World Cup Soccer fever is upon us again! On Friday, June 11th, Mexico took on South Africa in Johannesburg in the opening game of 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.It was an exciting game that ended in a 1-1 tie after Mexico scored a late goal in the second half. Mexico is set to play France on Thursday June 17th and it is sure to get people around here all riled up.
Here in Mexico, soccer (“futbol”) is taken very seriously and is a great source of national pride. It is a cultural phenomenon. Whether from a sports bar downtown, or from homes lining the cobblestone streets, cries of distress and of victory fly out the windows to passersby’s ears, as World Cup viewers shout out in unison with the ups and downs of the matches. Even if Mexico is not playing, they still have other favourite teams to cheer for.
I enjoy the sport. I played recreationally for a few years in Canada, in a local league. Although it is very popular where I come from, I had not anticipated the fever and passion that accompany the sport down here.
And so I asked myself, what makes soccer so popular here? What makes is so popular worldwide? Here is what I came up with.
Soccer, no matter what you call it in whichever language, is the number one sport played in every corner of the world. It is the global game. The World Cup, the biggest and most-watched sports event in the world, is soccer’s showcase event, drawing massive global attention. It is that time every four years where for one month, the world stops when the World Cup is on. What creates this phenomenon, where regular people will suddenly drop everything to be in front of the TV to watch? And I do mean everything. I was at a restaurant the other day while the opening Mexico-South Africa match was on, and upon hearing cheers from the restaurant patrons, one of the cooks came dashing out from the back, spatula still in hand, to catch the replay of what he had missed.
For hundreds of millions of people around the world, soccer is the ultimate cultural expression. It is like a universal language that everyone can understand. It unites people across regions within a country, and it unites people across countries within the world. Even those who do not regularly follow the sport are profoundly affected during World Cup, as they cheer on their nation’s team in great displays of patriotism. That team is their nation’s representation to the rest of the world.
Although this phenomenon is seen in other sports (hockey in Canada, for example), 
World Cup soccer elicits a more passionate, fervent and almost religious-like following from more fans around the planet than any other event. I surmise that it’s because it is more widely played around the world than any other sport, so a nation’s citizens take great pride in saying ‘this is our team’.
There is something else: there is a simplicity to soccer, and in that simplicity lies accessibility. With so many different positions on a team, it appeals to people who may not be the biggest, fastest, tallest, or even strongest. The rules of the game are simple. And, so importantly, the average fan has more access to playing the sport than other sports, and that in turn leads to its popularity. All that is required to play is some semblance of a ball, some sort of markers to indicate the goal posts, and an open area. In this way, soccer transcends economic barriers – even a ball made out of scraps of cloth will do. It is the sport of the common man. It is the great economic equalizer, employed by some of the sport’s all-time greats, including Pele and Maradona, to escape abject poverty.
Soccer is the world game, and during World Cup, the sport’s best players from 32 countries worldwide come together in one place for one month. And when they do, the rest of the world stops.
Written by Leanne Smith
I welcome your questions and comments!