World Champions of Obscurity : Soccer: U.S. women win a title that few seem to know or care much about.

The fame, the fortune, the celebrity that often accompany winning a world championship apparently took one look at the U.S. women’s soccer team and headed at high speed in the opposite direction.

These symbols of prestige choose their friends carefully. They rarely deign to associate with sports and sports figures that don’t occupy the upper tier of public interest. Hence, the phrase women’s soccer is a virtual announcement of obscurity.

A week ago in China, the U.S. women beat Norway, 2-1, in the first world championship tournament offered for women, after decades of trying to get such competition. It was the first soccer world title any team from this country has earned.

FIFA, the international governing body of the sport, had only lately agreed to sanction a world championship for women. The group previously argued that interest in the world’s most popular sport stopped at the gender line.

Some will argue that the interest is there. Organizers of the women’s championship are happy to report that tickets to matches at various sites around China were sold out before a ball was kicked. The rehearsal of the opening ceremony drew 55,000. That the financial success of the tournament did not extend to the players comes as no surprise to them.

Michelle Akers-Stahl, with whose feet the U.S. team prospered, won’t summon the energy to be angry. This, she understands, is the way it is.

“If I was a male, I would be swamped and I’d be a millionaire right now,” she says. “We’re used to this.”

The “this” is what has happened since the world championship: A flurry of attention--curiosity, really--then the familiar view of the backs of sportswriters and potential sponsors.

“It’s nice when people talk to us, but you can tell they don’t know very much about our game,” Akers-Stahl said last week in a telephone interview from New York. Akers-Stahl was invited to attend Sunday’s draw for the men’s 1994 World Cup, which be in the United States. At the men’s World Cup draw, Akers-Stahl admitted she felt like something of “an ornament,” world title notwithstanding.

Anonymity marches on. “We were flying back after the tournament, on our way from Zurich to New York,” Akers-Stahl says. “There was a nice older lady sitting next to me on the plane. She asked where I had been. I told her China. She asked what for. I told her I was on the U.S. national team and that we had played in a soccer tournament, the world championships. She asked how we did. I told her we won. ‘That’s nice,’ she said. That’s about what we get.”

The reception in China was somewhat less subdued. The 12 teams were ascribed celebrity status, which in China translates into crushing and curious crowds. The U.S. women were adopted as a grudging mascot of the Chinese fans, who had become familiar with the Americans when then played three games in China in August. The U.S. women’s aggressive, physical style was in contrast to the Chinese team’s quickness and precision.

The Chinese fans were equally mesmerized by the small but loud group of some 40 American fans--parents, husbands and boyfriends--who attended the matches. Their banners, flags and even the wave brought a raucous air to the otherwise politely quiet stadiums. The sight of Akers-Stahl’s father--6 feet 3 and very loud in a sea of shorter, darker fans--was enough to amuse everyone.

The United States did not lose any of its six tournament matches and scored 25 goals. Akers-Stahl led the tournament with 10 goals.

The 25-year-old from Oviedo, Fla., scored both U.S. goals in the final. Akers-Stahl was playing the final with a sprained right ankle, an inflamed knee that had undergone more than a half-dozen operations and a painful hip pointer.

“I was just trying to stay together,” she says.

The mind overcomes pain for persons under pressure. Late in the second half, with the game tied, 1-1, Akers-Stahl was trolling deep in the Norwegian half, which put the defenders on guard. The U.S. women were familiar with Norway, having beaten the national team twice in 1990.

Norway had to be aware of Akers-Stahl’s ability to score. With the U.S. striker closing, defender Tina Svensson executed a weak pass back to her goalkeeper. Akers-Stahl pounced on the ball. There were three minutes left in the game. Akers-Stahl scored the historic goal with her sprained right foot.

Three minutes later the United States had won, and the American fans came onto the field. Somewhere in the hubbub, Akers-Stahl found her husband. They embraced. Roby Stahl, who had sacrificed his own career to coach his wife; who had waved to her as, three weeks after their honeymoon in 1990, she left to play for a Swedish club team; who had viewed the entire tournament through the lens of the family video camera, sobbed in his wife’s arms.

“He just broke down,” Akers-Stahl says. “I’d never seen him like that. He told me he loved me, and he told me he was proud of me. He had given up so much for my career. That will stay with me. That was the most important moment of the World Cup for me.”

Next to that, fame, fortune and celebrity aren’t much.