It Was a Full Day of U.S. Football in Berlin : Germany: Americans lose in World Cup warmup. Rams will play Chiefs in August at Olympic Stadium.

EAST BERLIN — The Rams and Chiefs are in town, some first lieutenant must have said. Do you want to go to a football game tonight?

Sure, the American GIs must have responded.

So about 250 of them piled into buses at their Army base in West Berlin, crossed the border at Checkpoint Charlie along with seemingly everyone else in Europe these days, and soon found themselves at East Berlin’s Jahn Stadium.

Maybe that’s not exactly the way it happened. But why else would that many red-blooded American soldiers go to watch the U.S. national soccer team play an exhibition game, unless somebody played a joke on them?

In the lieutenant’s defense, it was football, though he might have neglected to mention that it was the European kind. Although improving, Americans still do not play that exceptionally well, which they proved again Wednesday night in a 3-2 loss to East Germany.

Americans do much better in their national pastime, promotion, which is why the Rams and Chiefs were on the affluent side of the wall Wednesday afternoon for a news conference.

Ram owner Georgia Frontiere and her quarterback, Jim Everett, were at the plush Intercontinental Hotel along with the Chiefs’ owner, Lamar Hunt, and president, Carl Peterson, and their star running back, Christian Okoye, to announce an exhibition game between the two teams on Aug. 11 at West Berlin’s Olympic Stadium.

About 50 West German television, radio and newspaper reporters were there to see the NFL play the game the way no other league can. They were given free Rams and Chiefs caps, free Rams and Chiefs felt pens and a free lunch.

They also were shown a highlight film entitled, “The Most Popular Sport in the United States--American Football,” and given a 48-page brochure called, “From First Down to Touchdown--the Official Beginner’s Guide to Football.”

The brochure, unfortunately, was in English, as were the remarks from all of the speakers except Peterson, who read a statement in German. He borrowed shamelessly from John F. Kennedy, saying, “Ich bin ein Berliner--I am a Berliner,” and compared the two Berlins to Kansas City. “One city, two states,” he said.

The best Frontiere could do was reveal that one of her grandmothers was German.

“I can sing German, but I don’t speak it,” she said.

Frontiere said that West Berlin was chosen as the site of an exhibition game, in part, because it is a sister city to Los Angeles. But she doesn’t need a reason to travel. The Rams also have played in London and Tokyo.

American football seems to be spreading all over the world.

Two leagues, the International League of American Football (I-Laugh) and the World League of American Football (We-Laugh) were supposed to kick off this spring. But they decided to wait until 1991 because soccer’s World Cup will be played this summer in Italy.

That hasn’t delayed Tex Schramm, president of the NFL-sponsored WLAF, from making his appointed rounds to promote the sport.

In Rome Tuesday, he said: “Quality and spectacle are going to sell it. We’re going to try to make it an American spectacle, with the cheerleaders, the bands and all the festivities connected with American football.

“American football has ingredients Italians like. It’s physical. It’s fast. It has artistry. It’s combative. And it’s macho.”

What it doesn’t have, which soccer does, is continuous action. Admitting that European fans might become bored with the numerous interruptions, Schramm said the WLAF might institute a no-huddle rule.

Which will catch on faster, Hunt was asked Wednesday, American football in Europe or European football in America?

He is an expert on the subject, having lost a 10-gallon hat full of money as one of the North American Soccer League’s original owners with the Dallas Tornado.

“I think they’ve both got an educational process to do,” Hunt said. “Certainly, soccer is catching on in the United States with the children, but it has some particular problems at the professional level.

“I think American football can be helped here by television. It fits into television very well. The problem with soccer in the United States is the lack of American players and the lack of an American team being a real positive factor there.

“Put it this way: I don’t expect the United States to beat East Germany tonight or get past the first round of the World Cup. But at least, they’re there for the first time in 40 years.”

While Frontiere went to the opera Wednesday night, Hunt went to the soccer game.

There were only about 4,000 other people in the 25,000-seat stadium.

As one East German journalist said, East Berlin is hardly the country’s soccer capital. Even if it were, it would be difficult to sell a game involving the United States.

“For Brazil, it would sell out,” he said.

The United States was not Brazil Wednesday night. It was not even East Germany. But its play did surprise everyone here, including Hunt, the East Germans and maybe even the U.S. players.

East Germany is not a great team, but it came within one game, a 3-0 loss to Austria in Vienna, of qualifying for the World Cup from a difficult region.

But even after falling behind, 2-0, the United States kept attacking. Forward Peter Vermes scored on a left-footed kick from five yards in the 41st minute, and, after Kristen scored his third goal, forward Bruce Murray scored on a free kick from 28 yards in the 86th minute.

It was a new approach for the U.S. players, who, after last week’s 2-0 loss in Budapest to Hungary, seemed finally to have heard Coach Bob Gansler’s message that they can’t score goals if they play only defense for 90 minutes.

“We revved it up a little bit,” Gansler said. “We’re still not good enough, but what I saw tonight, I liked.”

East German Coach Eduard Geyer said the United States is on a par with one of its first-round World Cup opponents, Austria.

The U.S. players reacted as if they had won. They were particularly pleased that they didn’t back down against the East Germans. Anticipating rough play, the Americans wore spikes that were designed to sting when an opponent’s shin got in the way.

“That was so we could give as good as we got,” Murray said.

Which, when you think of it, is the way to play either kind of football.