With names like Mia and Brandi, Tiffany and Tiffeny, they could be the denizens of a cinderblock topless club at any roadhouse in the South, but suddenly they are America's darlings. The astonishing success of the ongoing Women's World Cup and the concomitant fascination with the US women's team has been one of the more startling developments of the year, surprising even the participants themselves.

When the American women captured the inaugural World Cup in China eight years ago there were no brass bands to greet their return. Only a handful of friends and relatives were on hand when they disembarked from the plane, and when they came back from Stockholm WITHOUT the Cup four years later the reception was even more subdued.

When the 1995 Women's World Cup was played in Sweden four years ago, the total attendance for ALL the matches barely topped 110,000. The US women alone drew 180,000 for their first three games, and with the remainder of the tournament virtually sold out, more than half a million fans will have bought tickets for WWC matches by the time the final is played in the Rose Bowl on Saturday week.

There were over 50,000 witnesses to the US' 3-0 thrashing of North Korea in Foxboro, Massachusetts, last Sunday night - and that was the SMALLEST crowd to which the Americans have played. Several thousand of them remained afterward, cordoned off by an iron fence as they waited for a glimpse of their new heroes.

In this setting, a couple of Boston Red Sox players including star shortstop Nomar Garciaparra were paraded past on their way to a post-game audience with the US team. Their presence elicited not a peep of recognition from the waiting throng, but with the appearance of goalkeeper Briana Scurry and forward Shannon MacMillan, who scored the first goal against the Koreans, the crowd broke into shrieks of delight.

All across the country, newspapers which had planned to rely on wire service coverage of the July 10th final have found themselves scrambling for last-minute accreditation. When a story sprouts wings and takes on a life of its own like this, editors are wont to describe it as "sexy," but in this case the description is not entirely misplaced.

Most of America, for instance, has watched forward Mia Hamm in the shower, or at least seen her washing her hair in her televised shampoo commercial. (Until a few weeks ago the lone recognisable US player, the glamorous Hamm is this country's all-time scoring leader. Clothed, she also shared another TV commercial with Michael Jordan.)

The unquestioned sex worldwide symbol of women's soccer, on the other hand, is Norwegian defender Linda Medalen. A former policewoman who now works as an Oslo private detective, Medalen posed nude (with her hands and a soccer ball covering strategic spots) for a Norwegian tabloid a few years ago, and last week in Washington she provided the undisputed highlight of this year's Women's World Cup when she celebrated a goal against Canada by pulling her shirt up over her head and running about the pitch just the way the men do.

One American player unapologetically attempted to explain the appeal of the womens' game by describing herself and her team-mates as "booters with hooters." And while it may have only been a Freudian slip, the press officer for Ghana's team amusingly labelled the ephemera section of the press guide for the Ghanian women's team "tit-bits."

No one seems certain whether the phenomenon owes more to the sex appeal of the pony-tailed American lasses, to the unexpectedly high standard of play, or to the fact that people have been provided an opportunity to revel in watching a sport at which Americans can, for once, beat the rest of the world..

The Americans opened with a 3-0 win over Denmark, gave up an early goal before rolling to a 7-1 victory over Nigeria in their next match, and closed out the Group play with Sunday's shutout of North Korea.

The US women face Germany, the 1995 runners-up, in a quarter-final game in Washington tonight, with the winners to meet either Brazil or Nigeria for a spot in the final.

It is certainly true that American women have been exposed to a foundation in the game unsurpassed by any other nation, including traditional soccer powers like Germany and Brazil. That girls' soccer enjoys a foothold equal to that of the boys' game in American schoolyards may say more about our men than our women, but for US youngsters it is an equal-opportunity sport.

The so-called Title IX, a landmark court decision two decades old which requires colleges and universities to allocate athletic scholarships and funding for team sports equally between men and women, hasn't hurt either, nor has the emergence of blockbuster soccer programmes such as that of the University of North Carolina - the ALMA MATER for Hamm and a half-dozen other members of the current US team.

That other nations have taken to poaching American players, however, may be the greatest tribute of all. For years the US men's team found itself searching the globe in search of accomplished players with a wayward American somewhere in the family tree, in much the same way the FAI has traditionally scoured Britain in search of a fellow with "a good left foot and an Irish granny." (The Jamaican men have also relied on the practise, thus far without as much success.)

In anticipation of this year's WWC tournament, Danish forward Mikka Hansen cross-migrated from the US to her ancestral homeland, the German team has featured Steffi Jones, the daughter of an American soldier who grew up in Germany, Sweden trotted out a player called Linda Green, and literally half the Mexican roster was made up of players with decidedly un-Hispanic names such as Laurie Hill, Martha Moore, and Kendyl Parker Michener, all of whom could claim at least one Mexican ancestor. (Another FAUX Mexican granted citizenship for the tournament, Lisa Nunez, does not to, this day, speak a word of Spanish.)

"The (1994) World Cup was a tremendous launching pad for our league," noted New England Revolution captain Mike Burns. Major League Soccer is currently in its fourth season. A women's league might fare even better, since it would not have to compete against the Premier League, the Bundesliga, or Serie A for its players.

"The biggest difference there," said Burns, "is that the best players in the world ARE the Americans."