If you’re like me, if soccer is your life, if you walk around the house in shinguards and knee-high socks, I do not have to explain the horrible feeling.
When Tommy Boyd knocked the ball into his own goal the other day, affording Brazil a gritty 2-1 victory over Scotland during the opener of the 1998 World Cup in France, I wanted to cover my eyes.
Was it fixed? Was that game real or rehearsed? Can we ever trust another corner kick?
Believe me, I write those words with a heavy heart. But I had no choice after reading a front-page story in the New York Times and a comprehensive piece in the Tribune about this ongoing soccer scandal. I ask you, is nothing sacred?
It wasn’t that Brazil won, but how. Brazil, after all, is the defending champion. Need I remind you, on United States soil in 1994, Brazil claimed the World Cup by overwhelming Italy in a wide-open, there’s-no-tomorrow, we-put-our-short-pants-on-one-leg-a-time final 0-0. (If you bet nil in the over-under, you won.)
No, it wasn’t that Brazil vanquished Scotland. I just wish Cafu could have scored the winning goal. Or Dunga. Maybe even Bebeto, although he didn’t play particularly well, need I remind you. Anybody but Tommy Boyd, off whose shoulder the tiebreaker violated his own team’s net.
I don’t imagine Tommy Boyd is in any hurry to return home to Scotland. He might want to head south for a couple of decades. Likewise, it will take some doing for me to erase this memory. I now turn to Univision with a jaundiced eye.
Better yet, I turned to Willy Roy, a Chicago soccer legend. He coaches at Northern Illinois University. Before that he coached our Sting to glory. We blithely credit the 1983 White Sox, the 1984 Cubs and the 1985 Bears for breaking this city’s well-earned inferiority complex that since has been shattered so emphatically by the Bulls.
Think again. It was the 1981 Sting that started it all by bringing us a title. Willy Roy was the Phil Jackson of that dynasty, and Willy Roy knew a soccer fanatic when he met one, which is why my good friend was so happy to take my call.
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“What do you want?” Roy said, coyly.
“I need to talk to you about all these fixed soccer games in Europe,” I said. “It’s cutting into my sleep.”
“It’s 7 o’clock in the morning and you’re cutting into mine,” Roy said, pretending to be annoyed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. First of all, it’s almost impossible to fix a soccer game because there are so few goals. Secondly, it couldn’t happen in a World Cup.
“Everybody watches the World Cup. Nobody would dare do anything suspicious. Besides that, when you wear the colors of your nation, when you play for your country’s flag, it is the highlight of your life. You wouldn’t understand. If a game is fixed, it would have to be on club teams.”
Click.
Indeed, according to newspaper reports, most incidents of bribery involve lower levels. Still, soccer cheating is said to be a $400 billion-a-year global industry, extending even to Vietnam, where the local federation is investigating a recent tilt between Hanoi and Haiphong.
Need I remind you, when those two teams meet, you can throw out all the record books. Now if the game in question was rigged, you can throw that out too.
I worry most for soccer in the United States. We’ve always heard the sport wouldn’t catch on here until Americans became proficient. Of course, they used to say the same thing about hockey. But American players are all over the NHL and TV ratings here are still brutal. Proceed to the decimal point and turn right.
Still, the U.S. soccer squad meets mighty Germany on Monday and I would hate to think ABC will usurp those afternoon soap operas for a game that some greasy gambler has prearranged. Over my dead body. This isn’t wrestling. This is war. And while you’re at it, light a candle for Tommy Boyd.
By the way, need I remind you, Chile tied Italy 2-2 the other day despite managing only two shots on goal in two hours. I didn’t know the Blackhawks played soccer, did you?