The World's Game (According to Us)

In which we welcome Henry Kissinger back in the U.S. soccer fold.

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"I'll take an L15, hold the water chestnuts. God help you if I find a water chestnut."

On Monday, U.S. Soccer announced that former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had joined the U.S. World Cup bid committee. Kissinger, a lifelong soccer fan, helped organize the 1994 Cup, and his return to the sport has garnered its share of praise. The LA Times, sounding a bit like a jilted lover, proclaimed Kissinger "still more important to U.S. soccer than David Beckham."

But the 85-year-old Kissinger is nothing if not controversial, so some American soccer fans could be excused if they felt the timing of the announcement -- coming just after the U.S. national team failed to beat heavy underdog El Salvador in a World Cup qualifier -- was as inauspicious as Kissinger's 1973 Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for brokering a truce in Vietnam while the war raged on.

Optimists disagree. Winning in places like El Salvador is tough, they say. After all, in El Salvador a World Cup qualifier once erupted into an actual war -- the so-called "Football War" with Honduras (Kissinger, incidentally, was National Security Adviser at the time). In those environs, the U.S. showed real resolve by coming back from a 2–0 deficit and earning the draw. What's more, the team's offensive struggles on the field -- Sacha Kljestan and Michael Bradley were about as lethal as a couple of Amish farmers -- could only be helped by an experienced diplomat with the strong carpet-bomber attitude of Kissinger.

We're just joking, of course. Kissinger isn't supposed to help the team; he's just trying to bring the World Cup back to the U.S. in 2018 or 2022 (when he'll be 99 years old). And soccer, the Football War aside, isn't really a major part of our international relations.

That being said, when a slate of World Cup qualifiers is played, there are always one or two games that seem to have been planned, if not by the U.N., then by a group of reality show producers eager to stage high international drama.

Today's match between North and South Korea, for example, could have been brought to you by the folks who force the conservative Christian cowboy and the flamboyantly gay Puerto Rican to room together. The two Koreas never get along well, but the situation now is particularly tense. In a few days, North Korea is scheduled to launch a "satellite" that many South Koreans think is the precursor to a nuclear missile. On top of that, the two countries are in first and second place in their World Cup qualifying group. A spot in South Africa is on the line. Now that's drama.

Meanwhile, the U.S. will play Trinidad & Tobago in Nashville. There's not all that much rancor between the former British colony and the big neighbor to the north. But U.S. fans hope that won't mean a policy of peaceful detente. Instead, they'd like something that always eluded Kissinger -- swift and decisive victory.

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