U.S. Wins Soccer Opener

Big-time soccer returned to the United States Sunday. The Americans won but the stadium was only half full.

Eleven months after the end of the World Cup, the full U.S. national team played for the first time since the championship and beat Nigeria 3-2 in the opener of the U.S. Cup ‘95 tournament.

John Harkes, Marcelo Balboa and Cobi Jones scored for the United States in an entertaining but sloppy game. And Alexi Lalas, the American defender who played 120 minutes Saturday for Padova in the Italian League, completed his transAtlantic weekend by playing the second half and clearing two shots off the goal line with 17 minutes to go.

The game drew 22,578 to Foxboro Stadium, which had crowds of about 55,000 each for six World Cup games last summer.

After spending two days with Carlos Alberto Parreira, Hank Steinbecher, the executive director of the U.S. Soccer Federation said he wants to hire the Brazilian as coach of the American national team.

Parreira, who coached Brazil to the World Cup title last summer, was fired two weeks ago by Valencia of Spain’s first division. He is the former coach of the national teams of Ghana, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.