So the game is known as soccer here. But 12,000 Gold Cup fans have lessons to teach on excitement at the Big A. : Football Back in Anaheim

ANAHEIM —  If there was one fan who embodied the spirit of Gold Cup soccer fans at Anaheim Stadium Saturday, it was Jose Rivas.

Standing in the front row behind the southern goal post, the 28-year-old Los Angeles resident held a radio to his ear with one hand and binoculars to his eyes with the other as he watched the U.S. soccer team take on the team from Trinidad and Tobago.

“I’m going to all of them,” he said of the series of 11 matches, which began Wednesday and are also being played in Los Angeles and San Diego. “I wish I could buy a tape to play at home.”

Stadium officials estimated that more than 12,000 fans were on hand to see the U.S. team clinch a 3-2 victory late in the game. So intent were fans that Melrose Place hunk Andrew Shue, a professional soccer player before becoming an actor, went unnoticed in the crowd.

“They are showing a lot of spirit, a lot more than you would expect,” said Shue, donned in blue jacket and baseball cap.

The game was the U.S. team’s first of the series, which features nine teams from across Central and North America plus Brazil.

Fans of the Caribbean team, though far outnumbered by U.S. supporters, were the more enthusiastic, playing musical instruments fashioned from machine parts, belting out pep songs and dancing in the stands.

Dressed in the islands’ red, white and black colors, the Caribbean fans were far more audible than the U.S. partisans, most of whom stayed in their seats enjoying the balmy weather and close game.

“This is our lifeblood,” said DeAnne Hutchinson, 49, who moved to the United States from Trinidad 32 years ago. Chanting “We want to go to T&T;” and singing popular songs, she and a Caribbean contingent of about 300 managed to excite some of the more sedate U.S. fans.

Across the stadium, a group calling itself Sam’s Army rose to the challenge, waving U.S. flags and singing Irish soccer songs to rally their players. Represented Saturday by about 200 young men, Sam’s Army--named for Uncle Sam--was founded in January 1994 to bolster support for the U.S. team.

Publicized largely through the Internet, the club, based in Amherst, N.Y., is on a mission to make soccer as popular here as it is in most of Europe and Latin America, co-founder Mark Spacone said, and has grown to more than 1,500 members.

Club members complained that stadium security “refused to allow us to bring in our drums, they wouldn’t let us put up a banner, and they said no to cowbells and horns,” said Spacone, 29, a resident of Buffalo, N.Y.

They did manage to smuggle in a few U.S. flags, however, including one 18 feet by 20 feet, as well as some foot-high plastic foam hats decorated with red, white and blue.

The U.S. fans conceded that they could learn a few things from the Caribbeans, who somehow managed to sneak their paraphernalia past security guards.

“They look like they are having fun,” said Hugo Gonzalez, 31, of Oxnard.

“I am impressed by how they got all those musical instruments in,” said Amaresh Kollipara, 20, of Berkeley.

Former Trinidadian Suzanne Hill, 27, who now lives in Rancho Palos Verdes, explained it with a smile: “It’s a Trini thing.”

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