PASADENA, California -- Soccer has entered the age of instant replay.


For the first time at a World Cup, FIFA has used video replays to punish a player for an action the referee on the field did not catch.


The disciplinary committee of FIFA imposed an eight-game suspension -- twice the previous longest it had handed out at recent World Cups -- to Mauro Tassotti, for an elbow to the nose of a Spanish player during last Saturday's 2-1 win by Italy in the quarterfinals.


Tassotti will be benched Wednesday for Italy's semifinal against Bulgaria. If Italy reaches the World Cup final, Tassotti will sit out that game, too, plus at least the first six games Italy plays in preliminary rounds of the European Championship.


Tassotti had apologized for the blow, which broke Luis Enrique's nose. He was not penalized on the field and said later the elbowing was accidental.


The suspension and $16,000 fine can be appealed.


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Defending champion Germany wasted no time Monday in finding a scapegoat for its disastrous 2-1 defeat by Bulgaria.


Coach Berti Vogts squarely blamed goalkeeper Bodo Illgner for the 1990 champions' demise Sunday.


"The only mistake I made was deciding against (reserve goalkeeper) Andreas Koepke," Vogts said in New York. "I put my trust in Bodo Illgner's experience and was disappointed."


Illgner, who quit the German team within minutes of losing, seemed rooted to the goal-line when Hristo Stoichkov curled a free-kick over the German wall to equalize in the 76th minute.


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Hristo Stoichkov comes from Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second largest city. And there on Sunday Penka Stoichkov, Hristo's mother, collapsed and was hospitalized after watching her son lead one of the great upsets in World Cup history.


She was released after several hours of observation; Hristo's father said he got through the game with tranquilizers. The mother has collapsed three times watching her son play. He is 28, and he has been playing almost that many years.


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When Bulgaria toppled Germany to advance to the final four, the Germans were not the only ones shocked.


World Cup organizers were sent scrambling -- for Bulgarian translators.


"We pretty much figured they wouldn't be here," said Alison Leigh Hofflich, head of World Cup language services. "So we didn't have any Bulgarian interpreters. And we didn't think we'd need any." Hofflich instead assembled a team of 44 translators covering 11 languages from Arabic to Spanish. Some of the translators were multilingual, so Danish, Swedish, Turkish and, yes, Azerbaijani spoken by a Russian interpreter were also covered.


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The grass soccer field at Giants Stadium will be dug up and sold to the public after Wednesday's World Cup semifinal between Italy and Bulgaria.


Venue director Charlie Stillitano said Monday the turf, specially laid for the World Cup at a cost of $1 million, would go on sale Thursday for between $110 and $220 per square meter, depending on how much sod was involved.


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Most Italians believe their coach has kept up a long-running lucky streak in reaching the World Cup semifinals.


An opinion poll by Italy's RAI state television found 73 percent of those questioned believe that Arrigo Sacchi is a lucky coach while 27 percent credit his ability.


In the second round, Roberto Baggio equalized against Nigeria with one minute left and scored the 2-1 winner in overtime. In the round of eight, Baggio's 88th-minute tally knocked out Spain 2-1.


Baggio dismissed the matter, saying "We were not overly lucky in the World Cup so far.''


But Sacchi has long had a reputation of being a lucky coach. Italian soccer federation president Antonio Matarrese cited it as "point of merit" when he hired Sacchi for the national team job in 1991.


(Reuters, WP, AP)