Columnist Dean Juipe: Soccer simply isn’t crucial to Americans

Dean Juipe

Friday, June 26, 1998 | 8:33 a.m.

IT WOULD be easy to rip into the U.S. national soccer team for its pathetic showing at the World Cup and the possible negative repercussions it will have on the sport in America.

After all, there's no denying what went down in France.

The U.S. didn't win and couldn't score, finishing 0-3 with only a single goal after Thursday's 1-0 loss to Yugoslavia. Finger pointing and bickering were up while scoring chances were largely nonexistent.

American sports fans with even a casual interest in soccer may be perplexed if not embarrassed. A quick analysis is more dumbfounding than enlightening: How can a country of this size and wealth fail to produce a team that's capable of competing with the world's best?

Why is America, with all its resources and emphasis on sports, reduced to also-ran status in the most widely played game on the planet?

How can the most primitive of sports, one found only slightly after the Cro-Magnons held their initial 100-yard dash, be so difficult for the Americans to master?

With the U.S. team ousted from the World Cup and now en route home in disgrace, those charged with promoting and developing American soccer are huddling in a spin-control frenzy. Presumably, they're questioning everything from the quality of coaching at the pee-wee level to the lack of commitment and ingenuity of the more elite players.

Yet they're probably only hopscotching around the most pivotal of issues, one no amount of introspection can alter: There is no real fervor for soccer in the United States, particularly in comparison to almost any other non-Icelandic country in the world.

And that lack of fervor translates into passivity when the U.S. team plays anyone stronger than Costa Rica.

It may well be a situation that will never change, as any number of sports in this country have more importance and attract more interest than soccer. The typical American youngster dreams of becoming a professional football, basketball or baseball player and he's not giving soccer any serious thought beyond enjoying a recreational match as a preteen in a summer league.

Meanwhile, in seemingly every other warm-weather country in the world, kids strive to become soccer stars. Their heroes are soccer players and they're focused on emulating them.

More prosperous Americans, with access to all the footballs and basketballs they can handle, have more grandiose desires than pushing a soccer ball back and forth for honor and glory. Hence, the U.S. pratfall in the World Cup may have no lingering effect.

Say what you will for soccer's chess-like qualities, but in the U.S. the game is perceived as terminally bland. In a country that craves action, soccer offers only limited goal scoring on a large field cluttered with entirely too many players.

It's viewed as a fine pastime for youngsters with bountiful energy. It is not viewed as spine-tingling entertainment.

Soccer has made inroads in the United States but it appears lodged right where it is today, unable to captivate the country beyond its ability as a babysitting device for two-income families.

It's a passionless amusement, not a matter of life and death.