Soccer City Stadium, Johannesburg ALL WORLD CUP PHOTOS BY ALVEZ
When it comes to developing international relationships, sharing interests can be just as important as any other factor. American businesspeople often bond over discussions of the latest big football, basketball or baseball game. But, if you want to succeed at the international level, you'd better learn how to speak soccer. With the World Cup matches going on in South Africa, If you’re not already fluent in soccer, the World Cup matches in South Africa are a great opportunity – one that only comes around once every four years.
Soccer (aka "real" football) is far and away the most popular sport worldwide. FIFA (International Federation of Football Associations), which promotes soccer internationally and oversees the World Cup, estimates the 715 million people watched the 2006 World Cup matches. In fact, FIFA has more members (208) than either the UN (192) or the International Olympic Committee (106). The 32 national teams taking part in this year’s World Cup, represent at least a dozen different languages – not to mention the numerous "flavors" of languages such as Spanish (Spain, Mexico, etc.), English (US, Australia, UK, etc.) and Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil). All of these languages are now blending with South Africa's own 11 official languages on the streets of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Tshwane/Pretoria.
Still have reservations? We've come up with a list of fun resources to help get past any objections.
Objection 1: Soccer isn't as exciting as American sports British expatriate, Chris Matyszczyk, tells you why soccer is better than American football and baseball on the CBS News website.
Objection 2: I don't understand the game The Soccer for Parents website helps soccer moms and dads get a quick take on the rules of the game.
Argentina-Nigeria match ALL WORLD CUP PHOTOS BY ALVEZ
Objection 3: I don’t know anything about the teams On The Unlikely Fan Blog, comedian Brendan Hunt compares the 2010 World Cup teams to various American sports teams based on things like how good they are, their historical success, the general personality of the team and “when in doubt, …the color of their unis."
Objection 4: I don’t know the players or the lingo On Wicked Local, Ryan Wood of GateHouse News Service gives a quick rundown on the major players and important terminology.
Objection 5: I don't like watching soccer on TV Scott Harris talks about the problems and gives his suggestions for watching this "beautiful game" on TV at AOL’s TV Squad site.
There's still time to catch plenty of World Cup matches (see the schedule) on the multilingual FIFA site, so you can raise your international sports IQ right away.
Have fun learning and enjoy the matches!
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People worldwide have been tweeting the phrase
"Cala Boca Galvão" thinking that they were helping to save an endangered species of Brazilian bird. The phrase, which showed up on Twitter on the first day of the World Cup, was actually aimed at a top Brazilian sports announcer whom many Brazilians love to hate, Galvão Bueno, and translates "Shut Up, Galvão." Other Brazilians happily re-tweeted the phrase and it made its way to the attention of many non-Brazilian Twitter fans, who tried to find out what it meant. One Brazilian responded that it was a bird (the Portuguese word for hawk is "gavião"). Others ran with the idea, posting a video and posters calling on people to tweet the phrase and help raise money for conservation efforts. A rival response, that the phrase was the newest single from Lady Gaga, also got some traction as Brazilians collectively played a joke on the world.
Soccer Gets Its Own Language
During the 2006 World Cup, an international team of fans, led by an Argentinian-American student and an English schoolboy, took up the task of devising a single soccer language that could be used no matter what the language of the teams playing. Called Socceranto (after the invented international language, Esperanto), the effort resulted in the publication of Socceranto: Birth of a Language, part dictionary, part phrasebook for the new language. Many of the words are derived from the names of famous players, like the pelé (bicycle-kick). Other invented words include "harrypotter" (a midfield wizard). The language is still under development.
