Whenever the World Cup is on (every four years) political debate yields to the supremacy of soccer in the world stage.

Yesterday Roger Cohen, a journalist of the International Herald Tribune, brilliantly highlighted the pro and cons of soccer...
"There is hope in a world where more people know how to pronounce Ronaldinho than Ahmadinejad. (...) soccer can be the prelude to a war as the 1990 clash between Belgrade's Red Star and Zagreb's Dinamo illustrated. (...) but it can also help end them...the formidable Mannschaft, winners of the World Cup in 1954, 1974 and 1990 allowed the country (Germany) one of its few expression of a national pride that, after Hitler, had become difficult to avow."

But soccer is not only politics is also multiculturalism, one same dream in the mind of so many diverse nations...

And soccer is also economy and the "great clubs (...) are now transnational assemblages, put together at the costs of hundred of millions of dollars." But when "the most important show on earth is about to begin" countries, mostly poor ones, shed their 'capitalist' or 'socialist' skins to become solidly futbolists.

The link below takes you to Brazil whose impoverished population keeps growing. Enjoy, better yet, digest it...

 http://www.laboratoriodedesenhos.com.br/corrente_page.htm

Acknowledgments

FB for the link and discussion

RC for the column of the IHT