What is the significance of the world cup

How could a competition pitting the avatars of nations against one another not be seen as a font of symbolism and greater meaning? The World Cup is a ritual World War, a cathartic ceremony of the old nationalisms made obsolete by our new globalized world.

Our teams carry all our hopes, hatreds and history with them. Whether it exorcises or feeds those demons is up for intense academic debate. But what is clear is that only in our globalized world is such a ritual possible.

This is tribalism brought to you by Coca Cola and Adidas. When else will the streets of Cairo and Montevideo, Mexico City and Berlin, be silent at the exact same moment, regardless of the time zone, suffering the same anxiety, living the same thrills?

This is the high drama that football creates. What must be recognized is that, unlike warfare, economics, diplomacy or even creative industries, it is a relatively egalitarian way for nations and tribes to compete with one another. You need not go to Russia in the summer of to witness this. The boys of the camps meet in ferocious and hard-fought clashes on fields yellowed by the harsh summer sun and Gov. Every free moment of the summer is spent outside, kicking the ball around.

There are no trophies for participation here; even the pick-up games after school are played to win. And when the same degree heat in which their parents pick crops finally tires the boys out, they sit in the shade and trade stories of Messi, Ronaldo and Chicharito.

Mexican-Americans breathe football in a way most other Americans, even those who play the sport, do not. I once saw the farmworker camp team play a private club team full of predominantly white, affluent, college-bound kids; the children of vegetable-buyers, not vegetable-pickers.

It was donated and hand-me down cleats versus brand new ones. Nevertheless, the migrant kids overwhelmed their more affluent peers. Final score: There is a clue in that anecdote for why the United States, for all its status as a superpower, remains a weak presence in global football.

Despite enormous pools of untapped, largely Latino immigrant football talent and passion, youth football in the United States sorry, soccer remains, at the competitive level, the exclusive domain of wealthy suburbanites. The U. Children from less affluent families get priced out and overlooked by scouts. At the same time, Major League Soccer , which is based in the United States, is increasingly a league worth watching, though it creates new problems for American soccer. While this gives American fans like me the chance to watch legends in the flesh, it comes at the cost of American youth development.

American demand for world-class football diverts considerable financial resources away from the development of local talent. It is no accident that the most promising contemporary American players, like Christian Pulisic, were trained in Germany. Given all these deep-seated issues around youth development and diversity, it should not have been a surprise when the United States failed to qualify for the World Cup. Nevertheless it was a monumental setback for a country that spent more on the sport than ever before.

As recently as , Americans dreamed of holding their own against such titans as Brazil, Germany and Spain. It turns out the United States, despite all the money spent , could not triumph even over Trinidad and Tobago. But that is also what is fantastic about football. A nation like Trinidad and Tobago could beat a nation like the United States!

In how many other competitions can that be said? They can land on the moon. But until the United States learns to find its champions among the kids of California farmworker camps as much as the kids of professionals in the suburbs, its glory days will have to wait. Given that FIFA may be the most laughably corrupt organization in the world, the Russian Federation is certainly a good fit as the host. Putin is hardly the first authoritarian leader to benefit from the World Cup.

The second-ever World Cup was used by Mussolini as an advertisement for fascism all the way back in In the aftermath of an attempted assassination of a Russian defector in the United Kingdom, many European heads of state have announced they will not be attending the games. Some have called for a boycott of the World Cup in the spirit of the U.

May sport always promote the culture of encounter. Encounters between football fans are often marred by violence and hatred. Mass casualties have occurred in riots and stampedes in stadiums across the world, with over 70 killed in a Egyptian Football riot in Serious resources around the world have gone into policing the football world and attempting to make it safer and more family friendly.

In the face of so much violence and corruption, many have blamed football itself. Yet I would argue that anything that has ever meant this much has always been accompanied by violence. The true source of this violence is the simple fact that it holds a meaning equivalent to any ideology for millions of fans around the world. For me, the World Cup provides exactly that sense of purpose and belonging.

For Mexican-Americans, it is often a form of cultural survival. It makes economic sense: Mexican-Americans have larger disposable incomes than Mexicans; that is why so many of us came here in the first place. More money means more tickets sold, more jerseys sold and at higher prices.

The national team means more to us here than in Mexico. In Mexico you care about your local team, Club America or Chivas or Tijuana or whoever, but on this side of the border, it is your way of expressing your Mexican pride, your Mexican roots in a country that wishes to build walls against us. No wonder advocates of closed borders like Ann Coulter have been so alarmed by the spread of football in the United States. These are the stakes of football; it is our nations, it is ourselves.

This is why there is so much violence in football: because football contains everything worth dying for, which is another way of saying everything worth living for.

One day, I will teach my children football as a means of knowing themselves. I will teach my children football as a means of knowing others. Football is a team sport; and teamwork is the best practice for building a society.

This is not to say one must be a cog in a collectivist machine; the sport offers plenty for the individual too. Unsurpassed glory awaits those who compete at the highest level of football. Think of Pele, Beckham, Ronaldo. But on a team, the tension between the individual and the collective is transformed into the best efforts of the individual serving the needs of the team.

This is the best way to teach the responsibilities of citizenship: that privileges and rights come from responsibilities. In this technocratic world of routine, here, once every four years is duty, conflict, glory and belonging in all its ancient forms, delivered to the world through modern communication. Sure, it is commercialized and corrupt and all a big show. But like religion, it offers comforts and answers questions.

It inspires violence but can pass on the most important of values and lessons. At the risk of sounding ridiculous: I do not know if it is possible for me to care about something more than I care for football. This summer it will happen again. For months, speculation has been rampant and anticipation has built. No one can be sure. All we know is the world will once again come together to witness it. Pope Francis and Vladimir Putin. We will gather in the stadiums, we will watch on our phones, we will listen on the radio, we will celebrate in bars.

No fue penal, no fue penal, no fue penal, no fue penal!! Correction: An earlier version of this article mistakenly attributed the "soccer war" as between Honduras and Guatemala. The conflict was between Honduras and El Salvador. This article makes a small reference to the homophobia of Vladimir Putin's Russia, yet this is a major problem with the World Cup And what about supporters of the Mexican national team, and their notorious "puto" chant, a homophobic slur that has drawn fines from FIFA?

This chant has crept into the US footie scene, and surely is a prominent issue that Antonio is aware of Waxing lyrical about the advantages that migrant youth bring to the US footie scene must surely be balanced with a frank admission of this dark shadow that needs to be faced urgently lest it grow in momentum! The world of football is often marred by homophobia, and an article that claims to illustrate what the World Cup can teach us about "everything" should surely not fail to make mention of the elephant in the room!

Hey Vincent! This is Antonio, the author. You raise a valid point. There are of course lots of issues around homophobia in soccer, even more with racist taunts and racist violence from football hooligans.

I myself have seen a violent attack on two African immigrants on a train platform in Germany from a group of drunk German football fans.

I could write an entire book on my thoughts on all of this, but there was unfortunately simply not enough space in this already quite long article. As for the "Puto" chant, I am well aware of it's controversial use and history; though without getting too semantic I would point out neither the word's strict literal meaning "male prostitute" nor it's context directed always at the opposing goalkeeper, never at individual players who are out as LGBT in my mind demonstrate homophobic intent.

That said, it clearly is part of a machista and sexist culture that needs to change. But like most cultural change it needs to happen from within. Perhaps someday I will be able to write about each of those topics.

Nevertheless, I hope my central points about football came across, and I do think I included plenty of the "dark shadows" in global football. Hey Antonio! Thanks for taking the time to reply to my comment. It's much appreciated! I think that you are perhaps being a bit naive about the meaning and context of the "puto" chant. My understanding is that the word "puto" is often used to insult gay men Talking about strict literal meanings seems to be a bit of a cop out.

To illustrate how pertinent this issue is, this anti-gay chant was used throughout the L. Galaxy Pride Night last night! The purpose of this annual Pride Night is to welcome members of the LGBT community to attend a space that has been so unwelcoming for so very long. Kevin Baxter, the sports columnist and soccer expert for the Los Angeles Times, said he did not personally hear the slur, but he told Outsports that multiple colleagues reported to him that they did in fact hear the slur chanted throughout the match.

For years we have heard about policies and statements. We have seen rainbow scarves and inclusion videos. Yet these insidious chants, which fans know perfectly well are homophobic in nature, persist. This time we were met with pure disgust. It is time for Major League Soccer to choose whether it is going to end this behavior or equivocate on it.

Now the league must choose. If MLS is truly on the side of acceptance and inclusion, it must issue a two-step procedure to handle these issues. No more statements, no more scarves. This mandates real action. Team or league representatives should address the fans with a warning and ask them to identify anyone who has chanted the slur. Those people must be removed, their game tickets withdrawn, and any season tickets revoked. But in the s, the game was facing a transition to professionalism that wasn't consistent with the Olympic spirit.

The decision of arranging the first edition was officially declared on May 26, The first official World Cup was played in Uruguay , and since when the tournament has been held every fourth year with exceptions for interruption due to the Second World War. There were, however, unofficial pre-FIFA World Cups already in the late s, in a time when only few national teams existed. Another unofficial "world cup" arranged before was Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy held in and Besides that, the Summer Olympic football competitions would be a mark of which the best national teams were before The Olympic tournaments consisted, however, only of amateur teams — the World Cup became the "real deal".

The World Cup Teams with most titles and finals Statistics of all national teams that have won or played a final together with numbers of participation in World Cup, concerning the period One noticeable aspect in the World Cup history is that the home team has been over performing. On six occasions have the home team won the competition. For example, Sweden in , reaching the final, and South Korea in , reaching the semi-finals.