Soccer: Even rugby legends cheering

All Whites celebrate on their way to South Africa. Photo / Getty Images

For once the All Blacks are unlikely to lead the sporting news in June.

Next month the All Whites play on sport's biggest stage, the Football World Cup.

On average a hundred million viewers will appraise our game, but back home rugby stalwarts - numbering much of the New Zealand population - are scratching their heads over a sport they don't quite understand.

Grizzled former All Black coach Laurie Mains says: "I'm not a great follower of soccer, I must confess".

He gives the code, and the All Whites' qualification for the Cup, some grudging respect. But he can't stomach some of the more theatrical elements of The Beautiful Game.

Players claiming injury and the ripping of shirts and wild gesticulations after scoring particularly get his goat.

"One aspect I'd like to see changed are the Hollywoods - they're appalling. And some of the goal celebrations are a bit over the top," he says.

Sam Buckle, a lobbyist for the shipping industry, moonlights as a football booster for the Wellington-based Yellow Fever. He says Mains' attitude is part of what he calls "remarkably polarised" attitudes to football in this country.

"We've got hundreds of thousands who play the game or have kids who play the game, and then there's a large group who've never been exposed to it," he says.

Even use of the term "soccer" - a 19th Century bastardised abbreviation of "association" - has gained currency only in the few countries where the round ball is not dominant. Across all of South America, Europe and Africa, there is only one form of football. Only the United States, Canada, Australia - and New Zealand - call it "soccer".

Steve Jackson, a Canadian-born sports sociologist who has lived in New Zealand for 18 years, says his adopted country is "strange" to have such a limited understanding of a global sport. "I think we know what most rugby players think about soccer - it's less than a man's game."

Otago University's Professor Jackson is a personal fan of ice hockey, but says nothing - especially rugby - will ever match football's dominance.

"It's going to be hard in the long term for anything to match football. Historically the beautiful game was simple, and available. It's inexpensive - all you require is a ball, and you can play almost anywhere. That's what's made it international," he says.

Eleven-a-side, a ball, a field and a goal - but this simple explanation can't quite capture what the sport means for its fans around the world.

English novelist John Boynton Priestley put it best when he wrote in 1929: "To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink."

And football can be a matter of life and death. Columbian player Andrés Escobar was murdered soon after his team returned home disgraced after losing to the United States in 1994. Escobar had the misfortune to score an own-goal in what turned out to be his final match.

And while New Zealand rugby fans can express dissatisfaction with match officials - such as the vitriol directed towards Wayne Barnes in 2007 - nothing quite matches the fury of football. After being controversially dumped from the 2002 World Cup by hosts South Korea, Italian fans sent approximately 400,000 emails of complaint to football authorities.

Clearly, with regards to football and New Zealand there's much to learn and teach.

Sir Colin "Pinetree" Meads says he'll be watching the football next month despite not quite understanding all the rules.

The event is, he says, "terribly important", and there's a national obligation to support the All Whites.

Jackson says that something tribal will draw even reluctant Kiwi football-watchers to pubs and television screens. "If it's New Zealand competing, they'd all be cheering."

Teams to watch

Spain

A perennial under-achiever with spectacular players at club level who fail to fire with the national team. Known in Spain as La Furia Roja - the red fury - after winning the 2008 European Championship, this team finally has form on their side. They've only lost one of the last 40 matches and are the shortest odds, $5.50, at the TAB.

Brazil

The All Blacks of world football: Skilful, adventurous, aggressive and wildly popular. Their best players - Kaka, Lucio - are known by only one name, thesignof the truly great. Ranked the world's best, Brazil's fans will Samba their way through the tournament.

Germany

Like their cars, their football team is dour, reliable and very efficient. Gary Lineker, former England striker, says: "Soccer is a game for 22 people that run around, play the ball, and one referee who makes a slew of mistakes, and in the end Germany always wins."

Argentina

Wild cards possessing the world's best player in Lionel Messi and the world's most bizarre manager in Maradona.

Maradona scored two goals against England in the 1986 World Cup: The first, known as "the hand of God," saw him propel the ball into the net with his fist; the second, a weaving run past six English players, is known as "the goal of the century". His playing days were blighted by drug use and his time since retirement has been used to hang with Fidel Castro. This week he threatened to run nude through the streets if he wins the tournament. This World Cupmay show Maradona to be a mad naked genius, but is more likely to reveal just a madman.