NOTES

The tongue-in-cheek television advertising campaign mounted by the Women’s World Cup to get President Clinton to come to the tournament’s championship final has paid dividends.

The White House announced Tuesday that the president would extend his seven-state trip to enable him to attend the United States’ game against China at the Rose Bowl on Saturday.

“I think, like all Americans, he’s been caught up in their success and wants to be there personally to cheer them on,” White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart said of the U.S. players.

The president, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and daughter Chelsea saw the U.S. team’s 3-2 come-from-behind victory over Germany in the quarterfinals at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium in Landover, Md., last week.

*

After Rose Bowl officials Tuesday made an on-site inspection of the stadium, an additional 3,000 seats were found for Saturday’s doubleheader. All were sold almost immediately and attendance will be “just about 88,000,” according to Women’s World Cup spokesman Richard Finn.

That would make it the largest crowd ever to see a women’s sporting event, surpassing the 78,972 who attended the opening game between the U.S. and Denmark at Giants Stadium on June 19.

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The veteran players on the U.S. team frequently are asked when they will step down, whether the Sydney 2000 Olympics will be their last hurrah.

On Tuesday, Coach Tony DiCicco was asked.

“I’m only looking at one game, right now,” he replied. “One game, and then I’m going to spend some time with my family and let it all sort itself out.”

*

It’s a question Mia Hamm isn’t asked often, but this is what a German reporter wanted to know:

Could you imagine playing soccer outside the U.S.?

“I could imagine it,” Hamm replied. “But I love being here in the States. My dream is to get a [women’s] league started here, so we’re working as hard as we can [toward that end] and hopefully after the [Sydney 2000] Olympics we can get something started.”

*

No matter how well the U.S. women do, they can’t seem to shake the comparison with the U.S. men, who--to put it kindly--have never done as well. In 1994, the men lost a World Cup game to Brazil on the Fourth of July.

But DiCicco believes the men are getting a bad rap and says the American teams support each other.

“Sometimes the men take a beating,” he said. “Let me just say this: The men have supported us. We’ve gotten e-mail, faxes, everything. They’re our fans and we’re their fans and we have a lot of respect for their play.”