WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : Spotlight : WINNING NOT KEY, EXCEPT PLAYING IN U.S.

From Thursday editions of the Calcutta daily, the Telegraph, under the headline: “The World Cup is being hosted by a nation whose culture can never appreciate football’s boundless charms--Don’t Play It Again, Sam.”

“One of the declared aims of holding the football World Cup in the United States will not be accomplished. After the hoopla and the announcement of the final victors are over, world football will depart the shores of the U.S., leaving behind only ripples which, instead of ever widening, will rapidly dwindle to a calm. The decision to award the World Cup of 1994 to the U.S. was a disgraceful one. . . .

“Football will not become popular because the idea that it is not above all important to win but to play the game, itself an expression of the primary value of collective endeavor and what it teaches, is utterly alien to the American ethos. And naturally, the crass commercialization of sports in the crassest capitalist country of all will also be a stumbling block. . . .

“There is something to be said, after all, if the U.S. remains impervious to the boundless charms of football at its most diverse and best. It will remind the rest of the world that we are, thankfully, still very different from the U.S. in our sporting sensibilities and values.”