible solutions to soccer’s mental and physical lock-step are raging.
Should soccer officials expand the World Cup field from 24 to 32 teams (a probability) in 1994, and play single-elimination from the beginning instead of first-round pool play? Should they mix the 32-team field with a first-round knockout format, go to pool play with the remaining 16 in four groups, to set up the semifinals with the group winners?
Which system--if any--better guards against playing for ties just to advance?
And should they ditch penalty shoot-outs for play-to-the-death overtime? That format once produced 17 quarter-hour overtimes in an NAIA game and was really dull. Should they break ties by counting the corner kicks in games? Should they decide ties by alternating corner kicks instead of penalty shots?
With 1 billion people on the edges of their seats to see the championship telecast, don’t get your hopes up for change.
