Soccer

Girl Power
The U.S. Women roll toward the Cup, winning fans and games

There's no debating the gender of America's most avid soccer fans. They're girls. Eight-year-old girls. After the U.S. women's team defeated Argentina 8-1 in Fullerton, Calif., in April, 2,000 pigtailed hooligans stampeded into a walkway next to the field. They had one thing on their minds-autographs—and soon there wasn't enough space for them all. The rush toward the railing separating fans and players became a crush. Fearing what could have turned into this country's first soccer riot, the team's handlers whisked the players away. "It was scary," says midfielder Julie Foudy. "Kids were getting trampled. We had to get out of there."

A curious thing is happening in women's soccer. Despite a series of obstacles—limited TV exposure, no professional league and, until last week, no major tides since the '96 Olympics—the U.S. women have turned into the Beatles, circa 1964, for the distaff bubblegum set. How have they done it? Mainly by cozying up to the 7.1 million American females (5.7 million of whom are schoolgirls) who play the game. "We do a lot of appearances and clinics, and we always stay after games and sign autographs," said forward Mia Hamm before wading into a preteen throng at the Goodwill Games in Uniondale, N.Y., last Saturday. "It gives us a personal connection with the fans. The team takes that very seriously."

It helps when you win. Two years after taking the gold medal in Atlanta, the U.S. is still the best team in the world, a position it solidified on Monday with a 2-0 victory (both goals scored by Hamm) over China to win the Goodwill Games championship. With a 16-1-2 record in '98, the Americans are the odds-on favorites to win their second Women's World Cup when it takes place in the U.S. next summer.

Their continued success is all the more impressive considering that their main rivals- Brazil, China, Germany and Norway—have the benefit of their own pro leagues. Not that the U.S. hasn't tried to follow suit. A league called the National Soccer Alliance had planned to kick off in April of this year, but it was never endorsed by U.S. Soccer, the sport's domestic governing body, which didn't think that the NSA had the necessary financial and organizational infrastructure. Frustrated, the league's investors pulled out last December, and with them went any hope of play in '98. "We've got to make sure we do it right" says U.S. Soccer president Alan Rothenberg. "If it was tough to get a men's league running, it will probably be as difficult or more difficult to get a women's league going."

Rothenberg would like to see a women's pro league start in 2001, a year after the Sydney Olympics. But a delay has two unhealthy side effects. First, it leaves U.S. players on their own for training when they aren't playing for or working out with the national team. (None of the team's starters play in a league abroad.) Midfielder Kristine Lilly, for example, will hone her skills this fall with a high school boys' team in suburban Chicago. Also, without a league, there is no feeder system to replace today's U.S. team stars in the next century. "Without a league we're not as competitive," says Foudy. "Potential candidates for the national team fall through the cracks." U.S. coach Tony DiCicco is more direct: "If we don't get a league going by 2001, it could be a death sentence for us."

That doomsday scenario is still a ways off. For now the U.S. relies on the same foundation it had in Atlanta: six players (Foudy, Hamm, Lilly, midfielder Michelle Akers and defenders Joy Fawcett and Carla Over-beck) who have each made more than 100 national-team appearances. All six plan to play at least through World Cup '99, which bills itself as the biggest women's sporting event ever (in expected attendance and TV viewers). All but five of the 32 games will be televised live in the U.S., and tournament organizers hope to sell out the Rose Bowl for the final. "We've seen women's basketball make a big hit," says Lilly. "Women's soccer is going to be next."

MLS Scoring Leader
With United, Lassiter Stands

D.C. United coach Bruce Arena isn't known as a clairvoyant, but maybe he should be. When D.C. traded Roy Wegerle to Tampa Bay for striker Roy Lassiter on April 27, Lassiter was enduring a nightmare season. Not only had he been dumped from the national team, but he also hadn't scored in the Mutiny's first six games. That skid made Arena's first words to Lassiter when he welcomed him to Washington seem comically overblown: "Here's where you're going to get your 30 goals."

Since then Lassiter has been transformed into Roy-naldo. He picked up goal No. 1 in his first game with United, and by Sunday he had scored 15 times in 16 games with D.C. to take the lead in the MLS scoring race. Meanwhile, United has played its best soccer of the season, building a 13-point cushion in the Eastern Conference at week's end while pursuing a third straight league title.