The World's True Game.(Paul Crowder's "Once in a Lifetime" )(Interview)(Excerpt)

Byline: Jennie Yabroff

With the world cup now underway, billions of fans around the globe are eating, breathing and sleeping football--all except the Americans. A new film, "Once in a Lifetime," documents the struggle to bring world-class football to the United States. British filmmaker Paul Crowder recounts the story of the 1970s New York Cosmos, who played on an uneven field spray-painted green. Even after enlisting the then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to woo Pele to the team, the Cosmos floundered. (Pele threatened to quit after his first game, believing that the green paint on his feet from the faux field was fungus.) As Germany and Costa Rica opened this year's World Cup, NEWSWEEK's Jennie Yabroff spoke with Crowder about the state of the game in the United States and the world. Excerpts:

YABROFF: How do you explain the lack of passion for football in America?

CROWDER: America seems to incorporate more than just the game within their sports--their games allow for drinking and talking and doing other things during the game. In soccer, it really is an attention-span thing. You've got to be there watching the whole thing. No disrespect to any of the other sports, but I find it ironic that baseball fans can sit for three hours during a pitching duel, and then call soccer boring.

How do you think the global game has changed since the '70s?

It's a much faster game now. The fitness and stamina levels have gone way up. In that era, players would drink at halftime, smoke cigarettes at halftime, smoke while they were training. You can't do that [now] and be a professional player. People [also] want to see more goals, better football. Clubs--particularly those with money, like Manchester United--are far more international now.

I like seeing an international team. It makes tournaments like the World Cup even tighter. There are countries doing well in the World Cup now that never used to, and that's partly because their players get to play in other countries. South Korea got to the semifinals in 2002, and that's because they've got six or seven players playing internationally.