Football: World Cup - The global game

The World Cup Around the World

"THE RUDDERLESS, bickering, embarrassing emotional wreck that the US team represented slinks back home today with its head bowed in disgrace. The powers that be are trying to tell America that this World Cup represented progress, that it's better than the '94 team that advanced to the second round. But the cold fact is that it was a dreadful showing, and the rest of the world continues to look at American soccer as a mere afterthought, some even look at it as a joke." "New York Post" is scathing about America's pointless trip to France.

"THE UNITED STATES could finish as the worst team in the World Cup, bottom-feeders fighting it out with Jamaica, Japan and Tunisia. It's like that Sesame Street game - one of these things is not like the others (in terms of size, economic resources, pompous lawyers in charge of the national program), one of these things doesn't belong."

"San Jose Mercury News" mourns the fall of a mighty superpower.

"THE FINGER-POINTING and the second-guessing and the bitterness, finally, were irrelevant. The Yanks were 150-1 shots here, and 150-1 shots watch the second round on TV in their rumpus rooms. They are going home because they were in awe of the Germans. They are going home because they are The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight."

"Boston Globe" adds to the national gloom.