International Soccer at Coliseum : Four-Team, Two-Day Tournament Is Tonight and Sunday

The planet’s biggest soccer bash, better known as the World Cup, won’t make its way to the United States until 1994, but there will be international tournaments preceding it, starting with the Marlboro Soccer Cup, a two-day event at the Coliseum beginning tonight at 7 and ending Sunday.

Competing in the four-team tournament are the national squads from Guatemala and El Salvador, the Irish Olympic team and a club team from Mexico.

Guatemala will play El Salvador in the opener tonight at 7, and Ireland will face Mexico’s Universidad de Guadalajara at 9. The winners will meet in the championship game Sunday at 6 p.m., after the losers have played for third place at 3.

Clive Toye, chairman of Mundial Sports--the tournament’s promoter--and former president of the defunct New York Cosmos, believes that tournaments such as this will play an important role in not only promoting the 1994 World Cup but also in developing the U.S. national team. The U.S. competed in a tournament in Miami earlier in the year, and Toye sees the national team competing in more such tournaments.

“We don’t have enough money to buy a (Diego) Maradona or any of the other great players,� said Toye, who is also commissioner of the American Soccer League. “But we need them in the country occasionally to provide a level to which we must all aspire, and to play a highly visible part in the development of American soccer.�

Noel Lemon, president of Mundial Sports and part-owner of the Ft. Lauderdale Strikers of the ASL, says it is important in these tournaments to show the rest of the world that the U.S. is capable of conducting world-class tournaments. Lemon is expecting total attendence of about 40,000 for the four games here.

“There’s going to be an awful lot of these major tournaments for the next six years,� Lemon said. “I think they certainly take on some added luster because of the World Cup, but I think what’s more important is that we have to continually show that we can do things right, and we can do them professionally. We’re going to be under the microscope of the rest of the world.�

Both Toye and Lemon say that heavy corporate involvement is a must in the World Cup push. If a new U.S. professional soccer league system now being considered by the U.S. Soccer Federation comes to be, they would be in favor of putting sponsor names on the front of jerseys, as is commonly done in Europe.

Lemon said: “I think as the World Cup approaches, you’re going to see more and more major companies throwing big dollars at professional teams to get their name out there. There’s only so many companies who can be in the World Cup package, and there’s a heck of a lot more companies who will want to be involved. What better way is there than to put the name on the shirt of a professional team?�

Ireland’s team will be making its first appearance in the United States tonight, in a stadium that most likely will be one of 12 sites for the 1994 World Cup. Irish league President Enda McGuill said that the sentiment in Ireland toward the U.S. getting the World Cup is positive.

“To not have soccer in America just doesn’t seem right,� McGuill said. “If soccer takes off in America, it’s good for the whole world. They have the stadiums, they have the people, they have the commercialization.�