SOCCER / JULIE CART : Liekoski Faces a Difficult Task Getting U.S. Into Medal Round

Recently appointed U.S. Olympic Coach Timo Liekoski spent the weekend at a college tournament in South Carolina, scouting players for his Under-23 national team. Late one night he spoke with a group of coaches about why American players--with all their athletic talent--tend to lack the creativity that is at the heart of the game.

Could the years of youth soccer car pools and perfectly lined fields dotted with orange cones have produced a generation of solid but unimaginative players?

“I don’t see the kids going to a park and playing 2-on-2 soccer, like they do in basketball,” Liekoski said. “In blacktop basketball you become creative to survive, because if you lose, you have to wait for 23 games to play again.”

Liekoski will spend the next year and a half attempting to cull the most creative players from the college ranks for his 1996 Olympic team in Atlanta. An assistant on the 1994 U.S. World Cup team, Liekoski will surely face the most difficult task ever for a U.S. Olympic soccer coach.

Consider the context: There presumably will be a heightened interest in the tournament as a result of the World Cup. With the Olympics in the United States, the nation’s patriotic fervor will not accept a non-medal performance.

That’s the rather high aim Liekoski has set for his team--a place in the medal round. It has long been unattainable for the U.S. team, in part because of restrictions imposed by the American collegiate athletic system. World Cup Coach Bora Milutinovic, who rarely rules out any job opportunity, made a face when asked if he would be interested in the Olympic job.

“Yes, it’s the Olympics,” Milutinovic said. “But when would I get the players to train and play? This is the problem.”

It’s now Liekoski’s problem. He has chosen to work within the system, rather than fight it. He’ll make do with training camps arranged around the players’ academic and vacation schedules.

“We’ll make the most of the time we get,” Liekoski said.

Only in January 1996 will the players assemble for their final preparation, preferably at one of the Olympic soccer venues or a place with similar climate.

Liekoski and his fellow Olympic coaches will have an interesting card to play in 1996--the use of three overage (older than 23) players. Among Americans who have shown an interest are World Cup players Thomas Dooley, Brad Friedel, Claudio Reyna and Alexi Lalas.

“Our success in the World Cup has greatly increased the expectations,” Liekoski said. “But if I do my job right, the pressure will take care of itself.”

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Depending on whom you ask, World Cup ’94 will/will not give a final financial accounting of the tournament to FIFA next week in New York. But whether the surplus is $20 million as the Organizing Committee projected for two years, or $40 million to $50 million as Alan Rothenberg claimed during his reelection campaign, the key thing to remember is that the money will be turned over to the U.S. Soccer Federation Foundation as the World Cup’s most visible “legacy.”

Forget about the soccer fields that were never built in the housing projects, this money will be the real fuel for soccer in the decades to come. Or should be.

The first order of business for the Foundation will be to hire an executive director. Presumably, the director will carry out the wishes of the Foundation’s board, but we’ve heard little of late regarding the Foundation’s agenda or priorities.

Assuming a surplus of $40 million, what will that actually translate into for soccer? According to one board member, the Foundation will invest most of its funds and give out/loan only 5% a year. That’s $2 million.

“It’s not a lot,” acknowledged a board member.

The real amount of the seed money could be affected by the outcome of the IRS’s continuing investigation of World Cup ‘94’s $5-million “loan” to Major League Soccer. Despite officials’ assurances that the transfer of money from the non-profit World Cup Organizing Committee to the for-profit MLS was legal, the IRS has not concluded as much.

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Italian soccer has been caught up in the national corruption investigation, this one targeting clubs for tax evasion and irregularities in the transfer market. It seemed inevitable that soccer--Italy’s fourth-largest industry--would be included in the far-reaching investigation.

“Operation Offside” began with raids on some of the country’s biggest clubs. Documents were seized from 34 first and second division clubs by the Guardia di Finanza . The suspicion is that most Italian clubs are heavily in debt and club officials juggle the books to keep the clubs afloat.

Few clubs are immune from the investigation, including mighty AC Milan, owned by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Even the president of the Italian Football Federation is under investigation for abuse of office.

“Let’s not panic,” federation President Antonio Matarrese told the Italian newspaper La Stampa. “We haven’t fooled anyone, we have nothing to hide.”

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As punishment for fan violence, AC Milan has had two points deducted and finds itself at the bottom of its group in the European Champions’ League.

UEFA, the governing body for European soccer, took the step against the defending champion as a consequence of the actions of Milan’s crowd during a Sept. 28 game.

In that match at Milan’s San Siro Stadium, the goalkeeper for Casino Salzburg suffered a concussion from a half-filled plastic bottle thrown by a fan. Milan Coach Fabio Capello accused the goalkeeper of faking the injury in the game that Milan won, 3-0.

Also, Salzburg was fined $7,500 because its fans lit fireworks in the stadium and Milan was ordered to play its next two matches in the competition at least 200 miles from San Siro.