Like many other Americans, I tuned into the finals of the World Cup to find out about all the hoopla with soccer. I have never felt a desire to follow a sport where a 2-1 score is seen as a blowout. The final face-off of kicks resulted in a dramatic win for Italy over France. But for me, I?ll still take an Orioles-Yankees game on a warm summer evening.
So why do millions ? no, billions ? of people go so crazy about soccer? Why the passion for a sport that requires unremitting attention spans waiting for that rare goal? After watching the World Cup, I must admit ? I still don?t know the appeal of soccer. But I do understand the appeal of the competition.
In most cases, sports fans root for teams that represent their cities, states or regions, even though few if any of these teams? players are from these areas.
But the competition in the World Cup is different. Here, as in the Olympics, players from each team must have ties to the nation they represent. In the World Cup, a player must be part of that nation through birth, naturalization or a parent.
There is one other area in which nations compete so openly: war.
Citizens agree to fight wars to defend their nation. And winning or losing on the battlefield affects national pride. The World Cup competition arouses equally fervent nationalistic pride, but in a positive way. A soccer match serves as a substitute for war. Instead of bullets and bombs, teams use a ball. Instead of body counts, teams count goals.
Focusing so much national pride on a game seems strange. But it is reassuring that when the game ends and the winner declared, everyone accepts the results (or mostly everyone).
What if we could resolve other national differences on playing fields instead of on killing fields?
The answer, of course, is that war resolves differences and disputes by only one method ? sheer force. A war usually ends when one side so defeats and demoralizes the other that the other side?s ability or will to fight withers. Peace, if you want to call it that, then ensues.
An athletic event says more about prowess than power, but the result ? a victor and a vanquished ? is the same. But the process is more humane. Not all disputes need be resolved by further strife.
It was eerie that, as the television announcers reminded the viewing audience several times, players in this World Cup competed in the same stadium where in 1938 Adolf Hitler hosted the Olympics and tried to demonstrate Nazi superiority.
That was also the Olympics where Jesse Owens, the great black athlete, punctured the myth of Nazi racial theories by winning a slew of gold medals.
If only that year?s Olympics could have resolved on the field the issues that off the field later led to World War II.
Interestingly, the host country for this World Cup (Germany) and the two finalists (France and Italy) battled in that war, as were many other World Cup participating countries, yet their national teams competed vigorously but amicably.
So there is hope for humanity. If only these many diverse nations would demonstrate the same sportsmanship on the world scene that they showed on the soccer field, then, in a paraphrase of the Bible, the world?s cup of peace would be full.
M. Hirsh Goldberg is president of M. Hirsh Goldberg & Associates LLC, a Baltimore-based public relations and marketing agency. He has served as press secretary to a governor of Maryland and mayor of Baltimore. He is the author of five books and numerous op-ed articles and columns. His e-mail address is [email protected]
