LET'S GO, JOLLY OLD ENGLAND.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

A week before the World Cup, I bumped into a fellow fan of international soccer at a restaurant on Ventura Boulevard. I guessed he was a fan because he wore a Real Madrid jersey bearing David Beckham's No. 23 and the autographs of Roberto Carlos and Luis Figo. That's right, an American in a Spanish-league shirt with an England midfielder's number and the signatures of Portugal midfielder and a Brazil defender.

As if that wasn't international enough, we were in a Japanese restaurant.

So who was he rooting for in the World Cup, the young man whose loyalties seemed to be spread among three continents, four with the sushi?

``Oh, the United States,'' he said. ``You've got to.''

You've got to?

It used to be axiomatic that no adult soccer fans actually root for the United States. We'd pledged our soccer allegiances to other countries before the USA became a factor. Maybe the man at the sushi place is part of a new generation for which the misadventures of Landon Donovan and Co. this month really matter.

None of the new generation was awake at 5:30 a.m. Saturday when The White Harte Pub, at Ventura and Shoup Avenue in Woodland Hills, opened its doors and switched on its tellies for the England-Paraguay match.

Kickoff was at 6 o'clock. So was first legal pour of the day.

By 6:04 it was 1-0 England, after Beckham's free kick glanced off an opponent and into the net. Half a dozen British accents sang out in celebration.

By 6:30 it had turned into a dull struggle -- on its way to a 1-0 result -- with our heroes melting in the Frankfurt heat. Increasingly, the cries of ``C'mon, England!'' sounded impatient.

The men and women in three-lions jerseys got tired of the referee's whistle. When an English player got a yellow card for a foul, a fan at a table near the door watched the opponent rolling around in pain and cracked, ``He's (only) Paraguayan!''

They grew weary of ABC's obsession with Beckham storylines. When play-by-play man Dave O'Brien described Beckham as the world's best deliverer of crossing passes, a patron at the bar groused, ``World's best cross-dresser.''

I'll tell you what the English fans of Woodland Hills absolutely didn't want to hear -- endless promos for the United States' opening match two days later. To the English, ``U.S. soccer'' is a contradiction in terms.

I've been an England football fan since 1966, when Bobby Moore's squad won the World Cup -- and the United States was 24years away from qualifying for its next World Cup. My mom is English, we were in England on vacation that summer, and the World Cup became the first sporting event of which I have the foggiest memory. On the day of the final, we were visiting relatives in Bedfordshire. Family legend has it that only uncle David was ``brave enough'' to keep watching as England and West Germany took a draw into extra time. I was 5, and I wish somebody had explained what I was missing as the rest of us walked to the garden.

It has taken 40 years for England to climb back to where, this month, it's second to Brazil in the World Cup odds. If it falls short again, it will fall short of the nation's highest World Cup expectations since the Beatles were touring.

You could wear a Dodgers uniform on the streets of L.A. and barely get a nod. You wear a World Cup jersey for the next month, and you start a conversation in every room you enter.

The guy serving my coffee at Starbucks is crossing his fingers for Wayne Rooney's metatarsal. A man at the bookstore offers, ``Go England!'' -- though he says, ``I'm tipping (touting) Holland.'' A car horn startles me in a crosswalk until I see the driver pointing to my shirt and waving a thumbs-up.

The World Cup seems bigger, the world smaller, now that the full flowering of the Internet and Fox Soccer Channel makes news of Steven Gerrard as accessible as the latest on Eric Gagne.

Today it's back to Ventura and Shoup to root for a more illustrious victory against Trinidad and Tobago in Nuremberg. Rooney could play, maybe it won't be so hot, and a victory would send England through to round two. With kickoff at 9 a.m. PDT, an even bigger crowd is expected at The White Harte. Turn up the TV, or turn it down, one or the other.

Is the USA still playing?

heymodesti(AT_SIGN)aol.com

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