Soccer remains an odd ball game in Elvisville

Dateline: Memphis

Anywhere else in the world they would have been dancing in the streets but in small-town America saaa-cer, as they call it, is still a long way from being big league even when Team USA have just celebrated their finest hour and a half in the World Cup. Here in Elvis-ville you needed to turn five pages of the sports section of the local newspaper before discovering that Portugal had been left seeing stars and stripes. The commercial appeal of Lewis versus Tyson far outweighed anything the round-ball game could offer as far as the Memphis Commercial Appeal was concerned. Fair enough, it was front-page news in the country's only national newspaper, USA Today, and in New York and Los Angeles where it has a strong ethnic following and is also regarded, as in Hampstead, as being rather chic. But the midfield is still a minefield to middle America and while, as USA Today said, it may have gained a temporary foothold it is unlikely to become a stronghold. While Wednesday's win was momentous in US soccer history the game still hasn't actually come that far professionally considering that it was exactly 50 years ago in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, that the US achieved an equally famous victory, beating England 1-0. A recent survey of US sports fans showed that only six per cent have the faintest idea of what the game is about, certainly in Memphis it was last night's fight and not the footie which gave the rock 'n' roll capital the excuse for its biggest party since Elvis was a lad. The US would actually need to win the World Cup to make music in Memphis.

Women's boxing still punching its weight

A stretch limo the size of a cricket pitch left the local airport here earlier this week with a police escort, passing under a banner which declared: "Memphis welcomes Ali." So was the great Muhammad in town for the fight, then? No, it was his daughter Laila, here for a fight of her own, the 11th of her career, outpointing Shirewell Williams. In one battle of daddies' girls, Laila was scheduled to fight another female off-spring of one of her father's old foes, Freda Foreman, but the only Foreman in town was big daddy George, so Williams, a 37-year-old from Florida, stepped in. Venus Williams might have been more suitable. Ali's girl is due for her first title fight, the International Boxing Association's world super-middleweight title against Suzi Taylor in Las Vegas on 2 August. Women's boxing may still be fighting its corner but in the US it looks here to stay with 400 professionals and 5,000 amateurs. There is talk of it being included in the Olympics – and talk, too, of Laila coming to London to fight on an Audley Harrison bill later this year. No, not against Audley, though perhaps that might boost his flagging BBC ratings.

Americans just say 'no' to drugs testing

American sport has got the needle to the drugs testers. The US Track and Field Association are still refusing to name an athlete, believed to be a member of a gold-medal winning Olympic relay team who failed a dope test before the Sydney Games but was still allowed to compete. The matter has gone to arbitration. Cyclist Lance Armstrong, aiming to win his fourth consecutive Tour de France, says he is ignoring a long-running French investigation of his US Postal team, calling the inquiry "ridiculous". Similarly, US baseball players have rejected, via their union, overtures from the sports rulers for drugs testing despite revelations from inside the sport that at least half of them have been taking steroids.

You'd think that as he claims to be a football fan, and a West Ham supporter, Lennox Lewis would have worked it out that there was a World Cup on. Yet the fact that the England-Argentina match was taking place the day before his set-to with Mike Tyson did not deter his promotional organisation from obtaining exclusive rights to broker package deals for flights, hotels and tickets.

They anticipated 4,000 fans turning up here, but only a few hundred have, an over-estimation which has left a £2m hole in Lewis's £17.5m purse. The casino hotel outside Memphis, where Lewis has been staying, even prepared a menu of shepherd's pie and lamb chops for the anticipated Brit invasion. There was also a great flap because a suite of rooms had been reserved for Prince William. But it turned out that Lewis wasn't receiving Royal support. "We were told at first that it was the Prince William but it seems that he is the son of the president of a little country in Africa that has nothing to do with Britain," said a Sam's Casino spokesman.

In a land where they've barely heard of David Beckham it is surprising to discover that there is an English footballer who is a big name here. And that name is Kelly Smith.

Ms Kelly Smith, that is, one of the top players of the Women's United Soccer Association, a feisty scorer of goals and the sport's player of the month. Smith, an English international from Watford who played for Arsenal Ladies, is now with the Philadelphia Charges for whom she has been in great form. But she will miss the end of the season after tearing a knee ligament last week. Perversely, while the men's game is so little regarded in America, soccer is the fastest growing sport here for women. As it is at home.

insidelines@independent.co.uk

Exit Lines

I think you'll find they've been part of Africa for some time. Des Lynam's reminder to ITV pundit Paul Gascoigne who said he had never heard of Senegal... He's actually a very intelligent boy who prefers people to think he's stupid. Ally McCoist defends his old Rangers sidekick... Jesus is not against football. Yorkshire vicar, the Rev John Hartely, who has the three lions stitched to his cassock... They should be strapped in a chair and forced to listen to Mozart's Sonata in D major. Psychologist Dr Aric Sigman, advising the England squad on how to avoid World Cup stress.