July 5, 1982: Paolo Rossi Makes Brazil Cry

July 5, 1982: Most soccer World Cups are best remembered for their Finals. The 1982 edition, in Spain, is not.

As they so often do, Italy went into the World Cup in controversy. The Totonero match-fixing scandal broke in 1980. Two of Italy's biggest teams, A.C. Milan and Rome team S.S. Lazio, were punished by relegation from Serie A to Serie B. Some others, including A.C. Perugia, were docked 5 points. Perugia star Paolo Rossi was punished more than any individual player, suspended for 3 seasons.

He always insisted he was innocent, but he missed his age 23 and 24 seasons. His suspension was lifted after the 2nd season. Turin-based Juventus F.C., known for their corruption (they were not charged in Totonero, but would be relegated and stripped of 2 titles in the 2006 Calciopoli scandal), didn't care that people still thought Rossi was guilty, and scooped him up for the 1981-82 season.

He helped them win the League in 1982, and he was once again selected for the national team. Despite there being no blue in Italy's national flag, their national team wears blue (this is also true for Japan), due to it being the color of their former ruling family, the House of Savoy, and are known as Gli Azzurri (The Blues).

Italy's sporting press is notorious for making bigger deals out of things than they should: For a big team like Juve, the Milan teams (A.C. Milan and Internazionale Milano F.C.) or the Rome teams (A.S. Roma and Lazio), a 3-game winless streak is a "crisis," and talk that the manager should be fired begins. So there was some fuss about Rossi being chosen for the World Cup.

The tournament was held in Spain, and 2 teams were the popular favorites, Brazil and France. Brazil, in particular, because, for the 1st time since their 1970 win, they seemed to have a team that was not only greatly talented, but stylish. Like most Brazil teams, they were led by men using single names, and the names still echo through the history of the game: Sócrates, Zico, Falcão, Éder. (Some of these names had been used for popular players before, and would again.) And one man who used 2 names, serving as a nickname: Roberto Dinamite.

Brazil had beaten Italy in the 1970 World Cup Final, and the contrast between the national teams' reputations couldn't have been more stark: While they had a high-scoring national team in 1970, Italy's best club teams had been notable for defense, with a style known as catenaccio, or "padlock."

Gianni Brera, the legendary writer for La Gazzetta dello Sport -- effectively, Italy's Grantland Rice -- had said that the perfect soccer game would end 0-0. Most Americans would find this boring, but Italian fans of the 1960s and '70s tended to agree with him.

Not surprisingly, Juventus were known for a strong defense, and had 6 players on Italy's team for the 1982 World Cup: Rossi, midfielder Marco Tardelli, goalkeeper Dino Zoff, and 3 defenders: Antonio Cabrini, Claudio Gentile and Gaetano Scirea.

Fiorentina, of Florence, had 5: Backup goalkeeper Giovanni Galli, defender Pietro Vierchowod, midfielder Giancarlo Antognoni, and forwards Daniele Massaro and Francesco Graziani. Inter Milan had 5: Backup goalkeeper Ivano Bordon, defender Giuseppe Bergomi, midfielders Giampiero Marini and Gabriele Oriali, and forward Alessandro Altobelli.

A.C. Milan had 2 players, both defenders: Franco Baresi and Fulvio Collovati. And 1 player each came from 4 other clubs: Forward Franco Selvaggi from Cagliari on Sardinia, midfielder Bruno Conti from A.S. Roma, midfielder Giuseppe Dossena from Turin team Torino, and midfielder Franco Causio from Udinese. The manager was Enzo Bearzot.

Italy excited no one in the First Group Stage, gaining 3 draws, all in the northwestern Spanish city of Vigo: 0-0 with Poland, 1-1 with Peru, and 1-1 with Cameroon. The Italian media ripped their own boys, singling Rossi out, with one writer calling him "a ghost aimlessly wandering over the field." But it was enough to finish 2nd to Poland in Group 1, and advance to the Second Group Stage.

They were put in Group C, with Brazil and Argentina. The latter were not only the defending champions, but had added a new star, Diego Maradona, and needed an emotional lift after getting clobbered by Britain in the Falklands War. Italy seemed like lambs being led to the slaughter. The term "Group of Death" was not yet in use in 1982, but, in 2007, with a quarter-century of hindsight, British newspaper The Guardian called this "the deadliest-ever Group of Death in World Cup history."

All the games in this Group were played at Estadi de Sarrià, home of RCD Espanyol in Barcelona. On June 29, Italy stunned Argentina -- a country which, despite having Spanish as its official language, has Italians as its largest ethnic group -- with 2nd-half goals by Tardelli and Cabrini within 10 minutes. Argentina pulled one back, but it wasn't enough, as Gentile and Scirea marked Maradona out of the action, and Italy were 2-1 winners.

On July 2, Brazil beat Argentina, their arch-rivals, 3-1 in a masterclass of what they called, in Portuguese, O Jogo Bonito: The Beautiful Game. Argentina were out, and the July 5 match between Brazil and Italy would decide one of the teams for the Semifinal.

Bearzot decided that keeping Zico from attacking was the answer. He sent Gentile to mark Zico, and it worked, but at a price: Gentile was called for a foul, and granted a yellow card. Due to accumulation of cards, he would be suspended for the Semifinal, should Italy qualify.

Rossi scored only 5 minutes in, with a header off a Cabrini cross. Sócrates answered in the 12th minute. In the 25th, Rossi stepped in front of Júnior, intercepted a pass from Cerezo, and scored a 2nd goal. It was 2-1 Italy at the half. Falcão tied it in the 68th. Had that 2-2 score held, Brazil would have advanced to the Semifinal on goal difference.

But in the 74th, Italy had a corner kick. Brazil did a poor job of clearing it. Rossi took the ball at the six-yard line, and drilled a shot to complete a hat trick. Antognoni seemed to score in the 86th, but it was disallowed for offside -- incorrectly, as an instant replay later showed. In stoppage time, Oscar nearly equalized for Brazil, but Zoff made an amazing save, clinching the 3-2 win for Italy.

Brazilian fans could be seen crying in the stands. Not since the Maracanazo of the 1950 Final, which they lost on home soil to Uruguay, had their team sustained such an impactful defeat. This one would also be named after the stadium where it was played: A tragédia do Sarrià. And Rossi, approached after the tournament to write a book, titled it Ho fatto piangere il Brasile: "I Made Brazil Cry."

It has been suggested that this loss was the end of O Jogo Bonito for Brazil: The attacking philosophy that had served them so well was scrapped for a defense-first approach. It paid off in 1994, when they won the World Cup -- beating Italy in the Final, on penalties after 120 minutes of goalless soccer. But the country practically revolted against this approach: Never was a team that won the World Cup less loved in its homeland. So they went back to the old approach, led by Ronaldo and Ronaldinho, reaching the Final in 1998 and winning it all in 2002.

But the 1982 tournament was not over. On July 8, at the Camp Nou, the already-storied home ground of FC Barcelona, Italy faced Poland in the Semifinal. Rossi was the star again, scoring in the 22nd and the 73rd minute, leading Italy to a 2-0 win. The Final would be on July 11, at the home of Real Madrid, Estadio Santiago Bernabéu. It would be against West Germany, which shocked France in what was widely seen as a dirty match.

In the World Cup, matches are usually refereed by a man from neither team's home continent, in the hopes of avoiding any bias. The referee for this match was Arnaldo Cézar Coelho -- from Brazil. Despite Rossi and his teammates having "made Brazil cry," in the end, he was not accused of showing any bias against Italy, and is generally considered one of the best referees in the sport's history.

The 1st half was scoreless. Italy were awarded a penalty, but Cabrini missed it. In the 57th minute, Rossi struck again, heading in a cross from Gentile. Tardelli scored in the 69th, and later said that he saw his life flashing before his eyes thereafter. Altobelli added a goal in the 81st. Paul Breitner scored for West Germany in the 83rd, but it was too little, too late. Italy won, 3-1.

Having previously won the World Cup in 1934 and 1938, this was their 3rd, tying Brazil for the most. Through 2018, the count is Brazil 5, Italy 4, Germany 4 (but only 1 since reunification with East Germany), France 2, Argentina 2, Uruguay 2, Spain 1, England 1.

Rossi was awarded the Golden Ball as the player of the tournament, and, in The Guardian, Peter Mason wrote that, for Italy, the World Cup "was a cathartic moment for the nation, which had been subject to significant social and political unrest for a number of years and, despite being regarded as one of the world's premier footballing nations, had not won a World Cup since 1938... With the victory came an incalculable lift to the nation’s spirits, and Rossi was at the centre of the celebrations."

Rossi became an icon wherever veins carried Italian blood. There was a pizzeria in my neighborhood, on the New York side of New Jersey. Before the tournament, one wall had pictures of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack pals, and other Italian actors like Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Another wall was all New York Yankees, as this was right after the end of their 1976-81 dynasty.

The coverage of soccer in America was pathetic. If memory serves me correctly, I don't think a single game of that World Cup was shown on TV except the Final, on ABC Wide World of Sports. But Italy won it. The next day, the pizzeria had taken down all the Yankee pictures, and replaced it with pictures of the Italy team, especially Rossi. The guys running the place couldn't have named one player on the team before the Final, but they were front-runnering it. (As of 2022, it's still in business, but with very different decor.)

At his 25th birthday, Paolo Rossi was a genius with a cloud over his head. At his 26th, he was an all-time legend. He helped Juventus reach the Final of the European Cup (the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League) in 1983, losing to German team Hamburger S.V.; and in 1985, beating Liverpool F.C. after a stadium disaster led to the deaths of 39 fans. The decision to play after it led to the Final being known as "the Cup of Blood."

Rossi moved on to A.C. Milan, and was selected for the 1986 World Cup, but had to drop out due to injury. He went into the real estate business, and became a commentator for Italy's top TV network, RAI. He died in 2020, due to smoking, at the age of 64.

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July 5, 1982 was a Monday. These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Seattle Mariners, 5-4 at the Kingdome in Seattle. Dave Winfield and John Mayberry hit home runs, but it wasn't enough.

* The New York Mets lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-1 at Shea Stadium.

* The San Diego Padres beat the Montreal Expos, 8-6 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. The Padres scored 6 runs in the 7th inning. Tony Gwynn made his major league debut for the Padres 2 weeks later.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Mike Schmidt went 1-for-5. Pete Rose went 1-for-3 with 2 walks.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-5 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.

* The Houston Astros beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-4 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Willie Stargell, in his final season, appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-5 at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. Ozzie Smith singled home the winning run in the top of the 10th inning.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-3 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Chicago White Sox, 10-4 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Robin Yount went 2-for-3 with a home run and 2 RBIs. Paul Molitor went 1-for-5.

* A doubleheader was split at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. The Boston Red Sox won the opener, 4-3. Jim Rice drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the top of the 11th inning. The Kansas City Royals won the nightcap, 4-3. Carl Yastrzemski appeared as a pinch-hitter in the opener, and did not reach base. But in the nightcap, he went 2-for-4 with a solo home run. Over the 2 games, George Brett went 1-for-10 with an RBI.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 3-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The Baltimore Orioles beat the California Angels, 8-5 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim). Eddie Murray went 1-for-4 with a home run and 2 RBIs. Reggie Jackson went 2-for-4 with a solo home run. Cal Ripken and Rod Carew each went 0-for-4 with a walk.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Cleveland Indians, 2-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-3 with a walk. Tom Underwood (7 2/3rds innings) and Dave Beard combined on a 7-hit shutout.