>So maybe we don't need the World Cup the way other countries do. I
>have long suspected its popularity is rooted in nationalism,
>anyhow. The British want to stomp the Germans. The Brazilians want
>to stomp the Argentineans. They all want to stomp the French. Let
>them. Why would we want to stomp Cameroon? We don't even know where
>it is.
In the light of recent events I think a more sensible approach would
be to get learnin'. Nationalism occasionally rears its ugly head in
football crowds, but by and large the effect of the World Cup is a
coming together of nations. Sport is a great outlet for international
ambition as well as other political ideas. Jesse Owens may have
shocked the Nazis in the 1936 Olympics by winning 4 gold medals but
he still had to deal with racial segregation when he returned to the
land of the free. If the US has a weakness then it is the belief that
it can isolate itself from the rest of the world. US isolation is bad
in sport just as it is in politics.
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