The Melting-Pot Team

Monday, Jun. 22, 1998 By BILL SAPORITO/PARIS

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Corporate diversity programs have nothing on the U.S. national soccer team that takes the field this week in the World Cup finals, La Coupe du Monde, being held in France. There are blacks, whites and Hispanics. One striker is South African, and the sweeper is from Germany. Better to talk to the left fullback in French; one midfielder is Dutch-born, another is from Uruguay and yet another from Yugoslavia. Throw in some California dudes, a couple of kids from Jersey, a farm-boy goaltender from Washington State and, bless us, a few sons of suburban soccer moms, and you've got a classic melting-pot, hyphenated-American squad. "I don't think about Germany as the country I grew up in, but as the team I want to beat," says Thomas Dooley, 37, son of an American serviceman and a German mother. Dooley now plays for the red, white and blue.

The World Cup, the quadrennial global soccer championship being fought out in nine cities across France this month and next, brings out all the best and worst of nationalist sentiments, not to mention the most incredible soccer talent on earth. It's a spectacle that dwarfs the Olympics in national emotion. Nobody gets upset in Italy if the gymnastics team doesn't win a medal, but if the beloved Azzuri falters, the players may want to return home wearing disguises.

The U.S. team doesn't face that kind of pressure yet, but expectations have been rising as soccer's popularity in America increases. Dooley, an earnest sort, is captain of the best American team ever, as evidenced by its knocking off world champion Brazil 1-0 in a friendly match earlier this year. Foreign-born players like Dooley, who played for the U.S. in the 1994 World Cup, combined with the fast-rising level of home-grown talent have turned the U.S. team from international doormat to contender. "The mix is good for competition within the team," says Steve Sampson, the first native-born American to coach the team. "We are playing with a high level of confidence. We fear no one, and we've learned not to over-respect everybody. We no longer play not to lose. We play to win."

Oddly, the U.S. has also benefitted because it produces players who are good enough to play in Europe. Midfield maestro Claudio Reyna, 24, from Springfield, N.J., has established himself at Wolfsburg in Germany's top league, along with teammate Chad Deering, 27, from Plano, Texas. Starting U.S. goalkeeper Kasey Keller, 28, from Lacey, Wash., minds the nets for England's Leicester City and is easily one of the world's top keepers. His backup, Brad Friedel, of Bay Village, Ohio, plays at Liverpool, one of England's most famous teams.

Yet it's going to take something special for the U.S. to advance to the second round, because the Yanks are playing in one of the toughest of the eight groups in the tourney. In addition to taking on Germany, a three-time world champion, America faces Yugoslavia, an enormously talented team that was banned from the 1994 championships because of the war in Bosnia.