Bora's Streak Looks Shaky

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ntually, all streaks must come to an end. It happened to the Chicago Bulls. It happened to the New York Yankees. It even happened to Ally McBeal. Today, one of the world's great football coaches saw his own venerable streak threatened by a tiny Latin American nation whose star fullback had his own last name misspelled on his jersey. Serbian miracle worker Bora Milutinovic has coached four countries past the first round of the World Cup, and his clutch victories have become the stuff of legend. This year, he hoped that China would join the U.S., Costa Rica, Mexico and Nigeria to defend his record streak. But a 2-0 loss to Costa Rica on Tuesday made that dream look all the more distant. China, in its first ever World Cup appearance, badly needed to overcome Costa Rica if it is to make it to the second round, since it will face far tougher opponents in Turkey and Brazil later in the tourney.

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The first half of the June 4 match was messy but relatively balanced, as China midfielder Li Tie showed some characteristically handy footwork in getting the ball deep into enemy territory while the defense held Costa Rica at bay. The second half, however, quickly dissolved into pandemonium for the Chinese as the defense crumbled, with injured star defender Fan Zhiyi putting in an obviously pained performance. Within four minutes, the Costa Ricans had scored twice, one on a running header by Mauricio Wright — whose name was inexplicably rendered as "Wrigth" on his jersey.

Even though Milutinovic continued to express optimism in the days leading up to the match, the Chinese players had gone into the game with sober expectations. Last month, several members of the squad even posted a note on the Web, apologizing to China's rabidly nationalistic fans should they put in an uninspired performance in Korea. Certainly, today's debut left the estimated 25,000 Chinese fans gathered in Korea subdued.

But the day had another reason to give Chinese pause: June 4 marks the 13th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre, in which thousands of student demonstrators were killed by government troops. Ironically, the China-Costa Rica game took place in Gwangju, Korea, site of its own massacre by government troops in the early 1980s. To be safe, the Chinese state press were barred from mentioning this detail of Gwangju's past — much less the Tiananmen tragedy.

In truth, a 2-0 loss was hardly a massacre for the Chinese team. Just days earlier, Saudi Arabia suffered a 8-0 shellacking by the German side, one of the worst defeats in World Cup history. But Costa Rica was the weakest of China's first-round opponents, and Bora was counting on a victory against his former team to catapult China into the next round.

So were the estimated 750 million Chinese who tuned in to the game. Now they can only hope that the miracle coach works the greatest miracle of all: a victory against either Brazil or Turkey. If the smiling Serb pulls that off, his streak will indeed live on in history.