Lisa Harwood Potomac, Md. How do foreign Project-40 players not count toward the foreign player limit per MLS team? Pete Bailey & Mike Woitalla: Both Dema Kovalenko and Maurizio Rocha came to the United States — from Ukraine and Bolivia, respectively — while still in high school. When they reached MLS age, the league decided to give them non-foreigner status by drawing a distinction between young immigrants who arrived as high school students, with a chance to get citizenship, and players who came to the United States as adults. Without this solution, MLS teams may not have drafted them, as they would have taken one of the four precious foreigner spots. As Project-40 players, they don’t even take up a roster spot. Indeed, the bending of the foreigner rule, if you will, for these young players was a perfect way of preventing this talent from getting away from MLS. Although neither is presently a U.S. citizen, they could certainly become so in the future, and could potentially represent the U.S. national team, since neither appears to have played in a FIFA-sanctioned competition for Ukraine or Bolivia, respectively. Rocha himself said: “Project-40 gives us…. the chance to have the national team coaches watch our progress and see if one day we can represent the U.S.” Arthur J. Gonzalez Houston Why are so many qualified American women of Hispanic descent playing for Mexico? How are the Mexicans taking the fact that the Mexican federation has gone outside their country (to the U.S.) to get players without which there is no question Mexico would not even have come close to qualifying? How can the top scorer in Notre Dame History (Monica Gerardo) not be playing for the USA? How and why was she allowed to slip through? Are they saying she is not good enough? Dean Caparaz: Like many countries that strive to qualify for or do well in a World Cup — for example, the U.S. men brought in David Regis prior to France ’98 — Mexico brought in the Mexican-American players to improve its chances of qualifying for Women’s World Cup ’99. While some players helped the team — notably former UC Santa Barbara star Laurie Hill, Monica Gerardo, who recently completed her eligibility at Notre Dame, Cal Poly striker Gina Oceguera and Santa Clara defender Lisa Nanez, who was finally able to join the team in time for the Argentina playoff series — not all of them did. Meanwhile, Mexican striker Maribel Dominguez has been the team’s best goalscorer; another top Mexican player is team captain Andrea Rodebaugh, who went to UC Berkeley but was born in Mexico. I have heard of some rumbling among the Mexican natives about their new teammates. But new coach Leonardo Cuellar, the former Mexico World Cup and NASL star, is likely to pare down the number of Mexican-Americans for the World Cup. In answer to your Monica Gerardo question, she has always been a good player and had national team potential when she was younger. She scored a lot of goals at Notre Dame. But the pool of strikers in the United States is very deep. You need to be more than a good player (and apparently you have to be more than a good goalscorer — just ask Debbie Keller) to play for the U.S. national team. Her lack of pace doesn’t help. The U.S. coaches knew about Monica, but she wasn’t going to beat out one of the other strikers for a spot. As Monica told me in a Q&A we ran in our 1998 College Preview issue, “Once you come in tune with where you’re at as a soccer player and what you’re capable of, I realized it wasn’t going to happen for me.” John Windish Chapel Hill, N.C. Tom Dooley has said publicly that he intends to retire from the U.S. national team, and he therefore would not be considered to be part of the future of the squad. However, he has also talked about a goodbye game. I felt like the US-Germany game would be a great game for his departure for obvious reasons, but he was not on the roster. Will he get a goodbye game and if so when will it be? U.S. Cup this spring? Or is it possible that Arena could convince Dooley to stay for a few more games? Paul Kennedy: The USA-Chile game Feb. 21 in Ft. Lauderdale will be Dooley’s farewell match. There is no reason for Arena to keep Dooley for other games, since Dooley won’t be around in 2001 and 2002 when things count. As it is, the U.S. defense is pretty set. Arena may be loyal, but he is no sentimentalist. Bart Ocean Park, Wash. It’s always impressive, and great for the fans, when MLS has a doubleheader with the national team. My question is, how does MLS and U.S. Soccer split the gate. I’m always encouraged at the large crowds, but wonder if it is still a money maker after the proceeds are split up. Ridge Mahoney: The formula has varied in different years, and at times the MLS clubs have been upset at the splits, which is computed by estimating what the MLS match would have drawn on its own. After some complaining from the MLS teams, U.S. Soccer agreed to pay a greater share of the associated expenses. Whether a doubleheader makes money for both U.S. Soccer and MLS depends on the crowd and how much the federation has to pay the visiting nation. And on games themselves, MLS teams seldom lose money, but must pay so many other operational costs that most of them are in the red. By the way, look for a number of MLS doubleheaders with the U.S. women’s national team during the run-up to WWC ’99. In addition, the two WWC semifinals will be doubleheaders with MLS games. Laura Lovett Orlando, Fla. Do you have any information on the U.S. women’s national “B” team? Also, I heard that the women’s “B” team played the women’s national team and beat them 1-0. Do you have any information on that game? Dean Caparaz: What happened, Laura, was this: During the early days of their residency camp in Florida, the U.S. women split their squad to play in a four-team scrimmage involving the U.S. under-21 team and the U.S. amateur team. One of the national team squads won the tournament, the U-21s were runner-ups, the amateurs finished third and the other U.S. squad — which included Mia Hamm and Briana Scurry! — lost all its games to finish last.