<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML>
Women's World Cup soccer didn't generate quite as much gush or delirium
in Britain as it did over here. (The conspicuous absence of a British
team may have had something to do with that, of course.) Here's what
The Guardian's Fiver wrote in Monday's column, under a sub-head that read
"Tournaments you pretend to be interested in but, in the final analysis,
are not . . . not really." While US journalists and their deranged
jingoism are the principal target of Fiver's disdain, the other tournament
getting an isolationist raspberry was the Copa America, a contest that
somewhat improbably included a team representing Japan.
<P><A HREF="http://www.footballunlimited.co.uk/Fiver/0,4022,65107,00.html">Women's
World Cup Soccer</A>
<P>"Meanwhile, half-way up the continent, the women's Amerisoccer outfit
tourni-won the Women's World Cup. Along with China, they blanked out a
full 120 scoreless minutes in the Rose Bowl watch-a-thon. The UofSofA
then happyspotted one more pee-kick than the Chinese to claim themselves
as winners by five successfuls to four.
<P>"States net-obstacle Briana Scurry, who saved one spot-thrike from a
China shoe, said cryptically and enigmatically: "It's all a blur. I'm sure
by Wednesday I'll be hitting the wall big time." As you can imagine, the
team are now heroines and have been awarded with the highest possible honour
America can bestow on any of her citizens - becoming stars of the Disneyland
parade for a day.
<P>"Scurry and her team-mates will also appear on David Letterman's chat
show, where the laddish* host has taken to calling the team "Babe City".
Seeing Letterman places so much stock on how people look, he won't mind
the Fiver pointing out that he is a signally unfunny and pug-ugly resident
of "Bucktooth Town".
<P>* sexist swine
<BR> </HTML>