There’s a Whole World Watching

SEOUL —  So here I am again, strapped into a stifling metal tube 39,000 feet above the Earth’s surface being fed indigestible and unidentifiable substances at periodic intervals and surrounded by people of peculiar odor who elbow me whenever I fall asleep or delight in dropping their seatback into my lap.

There must be a reason for this beyond the usual masochistic streak.

There is. It’s what awaits me at the other end of this long and torturous journey through the no-longer-friendly skies. In short, another World Cup.

OK, before you have that knee-jerk reaction, the one where you say, “Jeez, it’s only a soccer story,” and quickly flip the page, bear with me for a moment.

I’m not going to tell you why Zinedine Zidane, athletically speaking, makes Shaquille O’Neal look like a cross-eyed, overweight bouncer in search of the nearest fast-food joint.

I’m not going to tell you how a Brazilian by the name of Roberto Carlos can do things with his feet that Eric Karros can’t even do with his hands.

I’m not even going to tell you that there are entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles where the residents care far more about the new soccer stadium going up in Carson than any new NFL stadium planned for downtown.

I have no drum to bang here, no cause to espouse. If you like basketball, fine. As

far as I’m concerned, there’s too much scoring.

If you like baseball, go for it. To me it looks more like eight guys standing around scratching themselves while two others play catch.

If you like football, bully for you. But when the next NFL season rolls around, tell the players to take off the helmets and padding and play like real men, like rugby players.

No, I’m not going to argue the merits of one sport over another. To each his own, or her own, as the case may be.

But consider for a moment just a few of the things that are going on beyond the narrow confines of Staples Center or Chavez Ravine. Consider that there is a whole other world out there beyond Catalina Island, a world that doesn’t give a corner kick if the Lakers won or the Dodgers lost.

The world out there doesn’t even know they were playing each other.

The aircraft I am on is heading for Seoul. At least I trust that it is. Things are confusing at LAX these days and the place is crawling with foreigners.

That’s fine by me. With foreigners I can talk about the real Cobi, the one who spells his name C-O-B-I, not K-O-B-E.

With foreigners I can debate--in plain English or admittedly broken Spanish--the merits of Italy’s forward line or Mexico’s midfield or Japan’s defense.

With Americans, it’s not quite the same. All too many of them seem to think it’s important that some guy named Goober or Floyd or Earl drove his car around in a circle a little faster than some guy named Earl or Floyd or Goober.

And that’s what I like most about soccer in general and the quadrennial World Cup in particular. It’s a sport without boundaries, without borders. Thirty-two countries will be taking part in the World Cup over the next month. The United States is one of them, which is a good thing. Isolationism is a rotten notion, in sport and in politics.

At the end of it all, a world champion will be crowned in Yokohama, Japan. A real world champion. A champion who has emerged from among many nations, not only one. I don’t care if it’s Cameroon or Croatia, Paraguay or Poland. What matters is that the whole world took part.

Can Major League Baseball, the NHL, NBA, NFL and NASCAR say the same? Not a chance. All they can produce are national champions, not international ones. World Series? Not until the world is invited.

Meanwhile, I have a whole month of treats in store.

Just contemplating the prospect of England versus Argentina or Brazil versus China or the U.S. versus Portugal is enough to keep my mind off whatever it is the flight attendant has just placed in front of me.

Outside the window, the clouds are slipping past. In a few hours, the plane will start its descent.

The real world awaits. Ole, ole, ole, ole.