SAMPSON DECIDES TO BAIL OUT; QUEIROS MIGHT BE THE NEXT IN LINE.

Byline: Boston Globe

Steve Sampson, who directed the US men's soccer team to a contentious last-place finish in the World Cup, jumped before he was pushed Monday morning, resigning as head coach after three years on the job.

``We at the federation thank Steve for his tremendous service to our national-team program and to soccer in the USA,'' US Soccer Federation president Alan Rothenberg said in a statement after Sampson told him he was leaving during a breakfast meeting in Paris. ``His tireless work has helped advance our sport and on balance it was an era of growth. I compliment him on his many achievements with our team.''

Neither Sampson, who was returning to the United States with his wife and son, nor Rothenberg were available for comment.

Sampson, who was an assistant under Bora Milutinovic on the 1994 team, was the fifth coach (along with Saudi Arabia's Carlos Alberto Parreira, South Korea's Cha Bum Kun, Tunisia's Henri Kasperczak, and Japan's Takeshi Okada) to resign or be fired during the tournament.

One strong candidate as a possible successor to Sampson is Carlos Queiros, who was hired by the U.S. Soccer Federation to evaluate the system. At the time, many believed he was being positioned to take over for Sampson.

But Queiros, formerly national team coach of Portugal, said Monday from Florida that he has not been offered the position.

Asked if he would be interested, Queiros said: ``To be interested in something is one thing. For that thing to be a possibility is another.''

Though the 41-year-old Sampson had the best winning percentage of any coach in U.S. soccer history, directed the team to its third straight Cup appearance and produced an historic victory over world champion Brazil in this year's Gold Cup, his tenure had always been marked by uncertainty. He was given the job after Milutinovic was let go in 1995 because the squad had played well under him as interim coach but also because more experienced foreign coaches were unavailable.

Sampson was on thin ice after the U.S. was tied by Jamaica at home in a critical qualifying match last fall and wasn't reaffirmed until the squad had already qualified. Though a number of veteran players had pushed to have him kept on for the Cup, their attitude changed after Sampson dumped captain John Harkes from the squad in April and began plugging promising but inexperienced players into the lineup.

After the Americans were eliminated from the tournament after losses to Germany and Iran, several veterans, including Tab Ramos, Eric Wynalda, and Alexi Lalas, who were seeing reduced or no playing time, made no secret of their unhappiness with Sampson. After the final loss to Yugoslavia, when Ramos never got off the bench, he vowed he would never play for Sampson again.

Sampson, who had said repeatedly that he would start whomever he felt were the best 11 players, had refrained from answering the veterans' criticism in public. But he lashed back after Ramos and others blamed him for the squad's poor showing.

``Maybe there's a sense of frustration that international careers are coming to an end and they needed a scapegoat,'' Sampson had said last week. ``It's unfair it was pointed at me, the individual who stuck with them for a long time.''

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PHOTO (Color) SAMPSON