The "it" in question is of course the 2002 World Cup. The World Cup and football (soccer in the US) have strange ways of affecting people and their levels of enthusiasm. The arguments that can evolve from a discussion of a simple match are not the sort of cordial spats that end two minutes after they begin. They are deep down and intense feuds. If you want to start a serious fight among some serious football fans, just ask them who they think really won the 1966 World Cup. For the uninitiated, that was the contest that featured England v. Germany in the final match. In the last second of play the officials determined that because of a penalty, England was awarded the score that won the game. This decision of course did not please the Germany team or fans. The final seconds of that match have been reviewed ad nauseum to attempt to validate or invalidate the call by the officials. The most recent review of the film seems to indicate that the officials were correct and that the whole controversy is actually quite pointless because the disputed penalty is clearly recorded by the film. The next time the film is reviewed, some other theory is likely to emerge to lead to some entirely different conclusion.
If your instinctive reaction to this is to shrug it aside with the reply: "All this over a game!", in truth you are quite correct, but that is only the surface. The intrigue of football runs much deeper. It is a culture of itself - a culture that uses sport to assemilate a national identity, a process that allows an underdeveloped country such as Senegal to defeat a much wealthier and influential country such as France. It has been used as a source of diplomacy and antagonism. It is a form of international domination by other means.
Another quasi-response to the "it is only a game" instinct is the fact that no other sport leads to as much unsportsman-like conduct as football does. Perhaps hockey is a close second, but there is no international list of fans who are banned from attending hockey matches. There is such an international list of recognized football hooligans. Any report on any World Cup match probably includes some reference to how many people were denied tickets or entry to the game because of their hooligan status. But it isn't only the on-site fans who cause trouble. When Russia was eliminated from the 2002 World Cup, riots erupted in Moscow. Similar riots occurred in France and Argentina when their national teams were eliminated.
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