Baggio is, in fact, one of the world’s most gifted athletes, with a dream that can’t be played out in celluloid. It transpires a few miles east of Hollywood in more prosaic Pasadena, where next month-after 52 games in nine American cities over 31 days-the World Cup soccer championship will be decided. There in the Rose Bowl, before 92,000 fans and a worldwide viewing audience estimated at 1.25 billion, Italy’s great star envisions … well, he tells it best. “Every day growing up I had this dream about the World Cup,” says Baggio. “I score the winning goal.” Then he flashes a big, beatific smile and adds greedily, “In the final minute.” The smile edges into laughter as he says, “With my butt!”
‘Michael Jordan’: Why not? At 27, there’s little else that Baggio hasn’t done on the soccer field. Last year he won soccer’s daily double, named Europe’s best by journalists and the world’s best by coaches. His on-field artistry has earned him nicknames like “The Phenomenon,” “The Living Wonder,” and, of course, for American consumption, “soccer’s Michael Jordan.” To Andreas Moller, one of the young stars for defending champion Germany and Baggio’s teammate on the Juventus team in Turin, Italy, “he’s a player who makes magic.” But the World Cup remains the one, certain path to soccer immortality, the only stage on which Baggio can link his name to legends like Pele and Maradona. “All the truly great players,” says Baggio, “have had to demonstrate their importance and value in the most difficult competition of all.”
Fans of American football will recognize his moves. He dribbles through a crowd like Dallas Cowboy Emmitt Smith running through a defense, lofts passes to the wings with the feathery touch of Joe Montana and launches free kicks at the goal with the power and accuracy of the best NFL kickers. The football metaphor is particularly appropriate as soccer has become ever more physical. The 1990 World Cup finals was the lowest scoring in history, as defenders tripped, shoved and maimed soccer’s premier stars. As a rare creative force, Baggio will be a “marked” man, soccer parlance for manto-man defense and a certain beating.
Baggio remains an elusive and distant superstar for a nation far more comfortable with the swagger and bravado of skier Alberto Tomba. “Tomba looks for the crowd and wades into it,” says Antonio Ricciotti, the agent who signed Baggio as International Management Group’s first major soccer star in years. “Roberto looks for the crowd and goes the other way.” He’s just a small-town lad who prefers being home with Ms wife (“the first woman I ever kissed”) and two young children (“we had their names picked out when we were just 15”). Baggio still keeps a home in Caldogno, the northern hill town where he was born. When Roberto does venture out, it’s usually to go hunting with a cast of decidedly nonfamous pals. He brought the same gang to Paris when he received the Golden Ball award as Europe’s outstanding player. They entertained themselves playing the child’s game Freeze throughout the City of lights.
Life’s contradictions: But if Baggio appears unsophisticated, it is mostly by choice. In private, he is a contemplative man with a wry sense of humor. As a rising star, beset by injuries that threatened his career, Baggio converted to Buddhism, a “philosophy of life,” he says, “that has made me more happy and peaceful inside.” He doesn’t care that the fans (or even his mother) in his Roman Catholic homeland may be less than thrilled. He wrestles daily with life’s contradictions, such as his passion for hunting, which seems at odds with his chosen faith. “Hunting for me is a family tradition,” he says. “When I adopted Buddhism, my master taught me not to be so rigid. Mosquitoes have a right to life, too. If you worried about them you might never drive a car again.”
He will be on display, along with plenty of mosquitoes, when Italy opens its World Cup on Saturday against Ireland ‘in the swampy Meadowlands. His agent is convinced that with Baggio’s talent, looks and charm, Roberto can first take Manhattan and then the rest of the country-if only he’d master a little English. “These American verbs,” Baggio groans. “How many do I have to learn?” But as Baggio leaves by a back door to duck the Italian press, he provides a glimpse of the instincts that have made him soccer’s premier star. Peeking just his head through, he flashes a posterboy smile and intones, “I love New York.” Score! Baggio!
