The world cares about the World Cup, and so should we

My son, Daniel, called from Sweden where he lives to remind me that the World Cup would start in June.

And, Dad, that it was a big deal.

"I know," I said.

That it mattered more than almost anything in Sweden, in Poland, in Ghana, in Korea, almost anywhere but the United States.

"I know," I said.

My first run-in with the World Cup came in 1966 when, a few years out of college, I worked on the sports desk of a newspaper in Hayward, Calif., where many Portuguese immigrants had settled.

With one of the world's great players, Eusebio, the famed Black Panther, Portugal had clawed its way into the semifinals against England.

Like a Western Union office, the paper was our community's only contact with the outside world. The phone never stopped ringing until the results were in. Portugal had lost, and even its fans in faraway California plunged into genuine mourning.

I was in Rome for the 1990 World Cup final, arriving on a train from Berlin with the German fans who were acting like it was World War II again, a flag-waving invasion to set the stage for their win over Argentina.

Away from the Olympic Stadium, Rome's streets and alleys were dotted with Italians surrounding small black and white television sets, many of them resting on garbage cans, to watch the final.

How much did it mean to Ghana — a country so poor it feared there would not be enough electricity to allow those who had television sets back home to use them — to advance in this World Cup, to beat the U.S., to be — on a level playing field — a first-world country?

Now that the Americans are gone from the World Cup, are we satisfied to say that we just don't care, that we have too much else going on, that like our basketball team losing in Athens at the Olympics, it really doesn't matter?

I'm not a soccer fan. I never played the game.

For me, the last time the United States had a real national team, it was either the Yankees or the Dodgers — you were left to decide. A time in the 1950s when they battled almost every year, when the World Series games were played during the day and everyone gathered on the playground at school to listen to them.

The Miracle on Ice, the U.S. winning the Olympic gold in hockey, was just that, a miracle. A moment, really. We don't love anything the way the Canadians do hockey. At the Stanley Cup in Vancouver, I watched folks — many of them fathers and sons — wait for hours in line just to see the Stanley Cup. The hardware, not the game.

I'm not sure what our national game is anymore. It clearly isn't baseball. For me, the intensity and interest that surfaces in a World Cup soccer match is only seen here when Texas plays Oklahoma in football, or Alabama and Nebraska play anybody.

I've watched Michigan play before 100,000 people in Ann Arbor on a brilliant fall day. Who needs soccer?

We do.

My son-in-law, Tom, is a school administrator. He played soccer in high school and, for one year, in college. He knows the game.

"I'm soccer literate," said Tom, who, in Seattle to visit his in-laws, found a place open at 6 a.m. to watch Sweden play somebody. He wouldn't move during the Angola-Portugal match.

I wondered why.

"Angola was colonized by Portugal, they both speak Portuguese, and besides, Portugal has a history of underachieving in the World Cup," said Tom. "I was imagining what it would do for Angola to win, and if it wouldn't be similar to what happened when Senegal beat France in 2002."

Tom watches other sports. He isn't a soccer snob.

"But the World Cup affords great sports drama," he said. "That's what I'm looking for."

To appreciate the drama, you have to understand the story. You have to know and care about Ghana. You have to know that England can't seem to find a way to beat Sweden. That, reflecting their climates, locations and politics, northern countries play one way, and southern countries another.

Tom likes that the players aren't hidden behind protective armor. That they reflect the culture and passion of their bobbing fans in the stands.

Tom admits that, like the Olympics, he is a once-every-four-years fan. That his enthusiasm for soccer won't spill over to the San Jose Earthquakes.

But he does understand globalization, and the need to know and care about the rest of the world and, at a time when our phone queries can be answered in India, that we ought to care about something beyond us.

He likes that despite globalization, nationalism is alive and well. Even in America.

Surely it isn't a national shame that we couldn't beat a small African country. But not to know or care what it means to that country is.

Watch and enjoy as Ghana measures up to its idol, Brazil. Don't fade with the American team.

Learn, as I have through my children, about the world through its games. As they say, it is better than learning about it through its wars, as my dad did.