Soccer once again commands the world stage.

• Author: Polis, John
• Position: Athletic Arena

IT OFTEN HAS occurred to me--with some consternation--that the most popular sporting event in the world continues to be largely misunderstood in this country. Like most of our nation's 250,000,000 or so inhabitants, I grew up with baseball, basketball, football, and hockey. Soccer was not even on the radar. I played it once in gym class. Soccer moms did not exist. The only soccer player I ever heard of was Pele. Soccer was an overseas game, and American television--except for those old "ABC Wide World of Sports" shows--virtually ignored it. It only has been during the last 10 years that it became possible to watch all games of the World Cup on U.S. television.

Everywhere else--whether you call it soccer or football in England, fuss ball in Germany, calcio in Italy, or futbol in Mexico--soccer is king. This Cup tournament is one of the few global championship team events that commands the collective attention of the sporting world for one solid month. On June 9, 2006, the 18th World Cup, the world championship of soccer, will be staged in Germany. The top 32 teams, having earned their positions in the tournament through two years of grueling qualifying matches, will be composed of each nation's top professional players. When the championship game of the 2006 World Cup is played in Berlin on July 9, approximately one of every three people on Earth will be watching, either in person or on television.

When the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA, a French acronym) was formed in 1904, it generated the first inklings for holding a true world championship of soccer. The best players produced by each country would be formed into teams to represent their homelands. However, it took 26 years for the idea to come to full fruition, with the initial World Cup being held in the tiny nation of Uruguay. Starting out as a simple single-elimination competition, the event matured through the years to the point where it has become an international marketing behemoth that generates billions of dollars in revenue.

Soccer is a beautiful, fluid game that does not favor height, girth, strength, stature, aggressiveness, or ferocity, in short, an individual does not make the team because he or she is big, strong, and tough. Soccer's rules reward those who are skillful with the ball, and punish those who initiate physical contact without playing the ball. There is no such thing as a "great hit" in soccer. There is no "physical domination." It is about speed, stamina, strategy, and fluidity, all ad-libbed into a 90-minute contest with no timeouts. Soccer at its best is played with both the head and the heart. Pele, who led Brazil to World Cup championships in 1958, 1962. and 1970, called it "the beautiful game." Soccer is gorgeous to watch, easy to understand and, on a World Cup stage, a joy to behold.

For its part, the U.S. never truly has experienced World Cup bliss. The...