Soccer Blog

NPH has blogged before about Franklin Foer's fun little book, How Soccer Explains the World (I've even blogged about how I've blogged about the book). Now Foer, the editor of The New Republic, and a number of his colleagues have set up a World Cup Blog.

It's awesome.

The writers of Goal Post know soccer (which is more than can be said for the ESPN commentators assigned to the matches). But they know culture, politics, and lots of other stuff useful mostly at cocktail parties and magazines. Really, it's great reading. Here's just an excerpt, from Aleksandar Hemon:

"I suppose that one of the favorite pastimes of mindless American patriots is flinging
insults at soccer. But the target is not the liberal or the Democrat--it is the immigrant,
or the impure American--the un-American, in short. And then liberals or Democrats
also happen to be un-American. What is interesting is that in the minds of those
people, baseball or some other "American" sport and soccer are mutualy exclusive. You
have to choose--your own, or foreigners. Somehow hating soccer--and foreigners--is
often a staple of American patriotism. And that has as much to do with soccer as such
as it does with the latte--if it wasn't soccer, it would be something else."

NPH will be checking in throughout the tournment.