How Now, U.S. Soccer? One Year After World Cup Hoopla, Soccer Settles Back To Minor Sport In U.S.

Soldier Field is quiet this weekend, not even close to the focal point of sports in Chicago, let alone for the rest of the world.

Giants Stadium is empty instead of filled with Irish fans, their faces painted green, and Italians decked in blue from head to toe.

The Rose Bowl isn’t rocking to the soccer beat. There are no Brazilians doing the samba at Stanford Stadium.

One year after the most successful World Cup ever, the echoes are not just faint, they’re nonexistent.

In many ways, so is the World Cup’s impact on the United States. Soccer once more is a minor sport in America.

“It seems like soccer has disappeared again, just like it was before the World Cup was here,” says U.S. national team player Tab Ramos. “I think we have lost momentum, there’s no doubt about that.”

And apparently lost the way, too. There is no major professional league in the United States - it is supposed to get going next spring, far too long after the World Cup. The U.S. team lost its miracle-working coach, Bora Milutinovic, in a power struggle that could have been avoided.

Few sponsors have been attracted to help finance the national squad. Television ratings - the few times soccer is even on the screen - are dismal. The U.S. Soccer Federation, with a budget of about $12 million this year, is expected to lose nearly $2 million.

Compare that with the financial impact the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles had on amateur sports in the United States. The windfall from those Games - and the manner in which it was dispersed - helped dozens of sports.

But one year after a World Cup that filled the vaults of FIFA, soccer’s world organizing body, at an unprecedented rate - and provided the USSF with a profit in the neighborhood of $2 million - soccer again is a foreign sport everywhere but at the grass-roots level.

“Soccer’s there,” says U.S. star John Harkes, one of the few Americans to make a mark overseas (currently with Derby County of the English Premier League). “It’s an untapped thing. There’s so many kids that want to play. We just want to play.”

Not having a home league in which to play is the biggest problem. Major League Soccer, developed by Alan Rothenberg, the mastermind of World Cup USA ‘94 and the USSF president, has been plagued by start-up woes.

“It would have been a folly to rush in a try to start up a new league,” Rothenberg says. ‘It is important that people understand that we are trying to build a league that has permanence, and the foundation is a vital part.”

MLS already is having difficulty attracting the top U.S. players, who can earn more money and international acclaim in Europe. The 10 teams - Dallas; Denver; Kansas City, Mo.; Los Angeles; San Jose, Calif.; Boston; Columbus, Ohio; New York-New Jersey; Tampa Bay; and Washington - have a $75 million bankroll.

By the time MLS begins play, will the American public remember Alexi Lalas, Cobi Jones and Tony Meola?

“I am disappointed that after the World Cup, we didn’t have a league right away to continue this enthusiasm that was experienced after the Cup,” says Steve Sampson, who took over on an interim basis as national coach when Milutinovic was fired.

“From a financial standpoint, if we can’t pay the players, if we can’t play in a suitable stadium, if we can’t attract foreign players, then we’re better off holding off.”

But the delay also gave U.S. players more opportunities to sign with foreign clubs, which aren’t about to simply release them to play back home. Especially if, like Harkes and Lalas, they’ve played well and become popular.

“If you’re going to do a professional league in the United States, like we had back with the NASL, you have to do it right,” Harkes says.