days after the game, Escobar was shot and killed, per-
haps by a mentally disturbed soccer fanatic. Though
the tragedy did not overshadow the celebratory na-
ture of the tournament as a whole, Escobar’s murder
was a reminder of the tenuous boundary between
on-field dramatics and real-life tragedy.
Romário Versus Baggio Brazil and Italy, arguably
the two most storied national soccer teams, first met
in a World Cup championship game in 1970. The
Pelé-led Brazilian squad outplayed the Italians and
won 4-1. In 1994, the two teams took different paths
through the tournament. The Brazilians, led by
“Romário” (Romário de Souza Faria) and “Bebeto”
(José Roberto Gama de Oliveira) charged through
group play, defeating Russia and Cameroon and ty-
ing Sweden. In the second round, the team defeated
the upstart Americans 1-0 on Independence Day, a
match notorious for Leonardo Araújo’s errant el-
bow that nearly killed Ramos. In the quarterfinals,
Brazil defeated the Netherlands in one of the finer
games of the tournament. Down 2-0, the Dutch
fought back and tied the game with fourteen min-
utes left in regulation. However, a shot by “Branco”
(Cláudio Ibrahim Vaz Leal), with less than ten min-
utes to play, kicked Brazil into the semifinals where,
in a hard-fought rematch with Sweden, Romário
headed in the gamewinner—his fifth goal of the
tournament.
Italy stumbled to the final match—though it
played in arguably the toughest group with Ireland,
Mexico, and Norway. Roberto Baggio’s brilliance
provided moments of high drama. Other than
Romário—the winner of the Golden Ball, awarded
to the tournament’s best player—Baggio was per-
haps the most outstanding player of the 1994 World
Cup. Though he did not score in the first round,
Baggio, FIFA’s World Footballer of the Year in 1993,
provided some of the most electrifying goals of the
elimination rounds. In the second round, he scored
twice to overcome the “Super Eagles” of Nigeria; in
the quarterfinal match against Spain, with the game936 World Cup of 1994 The Nineties in America
The Brazilian team parades around the Rose Bowl after defeating Italy 3-2 in the 1994 World Cup.(AP/Wide World Photos)