Word: soccering
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Futebol, or soccer, has for a half century been the very heartbeat of Brazilian national pride as generation after generation of exquisitely talented players has donned the national team's canary-yellow jersey and showed the world how the "beautiful game" should be played. And Europe's elite leagues have long honored Brazil's contribution to the game by bringing dozens of Brazilian players to star in their top teams. But Brazil may have been a victim of its own success: Today, the national team is struggling, and the resultant crisis in national pride has enraged everyone from the fans...
...signed to play for major European professional teams, they lose their identity and national pride. (Indeed, there are currently more than ten other countries, ranging from Spain and Portugal to Croatia, Poland and Japan, that have awarded citizenship to Brazilian pros in order to field them in their national soccer teams.) Players earning millions of dollars abroad on their pro teams don't have the same passion for representing the national team as do those that stay close to home, runs the conventional wisdom. "If you look at the Brazilian team there isn't one player who plays in Brazil...
...Europe, of course, is where most of the money in international pro soccer is concentrated, which is why the best players from throughout the world tend to earn their wages there. Still, for the President and many other fans, the answer to restoring national pride lies with selecting more home-based players in the Brazil team, the theory being that those closer to home have a greater desire to represent their country than those earning pounds and Euros. Finding such player may be a tough prospect, however, because so many Brazilian players are lured overseas at increasingly young ages: last...
...audiences, like Americans and Chinese, who won't miss the stars. And ultimately, he's counting on Twenty20's purest qualities. "People are going to fall in love with this game--you'll see," he says. "In 10 years, this could be the world's biggest sport, bigger than soccer." So he's prone to a little hyperbole. But what's more American than overkill...
...Despite being twice-trounced by Spain, Russia had been the tournament's other bright light, and it too played the high-tempo attacking game of the Spanish. A ghost of its CCCP past, this team announced that once again Russia was ready to play on the world soccer stage. Guus Hiddink's men, led by its striking partnership of Roman Pavlyuchenko and Andrei Arshavin, had the wannabe oligarchs in attendance contentedly puffing on their Havanas. The only pity was that the Russians had to play Spain twice...