06/24/2002

In the hours before the New York Rangers hosted the deciding game of the 1994 Stanley Cup, I watched Rangers fans, decked out in their red, white and blue best, slip into a church not far from Madison Square Garden. They went to pray for their favorite hockey team to be anointed champions.

Darrell Royal would have reminded Rangers fans, as he once told a Longhorns follower, that God is probably pretty neutral on such trivial issues. They would've doubted him later that night. The Rangers won.

But the moment reminded me of how some of us here take our games a little too seriously. Yet, we can't hold a candle to those involved with futbol, which is a good thing.

I'm not talking about all the uberfans from Europe, England especially, who smell and seek someone else's blood at the mere mention of soccer. I'm not referring to the outrageous acts of violence like the murder of the Colombian defender whose own-goal cost his country against the United States in the '94 World Cup.

I'm not even talking about the South Korean fan who recently set himself ablaze in order, he wrote, to become a spirit that would guide South Korea to victory. Thank the creator, the fellow survived his fanaticism, though he was reported to be in critical condition.

I'm just talking about apparently normal folk driven to abnormal behavior.

Take Portugal's fans. They turned out at Lisbon's airport to meet their team after it was eliminated from the World Cup, but not to cheer. Instead, they serenaded the players and coaches with derision and jeers. Oh, the names they called their countrymen. Philly fans would've blushed.

It is one thing, apparently, to live with a favorite team's disappointment from the end of one season to the start of the next a few months later. It is quite another thing to live with such disappointment for four-year intervals, which is what the World Cup threatens for every team but one.

One Portuguese player, Joao Pinto, was so upset with his team's failing effort that he punched a referee after being called for a foul, or so charged the ref. That is a different level of childish displeasure than, say, kicking dirt on home plate.

Spain's soccer federation chief, Angel Maria Villar, was so put out by what he and his team considered poor officiating in a loss to South Korea that on Sunday he resigned from the referee committee he sat on. He didn't just complain that World Cup refs couldn't run a gelato shop.

It has not been surprising to hear that coaches of ousted World Cup teams are being sent to unemployment offices upon returning home. Poland retired its coach. Portugal is considering doing the same. Coaches in our games who don't lead their teams to expectations get canned all the time.

But how about this: An Italian pro team cut a South Korean off its roster last week after the player scored the winning goal for South Korea against Italy's national team, sending the Italians back to Rome, or wherever.

Imagine the Mavericks reacting the same to Canadian Steve Nash if in the World Championships in August, Nash hits a game-winning bucket for his country against the U.S. team that sends the red, white and blue packing.

"The gentleman will never set foot in Perugia again," Luciano Gaucci, owner of Perugia, Italy's soccer team, declared of Ahn Jung-hwan in the Italian sports newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport. "He has ruined Italian football."

E-mail kblackistone@dallasnews.com