USA: Penalty Shootout at High Noon
America in summer. The stadiums built for American football and baseball — Stanford Stadium, the Rose Bowl, Giants Stadium — were filled beyond capacity with crowds that, in several cases, had never seen a professional football match and would never see another. FIFA had chosen the United States partly for its infrastructure and partly for the commercial logic of opening the world's largest consumer economy to the world's most popular sport. The strategy was successful and also, from a purely footballing perspective, sometimes uncomfortable: matches played in 100-degree heat in New Jersey and Dallas, with scheduling determined by television rather than athletic welfare.
Maradona was the tournament's first great story. Playing for Argentina and visibly recovered from the physical decline that had marked his previous years, he scored a goal against Greece in the group stage that recalled the Azteca decade earlier — full of running and misdirection, finished with his left foot from the edge of the area. Four days later he tested positive for ephedrine and was removed from the tournament by FIFA. He wept in the mixed zone while Argentine journalists wept alongside him. Argentina limped on and were eliminated by Romania.
The tournament's final narrative was Brazil versus Italy — the most storied nations in the game's history, meeting for the first time in a World Cup Final. Italy had ground through the tournament on the goals and movement of Roberto Baggio, whose performances in the knockout rounds were among the finest of his career: the curling free kick against Nigeria, the stunning goal against Spain, the precise volley against Bulgaria. Baggio was the tournament's finest player. Brazil, collectively, were the best team.
After 120 goalless minutes — the first and only scoreless World Cup Final after extra time — the penalties arrived. Baresi, Italy's captain and the finest defender of the era, missed first. Marcio Santos missed for Brazil. Three more penalties each, all converted, and then Baggio walked to the spot needing to score to keep Italy in the competition. The ball rose over the crossbar. The silence in the Rose Bowl lasted longer than any crowd silence in football history. Italy lost. Brazil won. Baggio stood at the penalty spot for several seconds before he moved — alone with a miss that would follow him into every conversation about his career for the next thirty years.
MATCH FOOTAGE
1994
Brazil 0–0 Italy (3–2 pen)
1994
Brazil 1–0 Sweden
1994
Italy 2–1 Bulgaria
1994
Brazil 3–2 Netherlands
1994
Italy 2–1 Spain
1994
Germany 1–2 Bulgaria