NOTES : Come Tournament Time, Hamm Is in Daze Over What Day It Really Is

Is this the Fourth of July, or what?

Don’t ask Mia Hamm. The U.S. team’s high-flying forward says she is focusing so hard on the task at hand that she has not been keeping track of the calendar.

“To tell you the truth,” she said, “I would have to ask you what day it is today. We kind of move from game to game. It’s not a date, it’s when do we play? We play Thursday-Sunday. And that’s kind of how we’ve lived this past month.”

But that doesn’t mean the day will pass unnoticed by the U.S. team.

“I think it means a lot to us because it means so much to our country,” Hamm said.

*

It looks as if Shannon MacMillan finally will have the chance to start a World Cup game today, assuming U.S. Coach Tony DiCicco sticks by his plan to shuffle the lineup or the formation.

“Yeah, I think it basically [centers] around Mac’s performances and whether we should start her or whether we like what she’s doing coming into the game [off the bench],” he said.

“So one of the things we can do is flip-flop her and Cindy [Parlow], because that would probably be the move. Or do something with a different lineup change and go back to maybe 3-4-3, with her [MacMillan] and Lil [Kristine Lilly] wide in midfield. And that means somebody in the back would have to come out.”

*

Playing with only three defenders against an offense-minded Brazilian team would seem to be a big risk, but DiCicco defended the possible move.

“It would open up the game,” he said. “But it would give us another attacking personality that they would have to deal with. So it is a possibility.”

So it might be a shootout?

“The O.K. Corral,” DiCicco said, adding: “Hey, we’re excited playing on the Fourth of July. I mean we think that will be like a 12th player.”

*

What does MacMillan bring to the team, besides the goal and three assists she has provided in the last two games?

“Shannon’s personality is about having fun and creating an environment around her that others can have fun in,” Brandi Chastain said. “She’s the team prankster.”

Added Joy Fawcett, who scored the winner against Germany off a corner kick by MacMillan, who had just come into the game: “Shannon has that desire. She knows what her role is and she watches from the bench so that when she goes in she knows what she has to do. She studies the game when she’s on that bench.

“That’s what she did [against Germany]. She knew the near post was open and that’s what she found when she fired that ball in. She lifts the team. She plays tough defense and she goes after them and it lifts the rest of us up to see her energy out there on the field.”

*

At the inaugural Women’s World Championship in China in 1991, Pele was quite conspicuous, going onto the field to greet the players before the U.S.-Norway final in Guangzhou and later coming to the American team’s victory party late that night.

This time around, the legendary Brazilian, a spokesman for Mastercard, finds himself torn between today’s Stanford semifinalists.

“I’m in a very difficult situation,” he said. “My heart is with Brazil, but on the other hand, I’m very happy the U.S. team has done so well because I was active with my soccer camps years ago, teaching the ‘beautiful game’ to young girls across the country.

“This leaves me in a very emotional state. I only wish this was the final. I remember feeling this way five years ago during [men’s] World Cup in 1994 when Brazil played the U.S. in the second round.

“I’m very pleased to see how much attention the tournament has received. . . . The level of play has been fantastic. Very open. Just the way I like it. This tournament no doubt will provide a tremendous lift to women’s soccer around the world.”