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Roa in right spot for spot kicks
Posted: Thursday July 02, 1998 11:57 AM
Special from L'Equipe, the French sports daily
PARIS (L'Equipe) -- After having used six goalkeepers en route to the
World Cup, Daniel Passarella finally settled on Carlos Roa. A choice he
obviously doesn't regret now. "We trusted him before the penalty shots.
Because we knew he was very good at stopping them," Passarella said.
Everybody knew that, really. A few weeks ago, Majorca's goalie stopped
three of them in the Copa del Rey -- the Spanish Cup -- final. He even shot
one, but his teammates weren't as successful as he was, and they lost the
match.
Tuesday night against England, he
proved he hadn't been lucky. He stopped Paul Ince and David Batty's shots,
but he also systematically chose the right side on the other three, and
even touched Paul Merson's. "It was a tiring match, very difficult, very
physical. For us, it's an extraordinary joy. To stop those penalty shots,
you need a little intuition and to observe the shooter's position well," he
said before going back to the locker room.
For Roa, a shy, quiet man who doesn't say much even when the team is not
boycotting the press, Tuesday night's match was the highlight of a career
that hasn't always been easy.
Roa was born in Santa Fe, in the Northwest of Argentina, on
August 15, 1969. His first professional team was the Racing Club of Buenos
Aires, where he stayed in the shadow of Ignacio Gonzalez, who was also used
by Passarella, for a long time.
In 1980, he went to play in Africa with the Racing Club. After a few days
in Togo and the Ivory Coast, he was repatriated following a severe case of
paludism. He lost 15 pounds and almost died "because my parents couldn't
find the right kind of quinine necessary to terminate the virus. It was a
race against the clock."
Some people say that he hadn't gotten vaccinated because of his religion.
"It's false," he retorted. "I did get vaccinated, if I hadn't I couldn't
have left the country." And nobody really knows what his religion is,
because Roa will not say, leaving the door open for speculation. Some say
he's a Mormon, others a Jehovah Witness, others still an Adventist.
Because of the lingering effects of this illness, and of how hard it is
for some soccer team officials in Argentina to keep their promises, things
got worse in Buenos Aires.
Not long after that, Passarella, who was coaching the prestigious River
Plate team, was impressed by his frame -- 6 ft 3, 192 pounds --, sure
hands, flexibility and reflexes. The transfer was going to come through
when Passarella surprisingly backed off. Rumor had it that he had learned
Roa was nicknamed "Lechuga," meaning lettuce, because he's a vegetarian,
and that he didn't think it was compatible with competitive play. To this
day, nobody knows whether this was the true -- and ridiculous -- reason why
Roa lost more time.
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Roa stopped two penalty kicks to send England home and his squad to the quarterfinals (AP) |
He eventually got transferred, but to Lanus, a pretty average first
division team. But because coach Hector Cuper brought up as many young
players as he could, the team eventually won the Commebol, the equivalent
of the UEFA Cup, in 1996.
This earned Cuper a contract with Majorca, and Carlos Roa a spot on
Argentina's Copa America team. He later secured this spot and joined Cuper
in Spain when
Majorca's goalie got injured.
Then there was the Copa del Rey final, which incited Passarella to play
him despite an injury that prevented him from competing in friendly matches
leading to the World Cup.
Copyright 1998, L'Equipe
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