John Roughan: Cup brings world together like no other sport

Wellington Phoenix supporters celebrate their side's 3-1 win in the A-League semifinal. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The first time I saw soccer's World Cup on television I was captivated. It wasn't so much the game that attracted me as the nationalities at play.

It was like a world fair in action. Each country's team seemed to express its national characteristics.

The stolid efficiency of Germany was at one end of the spectrum and the brilliance of Brazil at the other. In between there was awkward England, dramatic Argentina, cheerful Mexico, and others like Portugal, Croatia, Peru, whose national character I don't know but I reckoned I was watching it.

It was better than the Olympics because all the nationalities were playing the same game. The universality of the game is quite remarkable - unique I think.

It breaks more social and political barriers than possibly anything in the world. North Koreans were allowed to watch this week and reportedly they were supporting South Korea too.

In parts of Somalia controlled by Islamic fundamentalist militia fans were chased away from television sets.

"We don't want our people preoccupied with semi-nude crazy men jumping up and down who are chasing an inflated object," a militia boss told the AP.

Many sports attract an intense following in historically related places - baseball in the United States and Japan, cricket on the Indian subcontinent, league in New South Wales and Queensland, Australian rules in Victoria and South Australia, rugby here.

But "football" as soccer is called everywhere else, colonised far more countries than the British Empire. Cricket, rugby, tennis, golf and many other games were invented in Victorian England but not all have caught on globally like golf, tennis and only one team game.

I wonder why?

France excelled the first time I saw the World Cup on television. They had a pivotal player called Platini who even to my ignorant eye was an artist. He never did much more than give the ball a delicate flick here or there but almost every time he did, the team flared.

I haven't seen anything like it on a soccer field since, but then I haven't watched very much. Between World Cups I haven't been inclined to tune in to it.

Sport is cultural, if a game is not in your blood from an early age it doesn't get there.

And World Cups have not quite lived up to that first one I watched. The national distinctions I once saw aren't apparent any more, a consequence perhaps of the fact that just about everyone who is any good plays in a European league these days.

Including our best. This time last week most of us hadn't heard the name Winston Reid. Denmark seems to have known him better than we did. Ricki Herbert picked him on reputation.

We can be grateful a Maori kid from the north, who took his talent to Europe to develop, heard the call of him when he considered his international prospects.

His goal was as miraculous as anything I've seen in sport. Our team was dying in the second half and Slovakia was probably dozing like me by the last minute of added time.

I wonder what our team's style says about New Zealand to anybody watching in Portugal or Peru? "Gritty", said ESPN, "defended bravely with plenty of guts and pride". That was true.

That was true of the 1982 team too. I had hoped for progress.

Now, just as in 1982, we are reading that soccer is threatening rugby's hold on the New Zealand sporting consciousness. Soccer's genuine enthusiasts must wince whenever they hear this.

As sports people themselves they will know that nothing betrays the shallowness of soccer's following in this country more than the claim it is displacing rugby.

It comes from two sorts of people - those who dislike rugby's cultural influence on this country and those who do not follow sport of any sort except when it is briefly fashionable.

These people flock to bars when the event is on a screen. They are ever-ready to perform like fans for a television camera but no sport would hope to build a committed following from them.

The greatest hope I have seen for soccer in New Zealand was not on television early Wednesday morning but in the streets of Wellington on a Friday evening a few months ago.

As I was heading to the airport, half of Wellington appeared to be walking to the Cake Tin in Phoenix regalia. The team had hit a winning streak and there was hope of a home semi-final.

I'd had a quick beer with our political correspondent John Armstrong. It had to be quick, John was wearing his scarf and taking his son to the match. The team had the town buzzing.

That is how sports build a following, not with a flash in the pan.