How Soccer Explains the World - Foer

Franklin Foer is definitely onto something.  Indeed soccer might ultimately explain the world.  Unfortunately the National Best Seller he has written, "Why Soccer Explains the World", does not.  Yet Foer is a good writer.  His chapters are nice introductory essays on culture of soccer and it's many forms throughout the world.  He stops well short of linking the many disparate aspects of multi-cultural supporter rivalry, prejudice, and greed into why the beautiful game is, in fact, such a phenomenon throughout the world.  Soccer fans will enjoy this book for the insight into leagues they do not follow and for some historical trivia.  Others might enjoy it just so that can laugh at the absolute freaks who show up to support their passion and sadly for the crimes against humanity committed in the name of the sport.  But he does not explain, to the uninitiated, why soccer is the world wide beautiful game.  Those of us who play or follow the sport, might think we know how soccer explains the world  because we live it, it's a part of our lives, we feel it everyday.  But the same is true for any other passionate human endeavor.  If you are passionate about it, it is the undisputed answer to the world and holds the key to the meaning of life -- serious stuff.  So a book claiming to actually know why, not just locally but globally, must stand up to it's title.  

There's a lot of competition out there and Foer fails to bring anything else to the table for a comparison -- but he could. Further, he does not link the fundamental building blocks of society into the game -- he touches on them, but does not link them into society -- I guess that's because he is an economist and not a sociologist or a theologist.  However as an economist he really misses the big business that is soccer.  Without a chapter devoted to the business of soccer he has ignored a very important link.  If soccer explains the world than FIFA must be running the world, for example.  There is no chapter on FIFA.  And if soccer is akin to religion, while he did write a chapter about the King,  he failed to mention God.  Where is Diego Maradonna? And if soccer is a social building block -- while he does mention yuppies in America, where soccer is the least stringent of a societal glue, he does not mention the societies where soccer is one of the very few but incredibly binding influences.  So to recap -- no elements of the beautiful game itself, no comparisons to other global influences, and no expansion into other phenomena directly attributable to a functioning society.  Foer wrote some nice essays after taking the opportunity to travel the world.  I am envious to say the least.  But he failed miserably to live up to the title of the book.  Perhaps he should write a sequel and call it -- "Why Soccer Really Explains the World".  For now we still must wait.