Merci, We Needed That

In the closing minutes of France's 6-0 rout of the U.S. national team last week, Michael Platini, 22, one of the stars of what was essentially the same French team that qualified for World Cup play last year, gave a soccer lesson to Larry Hulcer. Also 22, a former all-star from St. Louis University and a first draft pick of the NASL's Los Angeles Aztecs, Hulcer is one of the U.S.' brightest young hopes in the supercharged world of international soccer.

The scoring was over for the evening and this was graduate school. The hard-charging and marvelously speedy French had not, as many predicted they might, turned off the steam and ceased embarrassing their hosts once they had established a comfortable lead. No. They kept galloping belligerently up and down Giants Stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands until the very end.

Now Platini, a midfielder of stunning skill, gave his American counterpart the final exam. He deftly flipped the ball 15 feet in the air as Hulcer ran in to tackle, wheeled around the American in a few steps and caught the ball softly on his right instep. Hulcer braked, turned and ran at him again. This time Platini, who resembles Marcel Marceau, executed almost exactly the same trick with the other foot. At the end of that one, he struck a neat heel pass to a teammate cruising behind him and was off.

Hulcer panted, put his hands on his hips and looked at the ground. His expression was a combination of awe and pain, the look of a young club fighter who had just finished three "friendly" rounds with Ali.

Hulcer's experience was not unique. Many of his teammates had suffered similar embarrassing moments. And at the end of the drubbing by the French, one of the top 10 national squads in the world, the U.S. had a clearer—and unfortunately painful—idea of just how far it has yet to travel to reach soccer respectability on a world level.

The match was a result of France's having to cancel a game with Iran because of the revolution. Instead, the French proposed playing the U.S. The offer was enthusiastically accepted by the U.S. national and Olympic coach, the Ukrainian-born Walt Chyzowych. "Quality breeds quality," he said. "We can only get better by playing the French. It will give us a standard against which to judge our progress."

The last outing of the U.S. national team was against the Russian squad last winter (SI, Feb. 12). In two meetings, the Americans lost twice but performed reasonably well on each occasion. Although the French were known to be an incomparably better side than the Soviets, Chyzowych refused to consider tactics that another underdog coach might have employed in such a mismatch. "We won't lay back in front of our net and defend all night," he said. "And we won't try to double-cover their stars like Platini and Marius Tresor [the Guadeloupe-born captain of the squad, the "Beckenbauer of France"] because we won't learn anything that way. We're going to attack and play even up. We'll take our lumps and be wiser for it."

Other national teams are composed of the best professionals—seasoned, proven veterans. Chyzowych's problem was that the best professionals playing in the U.S. are all foreigners and therefore ineligible. Moreover, so recent and so rapid has been the growth of the game here that the most skilled native-born players tend to be youngsters who lack much professional experience.

Of the 18 men on the U.S. roster for the game with France, 12 were technically amateurs. (The other six were out-and-out pros.) The "amateurs" are under contracts to various NASL teams by means of a nifty little piece of paper called the Olympic Registration Form, which ensures a player's eligibility for the Olympics while allowing him to play with the pros, draw expense money and swing some private "clinic and lesson" fees. About 50 NASL players have such deals. U.S. Midfielder Ricky Davis of the Cosmos, for instance, gets $100 a week expenses, the use of a car, an apartment and $20,000 for giving clinics. All legal—and amateur.

Chyzowych's U.S. Olympic team—the national team minus the pros, plus a few other amateurs—squeaked through the qualifying round of the Pan-American Games last month and in July will go to the finals in Puerto Rico. At the end of this month, the team plays Mexico in the first round of the Olympic eliminations. Many of those who took the field last week against France will be on that squad as well. The team Chyzowych selected to play the French reflected his desire to try a number of combinations before World Cup or Olympic eliminations begin in earnest. He may not have fielded the strongest team, but it was certainly a representative one. "The level of play advances so rapidly here," he says, "that by the time of the Olympics, I may have a whole new crop of kids just out of junior high to work with." He was only half-joking.