IF deciding the championship in World Cup `94 on penalty kicks offended Frank Stapleton's sensibilities, it stood to reason that he was really going to hate the "Shoot-out", Major League Soccer's attempt to do away with draws in a sport where the draw is a commonplace - and sometimes eagerly sought - occurrence.

That his New England Revolution side were the beneficiary of the procedure, having emerged victorious in a 3-2 shootout following Saturday night's 1-1 draw with DC United at Foboro Stadium, did little to mollify Stapleton's feelings, which he did not attempt to conceal.

"It's not traditional for me to end a game like that," said Stapleton in the aftermath of his fledgling team's third game - and first on its home pitch. "We still ended up with a point, which is the same result we'd have gotten from a drawn game in England, but the other side usually gets one as well, and they got nothing. They'll feel a bit sick about that."

The concept supposedly discourages either team from playing for a draw, but in more practical terms, it is certain to be viewed by soccer purists as evidence that Americans are tinkering with the global game in order to placate television audiences in this, the inaugural season of the US professional league.

"That would seem to be the criticism of those who expected us - or wanted us - to fail," said Stapleton. "The typical view on the other side of the Atlantic is that American television would dictate everything and change the game beyond recognition, but when you think about it, television absolutely rules soccer in England right now."

Three games into his maiden season as manager of the Revolution, Stapleton has managed to stitch together a squad comprising a sprinkling of foreign-born players to go with a few talented (and several not-so-talented) Americans. The exercise has sometimes tried his patience.

That his team has accumulated four points in three games is somewhat misleading. But for an own goal in the final 12 seconds of a game in New York a week ago and some inspired play from goalkeeper Aidan Heaney in Saturday night's shootout here, the Revolution could easily be winless.

Following a 3-2 loss on the broad in Tampa earlier in the month, the Revolution came within a hair's breadth of a shootout at Giants Stadium a week ago, only to be saved when New York's Nichola Caricola chipped his own goalkeeper to score for the other side in the last minute confusion.

Had the perpetrator been an American player, the new league would doubtless have been painted further as a laughing-stock fortunately, he was a 12-year Juventus veteran.

Its proponents and critics alike agree that MLS missed the boat by not getting off the ground last year, when it could have capitalised on the residual after-glow of World Cup `94, coupled with an unanticipated but protracted baseball players' strike. Be that as it may, Stapleton's team is in an enviable situation at the moment when it comes to competing for the attention of the sporting public.

On the evening the Revolution notched its first home win, the Boston Bruins were eliminated from the ice hockey playoffs, the basketball Celtics, having failed to secure a playoff spot, had gone home for the summer a week earlier, and the Red Sox lost a 10-0 game to further solidify their claim to the worst record in major league baseball.

The 32,860 paying customers who came out for the home opener may turn to be an aberration, but Stapleton is hoping not.

"The crowd was vital for us tonight," he said after the shootout win.

Three weeks may not be sufficient time to provide a fair assessment, but the Dublin-born Stapleton, Ireland's all-time leading goalscorer, thinks he has a fair idea of where his team and its league stand in the global picture.

"The creative side of it, I'd rank with the English First Division," he supposed. "The defensive side is more like Second Division football.

"Some of it is absolutely great and some of it is very poor, he continued. "There's not a great deal of mediocrity. The trick will be to take what's lacking and try to bring it up to the level of what's good about the soccer here."

Play thus far has been undeniably spotty and occasionally ragged, but Stapleton points to the sometimes incompatible styles of play he is attempting to meld.

Of his American players, just two - defenders Alexi Lalas and Mike Burns - will play for the US side that faces Ireland here on June 9th.

Stapleton's starting forwards are an Italian (Guiseppe Galderisi, late of Padova), a Brazilian (an immensely talented but undisciplined 22-year-old named Welton), and an American Rob Ukrop, who scored both goals in the Tampa Bay loss. An Argentinian forward, Alberto Naveda, threatens to crack the starting line-up if and when Stapleton can rein in his free-form tendencies.

"We're playing in America here. We're not playing in South America. We're not playing in Italy. The players have to adjust a little bit. The game is a little bit different. It's a bit more physical."

In Saturday's game, the United goal was scored by an Fl Salvadorian. The equaliser came when a Canadian (Geoff Aungier) converted a penalty kick after an Irishman (Paul Keegan) had been pulled down in the box. The sudden-death winner was scored by an American (Darren Sawatzky), after an English-born Irishman, goalkeeper Heaney, had limited United to two scores in six one-on-one attempts beginning from 35 yards out.

Neither of the team's Irish players counts against its complement of four "foreign" players. Keegan, a Dubliner, is a special inclusion because he played collegiate soccer for hometown Boston College. (Heaney, born in Newcastle-on-Tyne of Irish parents (they have subsequently returned home and operate a hotel on Achill Island), is a green-card holder having won his Morrison visa in the lottery three years ago.

Heaney has thus far been the Cinderella story of the new league. Three weeks ago he was working as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, and was brought on as cover because back-up goalkeeper Jim Adams had a prior commitment to his indoor soccer team.

Working on a loan contract that paid him $500 for showing up and double that if he actually played, Heaney collected the full amount for nine seconds' work in Tampa when Revolution keeper Jim St Andre was sent off with a red card in the dying moments of the game and automatically suspended for the next.

A week later in New York, Heaney showed enormous poise before 47,000 hostile fans, shutting down the MetroStars and winning his mano-a-mano duel against US team goalkeeper Tony Meola. This past weekend he recorded his second win even if it was of the shootout variety.

It was almost, but not quite, enough to make Frank Stapleton change his mind about shootouts. "We won, so I suppose it was a good thing," he said.