Argentine coach Daniel Passarella prohibits long hair on his players. So it must have hurt a little bit extra when the second U.S. goal against his finely groomed men came from the players with the most eccentric hairdos on the U.S. team.
Jones, with his upright dreadlocks, beat two Argentines and crossed from the endline. His pass reached Lalas, with the famous red mane and long goatee, who ignored the short-haired fellow riding him piggy-back at the near post, and knocked the ball home.
Two days later, Jones and Lalas were pictured winning balls against Argentines in Uruguyan daily El Pais. The headline: “USA and its historic day… to the rhythm of rock.”
It was Argentina’s last tango in Paysandu. After Passarella had subbed in three regulars who were resting for the quarterfinals, Wynalda — with his month-old crew cut — scored the third goal. The 3-0 final score put the two teams even with six points but goal difference favored the U.S.
Passarella had been punished severely for taking this game lightly. He made nine changes from the team that thrashed Chile, though nine of the 14 players who saw action against U.S. had played in this Copa America.
“After the win over Chile,” Passarella said, “we deserved a rest. We knew the risk we were taking with the decision to rest players, but we never considered that we were going to lose. We were always looking for the win.”
The Argentine press called it “The black night” and “An historic slap in the face.”
Instead of staying by its border in a home-like atmosphere and playing a third-place team, the Argentines were forced to go to Rivera and play the world champion.
“I think it’s the second most important U.S. win in history,” Sampson said. “The first was against Colombia, because that was in the World Cup.”
Sampson changed the U.S. system for this match, going from a flat back four —
defending zonally — to a sweeper system. Initially, Balboa played free while Lalas marked high scorer Gabriel Batistuta and Caligiuri, usually a left back, marked Alberto Acosta.
When Balboa pulled his groin and left the game in the 16th minute, Caligiuri moved to sweeper.
In its rout of Chile, Argentina scored in the first minute. But in this match, the U.S. attacked first. Both Klopas and Harkes unleashed shots in the first minute.
“Against Chile and Bolivia we got off to slow starts,” Caligiuri said. “We knew Argentina was the Copa America favorite and would come out high pressure. We knew we could get a point, or a win, but we had to come out strong, and in the first 30 seconds, we had two shots.”
Then Keller came through with a diving save off a long-range Hugo Perez shot. Batistuta flew in and struck the rebound only to see a recovered Keller dive the other way to save.
Harkes, Dooley and Klopas played in the central midfield. Harkes went everywhere to disturb Argentines, Dooley backed him up, and Klopas worked the ball forward. In the 21st minute he scored from the edge of the penalty area when an Argentine defender was unable to clear the ball after Jones dribbled into the area, leaving it for Klopas to knock through a maze of players. That incited the Argentines to play even harder and both teams tackled recklessly, eventually earning six yellow cards per team.
The game was Jones’ first start of the tournament, and he proved a thorn in Argentina’s side. Stewart, however, found himself defending for much of the game. Lalas kept his feet and hands all over Batistuta, who was no more effective when joined by Abel Balbo in the second half.
Wynalda, the best U.S. attacker of the tournament, found little room in the first half. Then in the 59th minute he juked his way past Perez and laid on a ball for Moore. He looked beaten by young sweeper Roberto Ayala, but slid on the wet turf and poked the ball in front of an open net for Wynalda to knock in. That goal gave the U.S. the Group C title.
“It was a rare loss with an uncommon result,” said Passarella. “This happens in soccer. Argentina fell to Cameroon in the opening game of the 1990 World Cup and it surprised everyone.”
After the match, the Argentine fans applauded the U.S. players.
“Steve Sampson changed the system completely for this game,” Caligiuri said. “He deserves credit, having known exactly what we needed to do. Every player had a specific role, a specific duty. Each of us fulfilled his and we played our hearts out.”
by Soccer America Senior Editor Mike Woitalla