A World Cup for a Non American Football

Which is the greatest team sports' event? Forhistory. This year, legendary coach Pareira has at
most US Americans the "Super Bowll" would behis disposal some of the most talented football
an easy answer. Others, mostly attracted byplayers of the world: Kaka, Adriano, Roberto
baseball, basketball, or hockey, would choose oneCarlos, Ronaldo and of course Ronaldinho the
of those sports' finals or all-star games, but this isWorld Player of the Year for the last two
not the case for the rest of the world. Outside ofyears.As strong contenders for the title are
the US when people say football they refer toconsidered, by soccer experts and bookmakers,
the sport that is known as soccer in Unitedthe team of Germany, which will play in front of
States and which is by far the most popular sportits audience as the host-nation, and that of
in all of the five continents. The World Cup thatEngland, Argentina and Italy. In addition, the
takes place over a four-year period is consideredBrazilians, the French striker Thierry Henry, the
as the most important athletic competition, beingUkrainian striker Andriy Shevchenko, the English
more widely-viewed on TV exceeding even themidfielder Frank Lampard, the German midfielder
Olympic Games. In 2002, when North Korea andMichael Ballack and the new star of the
Japan co-hosted the World Cup the cumulativeArgentinean football Lionel Messi are players one
TV audience was estimated to be 28.8 billion,will enjoy watching.The United States' national
while 1.1 billion individuals watched the final matchteam is assigned in the Group E and will face Italy,
of the tournament between Brazil andGhana and the Czech Republic in the first stage of
Germany.This year the World Cup takes place inthe tournament, giving its first game in
Germany with the first mach between GermanyGelsenkirchen on the 12th of June against the
and Costa Rica being scheduled on 9th of JuneCzechs. Coach Bruce Arena has his team believing
and the last one, the final game which is going tothat their mix of young talents such as DaMarcus
take place one month later on the 9th of July inBeasley and Landon Donovan and old campaigners
Berlin. Thirty-two national teams are participating inlike Claudio Reyna and Brian McBride could be
this great "party" of world soccer and they willenough to go further than the quarter-finals
play in a total of twelve German cities. Amongwhere they reached in 2002.There are many
the national teams, which participate 14 comeassumptions about soccer's low popularity in the
from Europe, 5 from Africa, 4 from SouthUnited States, but the most convincing one seem
America, 4 from Asia, 4 from North and Centralto be the fact that the American national team
America and 1 from Oceania.Brazil is the defendingdidn't have any serious accomplishments during
Word Champion and one of the great favoritesthe last years in order to attract their country's
of wining the trophy this year. The Brazilians haveattention and interest. The boys of Bruce Arena
already won the World Cup five times and arewill have their opportunity now inside the German
the most successful team in the competition'sstadiums.