OS ANGELES - ''What?'' Yan Zhongjian says, his face done up in amazement, as if someone just told him that the Great Wall has crumbled into powder. ''Where did you hear that?''
Everyone knows that the Chinese were so devastated at losing the 1991 World Cup at home that they disbanded their soccer team for two years, their assistant coach is told. Didn't you?
Yan shakes his head, smiling. Lost in translation again. So what else is new? ''It is true that we did not compete internationally for the next two years, but that is because there was nothing to compete in,'' he explains. ''But we kept playing in our country.''
Just like the ''disbanded'' Americans did. ''Everybody except the Europeans disbanded their teams after 1991,'' US coach Tony DiCicco says. ''Why? Because of budgetary problems. In 1992, we played only two matches all year (one of them in Medford). The only players we still had from the Cup team were Mia Hamm and Mary Harvey. Everybody else was a youth player.''
Yet when the Chinese didn't play anybody, they were thought to be peculiar and reclusive and ... mysterious. The M-word gets used often about them, the way it gets used about lots of people who live 15 time zones away and use a different alphabet.
In fact, they're about as mysterious as Madonna, especially to the American rivals whom they'll face in tomorrow's World Cup final in the Rose Bowl. ''We know a lot more about them than we did the Nigerians or North Koreans,'' says DiCicco. ''We're practically neighbors.''
The Americans and Chinese were training partners the summer before the 1991 Cup. They played twice in the 1995 Cup, twice in the 1996 Olympics. They met three times last year, three times this year. They know each other forward and back. They just don't know each other because they can't talk to each other. ''They don't speak much English and we don't speak any Chinese,'' says US midfielder Tisha Venturini. ''So you give them the old wave in the hall, but ...''
It's not like they attend social teas together. Nothing personal. Just nothing in common except a soccer ball. ''We play and then we go off to our separate corners,'' says US keeper Briana Scurry. ''I don't know if it's the culture or what, but they seem to like to keep the players together and apart. Maybe the friendship thing is not conducive to playing well. I don't know.''
The Chinese have been anything but reclusive during their month in the States. They've flown everywhere by commercial coach, cramming their carry-ons into the overhead bins. They've talked willingly with the press (through an interpreter) after practices and matches. ''We are friendly to every media,'' says Yan, ''and all the exposures we have are positive.'' They hold practices in full uniform, open to anybody with an Instamatic. ''There is no reason to hide our numbers,'' shrugs head coach Ma Yuanan.
No secrets, no mystery. You want to know about their program, the Chinese will tell you about their program. They took up women's soccer in 1983 because they saw everybody else doing it and because it seemed to be a sport where they could excel. Soccer demands grassroots numbers, a player identification system, organization, and technical aptitude and the Chinese figured they had all of those.
They produce their soccer players the same way they produce their Olympic athletes - through a school system that provides talent for provincial teams, which then supply the national age-group teams, which feed the national squad. The Chinese also have a club league that is similar to the Americans' W-League. And unlike the swimming and track teams, which have been dogged by doping scandals, the soccer squad apparently has been doing it without drugs. ''We never use these kinds of methods,'' insists Yan. ''We never have that problem ever.''
Unlike their startling (and suspicious) Great Leap Forward in other women's sports, the Chinese have become world-class in soccer one foot at a time. They were fifth in the 1991 Cup, fourth in 1995, and second at the 1996 Olympics. Now, they're the Americans' equals, if not their betters. ''We have a lot of respect for their program,'' DiCicco says. ''They're a credit to the women's game - and they're a fitting finalist here.''
And if the Chinese beat their hosts tomorrow, they won't rub their faces in it by forming a victory ''train'' and chugging around the field, as the Norwegians did to the Americans four years ago. ''The Chinese are too classy for that,'' says Scurry.
The Americans admire their ''mysterious'' rivals. They like them. They just don't know them. ''I know one of them is a Christian,'' offers Michelle Akers, who's been playing against the Chinese for 13 years. ''But as far as their favorite foods or pet peeves ... I have no idea.''
Chinese women's World Cup soccer player Wang Liping (2) carries a bouquet of flowers given to her by a fan as she arrives for an afternoon practice with teammate Sun Wen (9) yesterday. (Reuters photo)