If July is nearly upon us, it must be time for women's soccer. Almost a year has passed since the US women's team defeated China on penalties to win the distaff version of the World Cup in California's Rose Bowl, and Brandimania has scarcely abated.

In a country where virtually any member of the men's national team could walk down the street of a major city unnoticed and unmolested, the likes of Brandi Chastain and Mia Hamm remain bona fide sports celebrities, regulars on the talk-show circuit and familiar faces to viewers of television commercials.

In the case of Hamm and Chastain, of course, their faces aren't their only recognisable features. The pixyish Hamm, who endorses a shampoo, was taking showers on television even before last year's women's World Cup, while Chastain's most defining moment remains, not the penalty kick she sent past Chinese goalkeeper Gao Hong, but the act of whipping off her shirt immediately afterward.

Stripping down to one's bra in front of 90,000 people might have been impetuous under any circumstances, but that one of them was President Clinton made it downright risky.

Having found something at which they can beat the rest of the world, Americans are milking it for all it is worth. Two months after the Rose Bowl win, the US team commenced a cross-country victory lap by beating up a young and inexperienced Irish team 5-0 at Foxboro Stadium in Massachusetts.

As lopsided as that result might have seemed at the time, their performance in the ongoing Gold Cup tournament suggests that the Americans might have been lenient.

Before drawing 0-0 with Brazil on Tuesday night at Foxboro, the US women had rolled up 11-0 and 8-0 wins over Trinidad & Tobago and Costa Rica. The US, China and Brazil, by almost any standard the world's three best teams, collectively defeated their first five opponents by an aggregate score of 52-0.

Coming on the heels of the Algarve Cup in Portugal, the Nike US Cup here and the Pacific Cup in Australia, the Gold Cup represents the US women's fourth "major" tournament in the past couple of months.

Ostensibly all of this is part of the run-up to the Sydney Olympics this autumn, but the cynic might ascribe it to pure greed and suggest that the US Soccer Federation is determined to milk this particular golden goose for all it is worth.

The fall-off in attendances - Gold Cup matches averaged just 11,000 spectators for first-round play - suggests that even American audiences may have had their fill of watching our girls beat up on the rest of the world, but the inevitable next step is already upon us.

A women's professional league - right now it goes by the acronym WUSA, which I think I can promise will henceforth be described as "The Wuss" in the pages of at least two newspapers I can think of - is set to commence play next April. The eight-team league has already conducted its preliminary draft of US players - Mia Hamm will play for Washington, Brandi Chastain for San Francisco, while the Boston team has the rights to Kristine Lilly, the US' all-time leader in international caps.

An open-to-the public contest to name the Boston team (The Boston Tea Party? The Pink Sox?) got underway yesterday morning, but the most significant development won't come until the autumn.

Tony DiCicco, who coached the American women to last year's WWC win before retiring to the broadcast booth, has been placed in charge of rounding up the best women players from around the globe, and sometime this autumn (presumably after Sydney), The Wuss will hold its allocation draft, meaning that players like Sissi (real name: Sisleide Lima Do Am) of Brazil, Linda Medalin of Norway, and Charmaine Hooper of Canada will be distributed throughout the new league.

Prying Sun Wen, arguably the world's best woman player, loose from China may be a bit more difficult, but, unlike, say, Major League Soccer, which was founded five years ago and is still experiencing growing pains, attracting the best players to the new women's league won't be a tough sell at all.

"Where else would you find a league that will be the world's best the moment the first ball is kicked off?" pointed out Joe Cummings, the former New England Revolution director of operations who is now the general manager for the as-yet unnamed Boston franchise.

While the new league won't necessarily try to sell itself on sex appeal, if recent history is any indication, bra-barings may become fairly commonplace. When Chastain disrobed in the end zone at the Rose Bowl, she made the covers of "Time," "Newsweek," and "Sports Illustrated" in the same week, but in point of fact Medalin had celebrated a goal in Washington by taking of her shirt two weeks earlier. Just last week a Mexican forward named Maribel Dominguez did the same thing when she scored against Canada.

It was the first time it had ever happened at Foxboro Stadium, but not, as it turns out, in New England. "In 1991, the US women played Norway in a game at Tufts University," recalled Cummings. "When they got to the stadium, both teams were wearing the same colour uniforms. The Norwegian girls shrugged, walked over to their bench, and changed into their other shirts right there on the pitch - and this was a long time before the advent of the sports bra.

"The guys in the stands got pretty excited about it, but the Norwegian girls? They're Europeans. To them it wasn't a big deal at all."