The World Cup

With summer vacation getting closer every day, many have started to plan their long vacations. The most popular place this summer is definitely going to be Brazil since it has beautiful beaches and amazing tourist attractions. Not only that, but the biggest sporting event in the world will be there, the FIFA World Cup. Many have waited a long time for this, including myself, and now the wait is almost over. People consider the World Cup to be the biggest and most popular sporting tournament in the world. It has a great importance in today’s modern world.

For those of you who don’t know what the FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) World Cup is, it is the biggest soccer tournament in the world. It has occurred once every four years since 1930 in a country voted by all the others. Only 32 countries from different regions make it. These teams are split into 8 groups of 4, where only 2 teams advance from each group and get into the elimination rounds. The team that advances all the way into the final and wins not only receives the most recognized trophy in the world, but also gets about 31 million dollars. Although the reward is big, most teams want to win the cup for the honor of representing their whole country. (Winner to Be Paid…)

The only other sport competition that can be considered bigger world wide than the World Cup is the Olympics. The Olympics cover more sports rather than the World Cup only showing soccer. There is more variety in the Olympics since there are a lot more sports and more countries competing, but soccer is the most popular sport in the world which brings the popularity of the World Cup up to equal level. During the 2012 London Olympics, the final ceremony averaged an audience of about 23.2 million (BBC News). This doesn’t even compare to the 2010 World Cup final in South Africa between Spain and the Netherlands which averaged an audience of 530.9 million. Not only that, but, “FIFA says 909.6 million television viewers watched at least one minute of the 2010 World Cup final” (ESPN). This is almost a billion people which goes to show just how popular the World Cup is.

If the World Cup was a tournament with teams competing to be the best at another sport other than soccer, then it wouldn’t be as big as it is today. The fact that its based of soccer is what makes it so popular. No other sport world wide is as popular as soccer, or as other countries call it, fútbol. One reason why soccer is so popular is because its playable almost anywhere. You can play it on any surface, unlike basketball and football. The equipment needed is not complicated, just a round object and two items separated to represent the goal. Not only is it fairly cheap, but it can also be played in almost any climate. Soccer is not a rich man's sport which allows it to be played in poor third world countries (Potter).

The World Cup is one of the only things that can bring a country together during bad times. In several occasions, it has temporarily stopped war just so that people can watch a game in peace. An example of this is the story of an Angolan child who was blindfolded and ordered to kill people. He said that for 90 minutes, the Angolan civil war stopped so that fans could go cheer their team on. He described everyone as having their nations jersey on (Bradley). There is only one situation where the World Cup was put on hold. It was between the years of 1938 and 1950, because of World War II. It devastated all of Europe. It was too dangerous to play during the war, and even after it, it took five years for Europe to reconstruct and get back on its feet (FIFA).

There are a lot of people who actually think that the World Cup has become way too important. During the World Cup, many businesses change their work hours accordingly to the games so they won't miss out on any play time. Some even stop working for a whole month, which is the duration of the World Cup. This could anger people who don’t like soccer because it prevents them from doing everyday tasks for a month. The World Cup also causes players and teams to be judged based on their performance in the tournament. The country who won the cup usually isn’t the best team in the world for the following four years, but people still consider them to be. If a player does amazingly good outside the World Cup, but then does bad in it, he is considered to be bad. The World Cup is so important that people forget about everything else. This could badly affect civilians, players, and teams (Homewood).

The World Cup is something great, but like everything, it does come with some disadvantages. It is the worlds biggest and most important sporting event while also affecting those who don’t like soccer at all in some way or another. This summer is going to be exciting for so many as they watch their country play.Several people, including myself, are excited for this summer’s 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil.