Football is the game the world plays, a sport so easy to understand and simple to play and yet so hard to perfect.
That, says soccer's ruling body, Fifa, is why every four years the world holds its breath as teams from around the planet strive to win the World Cup.
One in four people across the globe will watch the World Cup kicking off on Friday in South Korea and Japan. For a month, 32 countries will vie to score more goals than their opponents.
This easily grasped but hard to master sport is now played by more than 200 million people, and the cup is the second most watched sports event after the Olympic Games.
The quest for goals has brought together people of all classes and backgrounds, as football transcends racial, religious, cultural and economic boundaries.
English and German soldiers put down their weapons in World War I to play football together in no-man's land at Christmas 1914. Fighting stopped in Lebanon's civil war during the 1990 World Cup in Italy as rival gunmen laid aside their arms to watch the matches on television.
In New Zealand, rugby's supremacy was challenged in 1982 when the All Whites made it through the qualifiers to Spain. That was the first and only New Zealand team to attend a World Cup, but their legacy is the ever increasing number of children turning out on the nation's pitches to kick a round ball.
Football thrives in poverty. Some of the most famous players, among them Pele, Diego Maradona and Zinedine Zidane, emerged from some of the poorest parts of Brazil, Argentina and France.
Although games resembling football have been played for centuries, going back to Greek and Roman times, the modern sport was born in Britain in the latter half of the 19th century.
The Football Association in London drew up a set of rules in 1863 before spreading the game. With the rural population moving into the cities during the Industrial Revolution, people needed entertainment and football was there to provide it.
Britain as an imperial power spread the game throughout Europe and to South America, the two continents that have dominated the World Cup.
Fifa was formed in 1904 and there are now 205 countries affiliated to the ruling body.
The World Cup is taking place in Asia for the first time amid unprecedented security.
Along with the usual threat of hooliganism, which South Korea and Japan are set to stamp out with mass policing and sweeping powers of detention, is the more sinister spectre of global terrorism.
CIA and FBI agents are joining local security forces and tens of thousands of soldiers and police on high alert.
Surface-to-air missiles and fighter planes will be on standby to ensure the tightest security ever at a major sporting event.
Among the teams to play in bomb-swept, well-guarded, state-of-the-art stadiums will be Brazil, Germany and Italy, the most successful countries in the tournament's history.
Brazil have appeared in each of the 16 World Cups since the first in Uruguay in 1930, lifting the coveted trophy four times, the last time in 1994.
Germany and Italy have won the cup three times each and Uruguay and Argentina twice.
England and France are the only other successful nations.
Holders France are hoping to become only the third nation to make it two in a row, following in the footsteps of Brazil and Italy.
But winning the tournament is not the only thing that matters. For the lesser nations, taking part is just as important.
As Senegal, China, Ecuador and Slovenia prepare to make their debut in the world's biggest sporting event, the beautiful game again takes centre stage.
Hosts South Korea and Japan do not want to be the only host nations not to make it through the early rounds.
The Koreans were buoyed last week after holding England to a 1-1 draw in a warm-up friendly.
But they have a half-century habit to break. In 16 previous matches in the finals dating back to their first appearance in 1954, they have never won a game.
For the game's leading players, their one declared ambition is to return home with the most illustrious soccer trophy they can win.
But even if they do not attain that holy grail, performing at the World Cup finals gives players the most exposure they can hope for in their careers and can increase their worth substantially.
The tournament, which in 1998 reached a global television audience of more than 33 billion, is the biggest shop window for transfers in the soccer industry.
"The World Cup is always the biggest stage you can be on as a football player," says England coach Sven Goran Eriksson.
"And if you do well there, the world is open for you."
Zidane became the world's most expensive player when he joined Real Madrid for US$64.4 million ($138 million) from Juventus last year, after his inspirational midfield performances in France's 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 triumphs.
He took the mantle from team-mate Luis Figo, last year's world player of the year, who led Portugal to the semifinals of Euro 2000.
Real bought Figo from Barcelona after the championship for a then record US$56 million ($119 million).
But this week, the World Cup supermarket opens for business under the cloud of an economic crisis in the soccer industry.
It is unlikely that the tournament's leading lights this time around will be able to command such big prices as Zidane or Figo.
After the boom years of European leagues being fed by lucrative television income, fuelling higher transfer deals and player wages, clubs now face an uncertain future as the media money dries up.
However, the rewards are still attractive enough.
England have the best reported monetary incentive, with players offered up to £200,000 ($620,000) each in bonuses if they win the cup.
German players will also be compensated if they are successful, receiving $177,000 in addition to what they have already earned for helping the team to qualify for the finals.
Team members will be rewarded $40,000 just for reaching the second round.
In Italy, a group of players led by skipper Paolo Maldini negotiated a respectable bonus of $329,000 a head if the "Azzurri" take home the cup.
The players will get a slightly lower, undisclosed amount for second place.
Co-hosts South Korea plan to pay their Dutch coach Guus Hiddink an astonishing $2.13 million in the unlikely event the team win.
But over and above the financial incentive, World Cups have historically been about the making of new stars.
The romance of a nobody becoming somebody has always captured the public's imagination.
Paul Gascoigne became a household name after his tearful performance for England in the semifinals of Italia 90, which almost single-handedly changed the image of English soccer, until then too often associated with hooliganism.
For Bobby Robson, then England manager, taking Gascoigne, 23, to Italy was a gamble because he had won only two England caps.
His skill on the pitch in the lead-up to the semifinal against West Germany and his tears, when shown a yellow card that would have meant him missing the final had England reached it, brought him worldwide fame.
His value in the months following the finals, when his sublime form played a big role in Tottenham Hotspur winning the 1991 FA Cup, soared to more than £7 million ($21.7 million), more than double what Spurs paid for him in July 1988.
He was eventually sold to Lazio for £5.5 million ($17.11 million) in 1992 after a year out injured.
For Joe Cole, Eriksson's wildcard entry in the England squad, this year's tournament could put a high price on his head.
Like Gascoigne before him, the West Ham United midfielder, 20, who has come on as a substitute for each of his four caps, has shown flashes of genius that could change a game and the tournament could be a turning point in his young career.
"He is something special," Eriksson said of Cole.
"He can change a game whether he starts or comes on as a sub, and in a squad of 23 you have to include players like him."
Every team's coach hopes to have the wildcard player, the star of tomorrow set to alight on the world stage.
- REUTERS
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Football is the game the world plays, a sport so easy to understand and simple to play and yet so hard to perfect.
That, says soccer's ruling body, Fifa, is why every four years the world holds its breath as teams from around the planet strive to win the World Cup.
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