Bruce Arena said something the other day that time-warped me back to the fence, the heat, the paint and to my father's earnest if less than fail-safe logic.

"They can only put 11 on the field," the coach of the U.S. soccer team was telling someone on the eve of the World Cup.

Oh no, not that.

Not the old, "they can only put 11 on the field."

And there I was, sitting on a stool with a gallon of exterior latex white between my feet, working the impossible angles of the picket fence that went around our small yard. It was 119 degrees.

My father, home for lunch from his mail route that day in 1969, came out to ask me how it was goin'. I gave him an "OK" that was a little too cheery for the nobody-should-be-allowed-to-have-this-much-fun look on my face.

"When's football practice start?" he said.

"Monday," I said, a lot less cheerily.

"Mt. Carmel the opener?"

"Yep," I said, now pretty much cheer-free.

Playing Mt. Carmel to open the football season was a bad idea for our team, a bad idea that was somehow allowed to stand for about 35 years. This was year two. It was a bad idea because Mt. Carmel had and would forever have too many things we didn't, like accomplished coaches, first-rate facilities, a band that played at NFL games, a population that hadn't yet shrunk to insignificance from the closing of the coal mines, and, oh yeah, talent. Lots of talent. Their top player was going to Notre Dame. Ours was going to the lamp factory, if his uncle could get him in.

But here it came anyway.

"You know," he said, "they can only put 11 on the field."

"Yep," I said. "I guess that's right."

But I knew, and so did he, that in three weeks, they were going to put the 11 on the field who were going to beat us about 33-0. Good thing it was a home game because, that way, you could at least wind up in the closer hospital. Turned out I was wrong. They beat us 42-0, and I believe they had a touchdown called back early for having 12 men on the field.

"They can only put 11 on the field," our coach barked to no one in particular as that long touchdown was being nullified.

"Yep," I remember thinking. "That's what my dad says."

But as it happens, Bruce Arena has a broader point and some real hope for the U.S. soccer team, which, in case you've forgotten or more likely ignored completely, wandered out of the soccer wilderness to reach the World Cup quarterfinals four years ago.

"They can only put 11 on the field," said Arena, the "they" being the rest of the world, where soccer is the window to the national soul rather than a mere memory of piling into a minivan with eight other 8-year-olds. "If you could put 500 Brazilians or 500 Italians on the field against 500 Americans, then we'd have a problem."

Surely you would, but the Czech Republic is only going to put 11 out there Monday in Germany for the first match in group play, and I don't have even the slightest feeling that they're going to win 42-0. Some European Web sites and publications actually regard Arena as being of sound mind for "fancying" his team's chances of returning to the quarterfinals and perhaps beyond.

At home, you know soccer is finally gaining the semblance of a root system because unrelated entities are now trying to scare up some money from it. Soccer, my boy, you can't get any more American than that.

Gambling sites have begun to take your World Cup action, with YouWager.com sending out word this week that betting on this year's tournament is significantly heavier than in 2002 in the hope that compulsives will join the "spike," perhaps to get down on the Germany-Costa Rica opener today. What's the over-under, one?

YouWager.com says it has recorded a 500 percent jump in World Cup bets this time, which could well mean that in 2002 they took two bets, this time 12.

The tournament itself is doomed to be trivialized by American pundits, but it ought to be seen as a grand opportunity for international understanding and tolerance in an era when those things have rarely been so crucial.

It is not too parochial to wish Bruce Arena the best of luck in the coming weeks, particularly Monday against the Czechs and their brilliant coach Karel Bruckner, whom they call "the magician."

Wish we'd had him against Mt. Carmel.