Diego Maradona\u2019s<\/a> farewell World Cup appearance cut short after being banned for doping violations following the second round game against Nigeria. He scored his last goal for the Albiceleste in their opening game against Greece in a 4\u20130 victory. Bulgaria, following their upset qualification over France, started their campaign with a 3\u20130 loss to Nigeria. However, they suddenly turned things around, and beat Greece and Argentina (playing without Maradona by then) in the next two games, spearheaded by great performances by FC Barcelona striker and future Ballon d\u2019Or winner Hristo Stoichkov. Nigeria, Bulgaria, and Argentina advanced to the knock-out stage in that order, while Greece got eliminated with 0 points.<\/p>\nAll four teams finished on four points in Group E, and all with tied goal differences. Mexico got first place on most goals scored, followed by Ireland, who were ranked above Italy due to their 1\u20130 victory over them, despite their identical 2\u20132 goal record. Norway finished last among the four-pointers, as they scored just one goal in the group.<\/p>\n
The last group, Group F, had a three-way tie on points. The Netherlands got the best of it, taking first place, followed by Saudi Arabia, then Belgium. Morocco finished last with no points, the only team not to make it out of the group.<\/p>\n
From the start of the tournament, a major issue plagued the players and supporters alike: a historic heatwave in the summer of 1994 in the US. Inexplicably, FIFA made it much worse by initially refusing to let players drink water on the pitch when the ball was out of play. Doctors had to raise concerns over potential deaths by dehydration in the press to make the football executives change their minds\u2026<\/p>\n
In the Round of 16, Argentina showed that they still felt the sudden loss of their legend and captain Maradona, and lost in an upset to Romania 3\u20132. Spain breezed past Switzerland with a 3\u20130 victory. Their opening goal was quite remarkable, with their centre-back Fernando Hierro going on an adventurous dribbling run, then coolly passing the ball into the net from around 20 yards out.<\/p>\n
Brazil beat hosts United States, who put up a respectable fight, 1\u20130. Germany knocked out Belgium (3\u20132), while the Netherlands beat Ireland (2\u20130).<\/p>\n
Italy went to extra time against Nigeria, but ultimately prevailed with a brace from Juventus forward Roberto Baggio. He scored the winner in the 102nd minute from a penalty\u2014looked like this man could deal with the pressure of taking a high-stakes PK (a little foreshadowing there\u2026). Meanwhile, Bulgaria advanced against Mexico on penalties after a 1\u20131 draw. Bulgarian goalie Borislav Mihaylov only let one goal in in the shootout, saving two while one missing the target.<\/p>\n
In the Quarter-Finals, the Azzurri got themselves two Baggio goals again (one each from Dino and Roberto Baggio), thus putting them ahead of Spain 2\u20131. Brazil beat out the Dutch 3\u20132: the Netherlands were able to erase a two-goal deficit, but FC Porto’s left-back Branco scored the winner for Brazil in the 81st with a great, powerful free kick into the bottom far corner.<\/p>\n
Bulgaria, who had defied the odds many times already during the 1994 World Cup campaign, had done it again. This time, they bested defending champions Germany, with goals from their two star strikers Stoichkov and Yordan Letchkov, who turned the game around after the Germans took the lead with a penalty from Lothar Matth\u00e4us. The other Eastern European nation with a memorable run in the tournament, Romania, tied Sweden 2\u20132. In the shootout, the Swedish ended up winning 5\u20134.<\/p>\n
By the time the Semi-Finals came, the people of Bulgaria, a small nation that had recently gained its freedom from the oppressive communist regime, believed they could witness a miracle and see their national team lift the World Cup trophy. Italy stopped them in their track. Roberto Baggio kept his great goal-scoring form, netting two, which were his fourth and fifth goals in the tournament, all scored in the knock-out stage. Italy ended up winning the game 2\u20131, and made it to their first World Cup final since their victorious campaign of 1982.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Brazil, a famously football-obsessed nation, had been waiting for a World Cup trophy for 24 years. The last time they were able to claim the gold was in 1970, when the legendary Pel\u00e9 was still on their squad. During the 1994 tournament, head coach Carlos Alberto Parreira was criticized in his home country for overly defensive tactics that went against the footballing tradition of Brazil. However, those tactics seemed to work again: Brazil kept a clean sheet, and advanced into the final over Sweden after a 1\u20130 victory. Rom\u00e1rio scored the winner in the 80th minute.<\/p>\n
In the third-place play-off, Sweden comfortably beat Bulgaria, who had been punching well above their weight, 4\u20130, earning them the bronze medal. This sets us up for the final, played on 17 July 1994, at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California, in front of 94,000 people in the stands in scorching 100\u00b0F (38 \u00b0C) heat. The match was officiated by Hungarian referee S\u00e1ndor Puhl. <\/p>\n
It was a game of few chances. In the first half, AC Milan striker Daniele Massaro came close to opening the scoring for Italy after a breakaway, but his shot was smothered by Cl\u00e1udio Taffarel in Brazil’s goal. In the second half, Italian keeper Gianluca Pagliuca nearly gifted Brazil the lead, after a long-range shot from Mauro Silva landed straight at him, but it bounced off his chest and hit the post. After he collected the ball, he thanked the woodwork with a quick kiss.<\/p>\n
Regulation time ended in a goalless tie. Extra time saw Brazil nearly score, but Rom\u00e1rio put a low cross wide from inside the six-yard box. To be fair, the ball came behind him. However, no one ended up finding the net. Thus, for the first time in FIFA World Cup history, the trophy was decided in a penalty shoot-out.<\/p>\n
Both sides missed in the first round of penalties: Baresi skied his kick high, while M\u00e1rcio Santos’ shot was saved by Pagliuca. Rom\u00e1rio, Branco, and captain Dunga all converted their pens on the Brazilian side; and so did Albertini and Evani on the Italian side. Massaro of Italy was the next to miss in round 4, his shot was parried away by Taffarel. Thus, when Roberto Baggio, the star player for the Azzurri in the tournament, stepped up to take his penalty in the last round, he knew he had to score to keep his nation’s World Cup dream alive.<\/p>\n
However, he did not. In one of the lasting Italian football dramas, Baggio fired the ball over the bar from the spot.<\/p>\n
This meant that for the first time in 24 years, and for the first time without Pel\u00e9 in their squad, Brazil won the FIFA World Cup again, claiming their historic fourth title.<\/p>\n
Related articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 23rd quadrennial FIFA World Cup hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico is just one week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1004984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5311],"tags":[2106,13489,278584,278585,19560,278586,94,278587,278588,224581,268434,278589,278590,278591,278592,49,978,659],"class_list":["post-1004983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-brazil","tag-bulgaria","tag-claudio-taffarel","tag-fifa-world-cuo","tag-fifa-world-cup","tag-fifa-world-cup-1994","tag-football","tag-football-history","tag-oj-simpson","tag-penalty-shootout","tag-professional-sports","tag-roberto-baggio","tag-romario","tag-sandor-puhl","tag-summer-heatwave","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116692247257214167","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1004983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1004984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1004983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1004983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1004983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}