One of the things we talk about most on this blog is cultural variety: how, despite sharing a common humanity, nations manage to be so very different from one another. Different cultural attitudes to sport are a fine example of this variety.
As you may be aware, the 2006 World Cup has reached the quarter-final round in Germany, amid scenes great drama and passion. The World Cup is a fine opportunity for Americans to study to the characters of Europeans and Latin Americans laid bare. While American sports are traditionally driven by sheer, mechanical, statistical competition, the Euro-Latin approach is subtly different: bravado and skill are valued almost as highly as victory itself. Games of football, in particular, are driven by passion - Europeans and Latinos prefer brilliant, angry, driven, defiant losers to dull, workaday winners.
You would have noticed this had you been watching the quarter-final between Portugal and England today. England, reduced to ten men after the sending-off of striker Wayne Rooney early in the second half, fought with considerable guts and determination against their opponents. In the end, after extra time had been played, the match was settled in the way drawn matches always are in knockout tournaments: by the teams taking it in turns to take penalty shots on each others' goals. England lost, but will return home as heroes because of their tenacity and bravery.
The likely winners of tournament remain Brazil, who have dominated international football for the past thirty years. They and their fans are a great illustration of the total dominance that football has over the Latin American imagination. Bill Shankly, a famous manager of Liverpool Football Club in England, once joked that "..some people think football is a matter of life and death, but they're wrong - it's much more important than that." For the majority of Brazilians that sentiment is absolutely true.
For everybody else, association football (as it is properly known) remains the most popular game in the world, and the World Cup remains the most popular televised sporting event. Association football has enjoyed something of a renaissance in the USA - whether the current World Cup will boost that is yet to be seen.