ONE of my earliest recollections from an English childhood is of sitting with my father as he listened to the Saturday-afternoon soccer game on our family radio. The voice of the commentator was clear enough—a man talking—but what was that other sound behind it? Always present, sometimes a mere murmur, rising now to a roar as the commentary became faster and more excited, now subsiding again, it rolled and seethed in a vaguely oceanic way that struck my infant fancy as dark and menacing. I actually had no idea what it was, but I felt sure it was a thing I wanted no part of. The aversion stayed with me, and I spent my formative years avoiding soccer, so far as it can be avoided in a soccer-mad country on the fringes of a soccer-crazed continent. To this day I do not understand the offside rule. Eventually I came to the United States, where—glory, hallelujah!— there is no soccer.
Well, there is some, of course. One of the hardy perennials of American newspaper rooms is the “rebirth of American soccer” story. We had it a year ago, when the U.S. team won the 1999 Women’s World Cup—remember that
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