Boring World Cup

Oh dear, what a letdown the football World Cup 1994 finals between Brazil and Italy was! Back and forth, back and forth the ball went across the field and after 90 long minutes there still was no score. At the 58th minute I started reading a newspaper and began filling in the "Crossword Puzzler". During the extra time, back and forth, back and forth went the ball for another boring 30 minutes. I am not Brazilian or Italian so I couldn't get too excited. The crowd would roar occasionally and I would look up, but nothing. Still nil-nil.

Finally the World Championship was decided by a penalty shootout, and one team won, but two hours of regular play produced nothing but zilch!

In my disappointed state, I have a few questions:

* Why didn't they have the shootout at the start of the game, and have a Rio-style "Carnival" on the pitch for the next two hours? The close to 100,000 fans paid to see their goalgetters score during the game, or something more exciting, you know.

* Did they need 11 players on each side? Just seven per team could have produced the same 0-0 regular time score. As for the penalty shootout, the football rules stipulate just five men from each side, no?

* What about all the football "experts" who predicted a high score? Is football really a game played with half the body and producing a quarter the score?

I apologize. I take back 90 percent of what I said. I know there are a lot of potentially violent football fanatics out there, and it is a sin to insult anyone's religion.

Hail Brazil, the world champions of kicking the most balls into a 7.3-meter-wide goalmouth past a nervous, 0.5 meter-wide goalkeeper!

FARID BASKORO

Jakarta