Norway penalty cuts no ice

USA Referee Esfandiar Bahar mast may well be in line for the award for the worst decision of the World Cup after Norway's sensational and undeserved 2-1 win against Brazil in Marseille last night.

Mr Baharmast saw a penalty for Norway late in the game that none of the rest of us saw to give the Norwegians a win that overshadows the other results yesterday.

On paper, the result looks bad for Brazil. In practice, Brazil had already won the group going into the game and quite clearly took the game easily.

Nevertheless, Brazil were leading 1-0 with a quarter of an hour to go when the Norwegians picked up an equaliser from their best player on the night, Chelsea's Tore Andre Flo. Even then Brazil were not especially worried.

They had not, however, bargained on the eccentric Mr Baharmast, who claimed that Junior Baiano had fouled Flo in what was a totally harmless penalty area challenge.

As for Scotland, their 3-0 defeat by Morocco became irrelevant after the ridiculous refereeing in Marseille. The Scots have always looked a limited side but they do not usually give much away in defence. They will, though, be annoyed with themselves for the all-important first two goals conceded to Morocco, both from long balls over the heads of the defence. You have to feel sorry for Morocco, though. They have played some good football in France and ought to be relishing the thought of a second-round game against Italy. Instead, the Italians will face Norway, a poor footballing side that should not unduly worry them.

As for Italy, I think it was a case of doing the bare minimum in their 2-1 win over Austria. For them, the important thing was to top their group and thus avoid Brazil in the second round - and yesterday they achieved just that.

History suggests that Italy will now get better. Given their performances so far, they had better do so.

I find it hard to see them going beyond the quarter-finals. They clearly have a solid defence and strikers such as Christian Vieri and Roberto Baggio are at the top of their form, but they still have a huge problem in midfield, where I feel they lack a really influential, creative player in the mould of Giancarlo Antognoni of the 1982 World Cup-winning side.

So far, Italy have been workmanlike rather than brilliant. They toil tirelessly, are clearly well-organised, and do what they need to do. Furthermore, like many Italian sides before them, they seem to have an instinctive knack for pacing themselves correctly in the context of a competition which has not reached even the halfway stage.

The Italian media obsession with the choice between Alessandro Del Piero and Roberto Baggio has tended to overlook the tremendous contribution of Vieri, who scored his fourth goal in three matches yesterday.

For my money, the question that manager Cesare Maldini asks himself when he picks his side is not "Baggio or Del Piero?" but rather "Who do I play alongside Vieri?".

At the moment, Vieri is the automatic first-choice striker.

As for Baggio and Del Piero, I think yesterday's game offered an emphatic judgment on that debate and it was a verdict in favour of Baggio.

Del Piero looks a tired player and someone for whom the World Cup has come perhaps six weeks too late, but Baggio is clearly at the peak of his form.

Just at the moment, Baggio seems the more inventive of the two, while the fact that he has now scored twice in three games does no harm either.

I must admit I was pleased to see Chile qualify for a second round clash with Brazil, following their 1-1 draw with Cameroon. In Ivan Zamorano and Marcelo Salas, they have probably the best combination of strikers at these finals and they are the main reason why Chile have made it to the second round.

The Chileans also have one or two other impressive players - defenders Francisco Rojas and Javier Margas, as well as midfielder Jose Luis Sierra - while their attitude has also been good. They have gone out to play football in every match and will probably do the same against Brazil.

Given the class of Salas and Zamorano, you would have to fancy them scoring against Brazil and setting us up for a terrific second-round game.

Given the overall quality of the current Brazilian side, however, you'd also expect Brazil to score more goals than Chile.

(In an interview with Paddy Agnew)