It would seem a bit late, as well as irrelevant, to conduct a post mortem of the U.S. failure to win a point from the 1998 World Cup.

But Alexi Lalas, one of the best-known players on that U.S. team, and Steve Sampson, the U.S. coach, spend 40-plus fascinating minutes on The Mutant Gene Podcast going over what happened to their team at France 1998 — the most miserable World Cup experience for the Yanks in the modern history of the team.

It is fascinating stuff, especially for those who have some memory of what went on in that tournament, four years after the U.S. had reached the final 16 when hosting the 1994 World Cup.

The 1998 U.S. performance had all sorts of subplots, and one of the biggest came to light 12 years later.

I covered that World Cup from beginning to end, focusing on the Yanks till they went down in flames, and to hear Lalas and Sampson talk about it made me almost queasy, even now.

Some key points:

–Lalas, a vocal critic of Sampson during the 1998 tournament, opens by discussing the coach’s handling of the John Harkes situation. The captain was to have been the star of that World Cup team, but Sampson learned that Harkes had an affair with the wife of Eric Wynalda, the team’s leading forward. Sampson felt he had to leave Harkes off the team — but did not disclose the main reason he did so.

The media, left in the dark, saw Sampson’s move as nonsensical. The coach was already being pummeled in the U.S. media for not including in his team the U.S. “Captain for Life” before the World Cup began. Not until 2010 did Wynalda talk about the situation, finally allowing Sampson to speak — which he does at length.

–The coach concedes he should have talked to senior players about the training site before the opening game, in Paris. The U.S. team stayed at the isolated Chateau de Pizay, in the countryside north of Lyon, and many of the players found it stultifying. Lalas was one of those who was critical; he recalled Bora Milutinovic, coach of the 1994 U.S. team, being insistent the U.S. should revel in the excitement rather than be off the grid. Some players felt as if they were not even in the World Cup.

–Sampson continues to defend his deployment of the infamous 3-6-1 formation he used in the team’s opening match, versus Germany, in Paris. He explains his intent — to outnumber the Germans in the middle of the pitch and play defense.

The players, some of them, thought Sampson’s tactics showed a lack of faith in the team. Sampson insisted the game could have turned ugly had the U.S. tried to attack the Germans. In my game story, I expressed the opinion that the U.S. team was competitive for long stretches of that match, and that a fluky goal in the eighth minutes led directly to the 2-0 defeat.

–Sampson talks about critical comments made by players in the media, after that defeat, but I don’t know to what he was referring. I was there, with the team day after day, and the dominant thought was: “We were never going to beat Germany.” With the idea that the U.S. could still qualify with results against Iran and Yugoslavia. The serious internal criticism was to come.

–Sampson said he regrets not using the “political” card ahead of the Iran match, telling the players they needed to win for the sake of the country against one of its leading adversaries, at the time. He maintains Iran’s players were told they could not return to Iran if they lost to the Americans. Did that happen? Sampson seems to believe it did. Final score: Iran 2-1, and the U.S. chances of advancing were dead.

–Only then did some players, led by Lalas, go public with criticisms of the coach. Lalas, it should be remembered, had lost his place in the starting lineup when Sampson went from four defenders to three, and Lalas was not much more bashful in his assessment of his own abilities than was, say, Harkes. Sampson said he considered sending home three or four players, including Lalas.

–Sampson said he resigned his post, after a 1-0 final loss to Yugoslavia, saving Alan Rothenberg, the U.S. soccer president, the burden of firing him.

Lalas and Sampson essentially apologized to each other, and they agreed that time has healed some wounds and given each of them a greater appreciation for the other’s situation, 18 years ago.

Sampson said it was Roy Wegerle, a forward on the team, who brought him the information about Harkes and his affair with Wynalda’s wife. Sampson said he wishes he had never known about it.

Note: Harkes has never confirmed he had a relationship with Wynalda’s wife.

It is a remarkable stretch of audio, and I recommend it for anyone interested in that era of U.S. soccer history, a time when American soccer aspirations had gotten ahead of the country’s ability to put a world-class side on the pitch.