World in Motion

Italia 90 was, in a sense, the first and the last World Cup. It was also the best and worst World Cup. It was football stood at a junction. It was the World Cup of Gazza’s tears and Nessun Dorma, a grand spectacle of colour and drama that made football suddenly fashionable again — at least among the wider Irish public (and salivating television executives). Yet it was also a World Cup low on goals and high on fouls which led to the re-writing of football’s rulebook. For Republic of Ireland, it included a dramatic penalty shoot-out victory over Romania followed by heartache against the hosts, Italy.

In World in Motion, Simon Hart explores the full global impact of the 1990 World Cup, speaking to players far and wide to retell the tale of a tournament that drew double the worldwide TV audience of its predecessor, and which left those 26bn viewers enthralled and appalled in equal measure - enthralled by the joyous contributions of scoring heroes like Cameroon’s hip-wriggling veteran, Roger Milla, and Italy’s wide-eyed boy from nowhere, Toto Schillaci, yet appalled by the cynicism of an Argentina side who somehow dragged themselves, kicking and screaming, to the final.

It was not just Gazza crying - there were tears of joy at breakthrough triumphs in Ireland in Cameroon and Costa Rica. For Europe’s Eastern Bloc participants it was the end of an era. For the United States it was the beginning of one. Italians were left wondering where it went wrong - on the pitch and, in time, off it too. 
World in Motion remembers the good, the bad and the ugly of Italia 90 - The final World Cup before the advent of the Premier League and Champions League, when wall-to-wall televised football was still a treat, and when the global game was still of novelties... but not for much longer.