The just completed World Cup was an amazing event.  Along with the Olympics it is the truly global sporting event.  I would venture to say that in the 32 countries that had teams in the Cup the ratings and awareness of the games was much greater than for the Olympics.  In those countries, hundreds and thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of people came together in public places to watch their teams, cheering or moaning as one.

I realized that eight years ago, in the early months of this blog, I had written a column about the 2006 World …