Often, Player Out By A Foot -- Tight Shoes, Kicking, Being Kicked: Everything Extracts A Toll

It's a game of feet. That explains why famed photographer Annie Leibovitz's portrait of soccer's greatest player, Pele, is a shot of Pele's bare tootsies. That also explains, to an extent, why soccer players often wear their shoes into the shower.

"Oh, I do that all the time," said U.S. national team player Tab Ramos. "Then I go to practice with the shoes still all wet, to stretch them better."

Since soccer players' jobs depend on using their feet the way most athletes use their hands - for passing, shooting, dribbling, tackling - most of them are preoccupied with the notion of "feeling" the ball. To do that, most believe they must wear extremely snug footwear, which is constantly in the process of being properly broken in.

U.S. defender Marcelo Balboa rubs Vaseline on his shoes to soften and stretch them. Former U.S. national team member Peter Vermes used to "get a new pair of shoes a size too small, then try to find a manager, or somebody around, who wore that size and have him wear them around a while to break them in for me." Ramos, son of a former Uruguayan soccer pro and aware that "my father's feet are all bent out of shape," makes sure his toenails are constantly trimmed to reduce the pain of too-small shoes.

Then there are the occupational hazards of kicking and being kicked: Bunions, corns, blisters, punctures.

"Especially when somebody steps on you wearing those half-inch studs," Balboa said.

Blood under the toenails, from being stomped on or from hitting a ball wrong. A stress fracture of the fifth metatarsal, the bone along the outside of the foot just behind the outside toe. Soccer players routinely suffer from this malady.

On the 1994 U.S. World Cup roster, the players agree, there no longer are any feet so deformed and gnarled they could be used in a horror movie. Such feet belonged to a member of the 1990 U.S. team - Bruce Murray. "Murray had to have a podiatrist come in and shave his feet down every now and then, because of the bunions and everything," said Vermes, one of his 1990 World Cup teammates.

"Murray had the worst-looking feet in the world," agreed another 1990 regular, Desmond Armstrong. "By far."

Murray now plays professionally in England, where he is assumed to still be suffering, because soccer players' feet hurt, as a matter of course.

"Always," Ramos said. "You suffer two to three days just to get a new pair of shoes broken in. You never put on soccer shoes and have them feel good. It's just the opposite of basketball shoes, that feel the best when they're brand new, with all that support. Soccer shoes don't feel really good until it's time to replace them, after you've worn them about a month."

Ramos wears a 6 1/2 soccer shoe, only a half-size down from his 7 in a street shoe. Defender Alexi Lalas, with a 12 1/2 foot, squeezes into an 11 1/2 soccer shoe, despite dismissing the theory of "being better able to feel the ball in a smaller shoe" as "a lot of garbage, to tell the truth." Balboa scales down from a 9 1/2 to an 8 1/2, "and then my big toenail dies, or I get a blister on my heel . . ." He shrugged; it's normal procedure.

"I'm always moaning, `My toes! My toes!' " Armstrong said, "so that it's become an inside joke with my wife. If she sees me walking funny around the house, she goes, `My toes! My toes!' "

"You put new shoes on," Vermes said, "your feet are just dying. So you go into the shower and run hot water on your feet. There's got to be a better way."

"We all do that," Balboa said. "But it is kind of funny, to see a guy come into the shower wearing his shoes."