No Path Beaten to Soccer Victors’ Door : Sport: All is serene at U.S. team’s Dana Point hotel, where an ex-football coach makes bigger splash.

After a 44-year wait, you’d think there would be a toast, a party, something.

Instead, many of the guests at the Dana Point Resort, where the U.S. soccer team is staying for the World Cup and sports editors are having a convention, had no idea who the guys sporting the crisp new U.S.A. hats were, let alone what they had done.

Just in case somebody drop-kicked you Wednesday night and you missed it: the U.S. squad notched the biggest victory in American soccer in nearly half a century, dropping Colombia, 2-1. You’ve heard of the Miracle on Ice in the ’80 Olympics and the Miracle Mets of ‘69--well, this was the Miracle on Grass. But you could hardly tell that Thursday--The Day After--in and around the team’s hotel.

For all the excitement and fans, there might as well have been a convention of Maytag repairmen in town.

Vince Lima, banquet waiter: “Well, no, it’s been pretty quiet.”

Quiet? There would be more noise at a meeting of mimes. “Well, maybe nobody knows they’re here,” Lima sighed.

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Stephan Kachani, a hotel valet parking attendant, said he’s not sure people could recognize a U.S. World Cup soccer player even if they knew the team was here. After all, they’re not like professional basketball players or football players, he said. “They’re all so . . . so . . . tiny,” he said.

And so it was that only 24 hours after what was arguably the greatest day in U.S. soccer history, team member Ernie Stewart, he of the game-clinching goal, did his laundry, teammate Paul Caligiuri slept in and former Dallas Cowboys football coach Jimmy Johnson, at the Dana Point Resort to address a gathering of the Associated Press Sports Editors, got a bigger police escort than the entire U.S. soccer squad.

As if there needed to be any more evidence that soccer, favorite sport of the rest of the civilized world, has yet to catch on in this country. Aside from the throng of reporters who interviewed the players Thursday afternoon at the hotel, it’s a good bet that the U.S. soccer team was bigger news just about anywhere else in the world.

Overheard at the stately hotel’s front desk near where the players were being interviewed by reporters from France, the Netherlands and points beyond:

Woman 1: “What’s going on here?”

Woman 2: “The U.S. soccer team is here.”

Woman 1: “You’re kidding.” Pause. “Did you know they had a shuttle that goes to the hotel beauty parlor?”

Joe Schroeder of San Diego, who was attending a credit union meeting at the hotel, heard the U.S. soccer team was in the next room. Did he know what any of them looked like?

“Not really,” he said. “They don’t really stand out. They’re not 6-foot-9 or anything.”

Laurel Schmidt of Rancho Santa Margarita, who was at a park just down the knoll from the hotel: “You’d think they’d be mobbed.”

You’d think. But then again. . . . Schmidt thought it was bigger news that Johnson, the football coach, was at the hotel. “He came in a helicopter and had probably five or six police cars as an escort,” she observed.

“Soccer has just never been as popular a sport here,” she said, almost apologizing.

For their part, the players seemed to be a patient, forgiving lot. If they play, they seem to think, the fans will come . . . eventually.

“I have been asked so many questions over the past couple of months . . . about the future of soccer. I can’t worry about that,” said Alexi Lalas, a mop-headed, 25-year-old rock guitar player turned elite defender. “I don’t care if two people tune in to the game Sunday,” he shrugged, referring to the upcoming contest against the Romanian team, which is also staying in Orange County. “We’re still going to play in the World Cup.”

Stewart, the striker who scored what ended up being the game-winning goal Wednesday, said America’s young people have a case of soccer fever, so it’s only a matter of time.

“I don’t think we should look at it happening next year or the year after that. It’s just not realistic,” said Stewart, who said he took the opportunity to “do laundry” Thursday.

Added Caligiuri, who did his interviews with his 4-year-old daughter, Ashley, crawling on his lap: “I wasn’t really aware of the World Cup until I was 10, 11, 12 years old.” He said it was enough to see the 90,000-plus fans chanting “U-S-A” at Wednesday’s contest and see motorists paint their cars with the improbable outcome of the game.

Actually, there is hope that soccer will gain a toehold, so to speak.

Before discovering that the U.S. squad’s first team wasn’t practicing at the Mission Viejo training facility Thursday morning, about 100 people had lined the grassy hills above the soccer fields to get a glimpse of their heroes.

Wednesday’s “win was the best, I’m totally into this soccer kick now,” said Alicia Martin, 17, a Sherman Oaks resident who sat on a blanket with three friends. “I think the U.S. is going all the way. I just hope I can find tickets” for Sunday’s game against Romania.

Several brokers reported sales booming for World Cup tickets, particularly for games involving the U.S. team.

“A ticket for Sunday that was $45 before (the victory over Colombia) is now costing $65,” said Lance Keller, manager of Murray’s, an Anaheim ticket agency. “We’ve had a lot more people calling us today than ever before looking for Cup tickets.”

Meanwhile, back at the hotel in Dana Point, Schroeder, the businessman there for the credit union meeting, said his kids, after seeing sweeper Marcelo Balboa perform an acrobatic “bicycle kick” Wednesday, immediately padded out to the back yard to give it a try.

“They saw that kick three different times on replay and they immediately went out back and started trying it,” he said, adding, “and these are kids who sleep with their baseball mitts.”

Ah, baseball. America’s true national pastime.

For now.

* RELATED STORIES: C1, C13-C16, D2