They Call It The World's Game, But For One Month This Summer, It's the Game's World

The World Cup is here. Speed and grace. Skill and stamina. Passion, patriotism and pride. Soccer is a many-splendored thing. But it brings an entourage: racism and elitism, jingoism and hooliganism. The game is big, and it's complicated, and it's full of brilliance and stupidityand that's why it so often reflects the world we live in. "Football is the closest game to the people," says French superstar Thierry Henry. "Whatever you have in society, bad or good, you will have in football." Which is why the sport, and the athletes who'll compete in Germany this summer, can be so compelling. For one month, it is their world. Here's how they see it.

THE POWER OF ONE
He is one of the world's greatest players, a midfielder who deftly distributes the ball but still scores goals in bunches. Come June, he'll be more than that. Michael Ballack will be a symbol: the dashing, noble embodiment of the modern, unified Germany. Raised in the notorious communist East German sports system through his early teens, the boy from Karl Marx Stadt (now called Chemnitz) grew up to become a wealthy capitalist superstar, playing for Bayern Munich. Now 29 and recently signed by Chelsea, he'll be called on to help close a chapter in the history books, to show that East and West, communist and capitalist, are truly one. Germany will show off state-of-the-art stadiums, cosmopolitan cities and a new chancellor, Angela Merkel, who began her political career in the East.

Mostly, though, the country will show off Ballack. Germany has been united since 1990 and, as Ballack says, "just like many other players of my generation, I now represent that." He dutifully answers questions about his background, defending the communist sports system and saying he hasn't forgotten where he comes from. But tensions remain between the struggling East and the wealthier West, and a victory might help ease them. "We are one Germany," Ballack says. "I don't like talking about East and West."

MAKING PEACE
Kolo Toure, a fearsome defender for Arsenal, also plays for the Ivory Coast, a west African nation known mostly for a brutal civil war. North and South have clashed on and off since 2002, in part over who is a "true" Ivorian. But Toure and his teammates have changed the subject. The Elephants, as they are known, have been able to forget political, regional and religious differences, and Toure believes they have given the country hope. "When we are in the national team, we are all from the North and all from the South," he says. "That can bring everybody together, to show that we can achieve something together."

Soccer may be a thin reed on which to hang hope, but in a region beset by unrest, it's better than nothing. George Weah, a Liberian soccer star, galvanized tens of thousands of people by running for president last year. Though he lost in a runoff election, the peaceful transition of power was a tonic for a nation that has lived through more than a decade of civil war. South Africa plays host to the World Cup in 2010 and hopes to use the event not only to showcase its own postapartheid unity but to celebrate the whole continent.

Sometimes the game's sheer popularity can be harnessed for good. That is Toure's hope. His team's unity, he says, "is important to give an example to the politicians as well."

CAUTIOUS REVOLUTIONARY
You could forgive Ukrainian star Andriy Shevchenko for being wary of politicians. He trained as a teen in Kiev while his nation tried to recover from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and in 2004, both sides in his homeland's bitter political dispute claimed the AC Milan star for themselves. His national team coach and his old Kiev club were with the hard-liners in the contested election, and he initially gave a statement of support for them, while family and friends marched in the streets with the Orange Revolutionaries. Still, despite the conflict, and despite his cosmopolitan lifestyleplaying in Italy and raising a family with American model Kristen Pazik-Shevchenko managed to remain a man of the people.

"It was truly a people's revolution," he says. "Finally, they could say what they felt, express their opinions. It was a great victory for all of the people against the system. The protests forced the country to throw out the results of a corrupted election and let the people vote again."

Shevchenko now endorses no candidate, for reasons he says are simple: "Changes will take generations, which is why I welcomed this revolution but not the politicians' promises to change things. Generations of people have to change to reach a free attitude."

SOUNDING THE ALARM
The greatest goal-scorer in the world is as handsomely paid as he is handsome, as popular as he is talented. He could have lived out his life in the elite athlete's bubble, depositing balls in the net for Arsenal, winning his share of games for France and keeping his mouth shut about the ugliness he saw in stadiums across Europe: fans spitting on black players, grunting like apes, singing offensive songs and throwing bananas from the stands.

But Thierry Henry couldn't stay silent. He started speaking out against racism in soccer because ¼ well, somebody had to. "I think the authorities aren't dealing with it, and some other people don't want to talk about it," he says. "So many people closed their eyes. They closed their eyes and it became a normality."

Henry's year-old campaign has enlisted fellow superstars of all colors and garnered huge publicity-as well as mixed results. "It is still happening," he says. "You can start a campaign against people stealing from banks, but if the police don't act against them, if the thief knows he has a way out, he will always steal. The police are FIFA and UEFA."

For its part, FIFA, soccer's world governing body, has at least acknowledged hearing Henry. The World Cup will show whether his message has sunk in. New rules are in place to penalize players and officials who engage in racist behavior on the pitch. Even stricter rules against club-team fans could lead to demotions in league standings and expulsion from international tournaments. It's a start, Henry says. But he won't be satisfied until racism in soccer is finished.

BUGS IN THE SYSTEM
Let's face it, for all the Shevchenkos and Toures and Henrys, the beautiful game can be awful. Soccer hooligans still exist, and they have been responsible for more than a few random acts of violence. The notorious Serbian war criminal Arkan, who led the slaughter of thousands of Bosnian and Croatian civilians during the Yugoslav civil war, built up much of his militia with supporters of the Red Star Belgrade soccer club in the early 1990s, according to Franklin Foer's book How Soccer Explains the World.

This World Cup's biggest political sideshow could be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Islamist president of Iran has said that he would like to show his support of the national team by coming to Germany, which raises the possibility of the following scenario: At Iran's opener against Mexico in Nuremberg, the site of the Nazi war crimes trials after World War II, Ahmadinejad could repeat his denial that the Holocaust happened-which might get him thrown in jail, since Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany.

But Ahmadinejad's public fandom has a flip side. For two decades, the Iranian people have drawn a line in the pitch against ruling mullahs who tried to ban the game. The people wouldn't stand for it, forcing the hard-liners not only to accept soccer but to finally allow women to play and watch. And for all of Ahmadinejad's bluster, no Iranians will be tuning in to the Cup to hear his tough talk. They'll be watching to see if their beloved veteran striker, Ali Daei, can lead their team out of one of the tournament's toughest groups.

BRITISH INVASION
Even as fans across the pond denounce U.S. ownership of Manchester United (Tampa Bay Bucs boss Malcolm Glazer took over the club last year, to the delight of U.K. effigy craftsmen), English soccer's international pinup boy is making it his mission to educate the damn Yankees. "I think that I've never actually said I want to conquer America," says David Beckham. "I just want to be part of a country that is so passionate for sports." So he's starting a sports academy in Los Angeles, to continue America's lessons in bending it. "That will be my life: the academy's UNICEF ambassador."

Beckham is taking soccer Hollywood, and why not? He has connections to the music biz (remember Posh?), inspired a movie and knows his way around a checkbook and a magazine shoot. There's no better way to tame Americans. Okay, maybe one. "America, for me, behind England, is one of the most passionate countries," he says. "You walk down the street, and people have got the Stars and Stripes on all the houses. It's an incredible thing to see, so I'd like to be part of that."

Soccer and Old Glory. Seems a little strange, but maybe Becks is onto something. The organizers of the recent, massive, mostly Latino, proimmigration protests in American cities provided marchers with plenty of U.S. flags. And to guarantee a big turnout for the events, they made sure of something else. They called the local soccer leagues.

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