The curse of the USA’94 World Cup

When the students of the Soviet group of Pavel Sadyrin they jump onto the pitch standford stadium of San Francisco on June 28, 1994 at one o’clock in the afternoon to face Cameroonthey already know that they have very little chance of getting into the next round of United States World Cup. However, a 25-year-old striker who played a season and a half earlier in logrones of the Spanish First Division and has just signed for Valenciait will explode.

Oleg Salenko was not a star and very little media followed Russia who lost against the Brazil Y Sweden. But that afternoon Salenko will sign one of the best World Cup bills in memory: five goals to a consecrated goalkeeper like songo’o.

Russian and Ukrainian

Nicknamed ‘The Russian Vulture’ and born on Leningrad on October 25, 1969, Salenko outstanding in St. Petersburg Zenith for three years until 1989 he became the first Russian player to sign for a team from Ukraine. Naa Kyiv Dynamo and while the club was still playing at top league The Soviet scored 21 goals in 75 games. In 1992, the Ukrainian league was created and Salenko played half a season scoring 7 goals to land in Logroñés. Accepted at low prices, every day Brand He pointed out that his goals were the cheapest to appear in the League. In the 93/94 campaign, Oleg he scored 16 goals in 31 games including 7 he scored in 16 games last half season.

That cheap scoring record is, no doubt, what propelled him to the title world. Until that year World Cup He played only one game. Before that, he represented, for several games, the revived Ukrainian national team. In kyiv they like it, it has become important to Dynamoand after signing the Treaty of Belavezha in 1991 when Ukraine and 14 other Soviet republics seceded from USSR, need to build national teams. Those were times of another geopolitics.

The mark that Pelé never surpassed

neither Maradona. and that’s probably it Messi don’t overdo it either. The five goals from minute 15 of the first half to minute 75 of the second will go down in the history of World Cups. By the midway point he had scored a hat-trick. He added to the first goal a second in minute 41 and a third in minute 44 from a penalty.

In the 72nd minute he again sent the ball into the back of the net and repeated in the 75th minute. That was his moment and his stage. He never again set foot in a stadium with 75,000 spectators stunned by what was happening in a meaningless game. He even managed to score the sixth goal but he gave the ball away Radchenko to make it 6-1 on the scoreboard. Russia did not make it past the group stage and Salenko added six goals in total.

What Hristo Stoichkov who topped Bulgaria in the semifinals and they shared the trophy.

Since Lucien Laurent (who participated as a soldier in the Second World War and was taken by the Germans -but this will be another story-) scored the first goal in a World Cup defending the jersey of France in the view of Mexico on July 13, 1930 at Uruguay, Salenko he stood above some of the best scorers in the entire history of football. more than four of Ademir, Just Fontaine, Eusebio, Sandor Kocsis or Emilio Butragueño.

The ‘Not Weak Lions’ of Cameroonwhich is in their ranks a roger milla who at the age of 42 scored the only goal for the African team and became the oldest player to score in a World Cup, is the great disappointment of USA’94. Salenko I will never wear the t-shirt again Russia not again and he was followed by some kind of curse that made him wander from team to team.

A dusty Golden Boot

He ended up in Valencia but it did not materialize due to extra-sports issues. Although he played 31 games and scored 10 goals, at the end of the 1994 season he went to guards Scottish, then Turkey between 1995 and 1998 where, in his first year, he played 20 games and scored 11 goals but was out of the lineup for the following two seasons. He returned to Spain in 1999 and played in Córdoba Second Division with a very difficult background to end his career in 2001 in Pogon Szczecin Polish.

The Golden Boots It was a weight in the backpack that accompanied him throughout his sporting life. In a closet it collected dust and in the following years, from being an object of worship and pride to show to visitors, it became an asset to be considered to pay off debts.

A tempting offer

In 2010, at the age of 41 and playing on the Russian Beach Soccer team with other Russian soccer glories, he thought of selling that trophy and easing his dire economy. a sheikh of Arab Emirates (who else) offered to buy it for half a million dollars. It is very tempting.

“I have small businesses, but everything has collapsed because of the crisis. I have to pay some debts and, although I am not broke, the offer is hard to refuse,” he explained to the newspaper. Bild. Oleg He said he would prefer to sell it to a Russian or Ukrainian businessman to keep it in his country. He had to come out to explain himself and eventually denied that he had sold it.

You have to believe it. But it’s still very tempting.