WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FINALS : Spotlight : VIRUS IS CURED

Under the front-page headline, “The Defeated Prophets”:

“Ten athletes and one genius: Italy is in the finals. Baggianism, the only faith which unites Italians in the world, this time did not have to wait for the last minutes of the game to explode. . . .

“Roberto Baggio won the game in five minutes. . . . In the soccer computer, Bulgaria was the one wild card, the virus that could have upset the whole system. But they found themselves confronting an Italian team even more unpredictable and crazy than they. . . . No one predicted the tortuous path of the Italians toward the finals.”