I guess I got sucked into the World Cup via the library--in a series of essays, Foer uses the international media and labor market for soccer to explore such globalization issues as the Red Star club as training grounds for Serbian war criminals, Glasgow's Catholic-Protestant divide, 1920s Zionist soccer clubs in Vienna, the spate of soccer hooligan memoirs in British publishing, Pele, corruption and politics as usual in Brazil, African players in the Ukraine, Berlusconi and AC Milan as a cornerstone of Italian media manipulation, Catalan soccer and assimilation leverage in Spain, female soccer spectators in Tehran and the culture wars of soccer and anti-soccer Americans.