Word: sports
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...French way of life from outside forces: French singers must sing in French, English words are banned from advertising, half of all TV shows on air must be European, and so on. It's no surprise that France's colorful antiglobalization activist José Bové, who happens to sport a Gallic handlebar mustache, has been dubbed a modern-day Asterix for his campaigns against McDonald's and genetically modified foods...
...World Cup in South Africa next summer. (The last team to qualify was Uruguay, which drew with Costa Rica Wednesday night in Montevideo, but had beaten the Costa Ricans over the weekend.) On Dec. 4, the teams will be seeded and sorted by lottery into eight groups by the sport's international body, FIFA. Then, it's only 203 days until the fun begins. Here are five reasons to get excited about the opening kick...
...Nothing matters more Quite simply, no other sporting event in the world comes close to matching the spirit of the World Cup. The Olympics may garner the attention of more global leaders and media outlets, but its myriad competitions and choreographed pageantry can never generate the unifying, almost cosmic passion that envelops the World Cup. As David Goldblatt asks in his definitive history of soccer, The Ball Is Round, "Is there any cultural practice more global than football?" It has more followers than any one religion and is more universal than any one language. Even Americans - some of whom still...
...This year's playoffs promised no less drama. A stone-throwing Egyptian mob attacked the Algerian team's bus after its arrival in Cairo last week, leaving three players injured. FIFA, the sport's world governing body, has called for heightened security, and the U.S. embassy warned its citizens to stay off the streets last Saturday. After the game, rows of Egyptian riot police armed with batons and shields lined the roadways leading into Cairo's central Tahrir Square, as chanting mobs flooded into the thoroughfare. (Read "Star Soccer Player's Suicide Leaves Germany Stunned...
...Even in a sport known to sometimes provoke extreme behavior among fans, the scene following Saturday night's win - and the tension building up to Wednesday's game - might seem a bit extreme. Some hint at a deeply rooted historical animosity between Egypt and Algeria, suggesting that a cold history between the two North African states could be partly to blame for the tension and violence. But the country's social frustration that is largely suppressed by its authoritarian government may also be finding expression in the soccer hysteria...