Pro Rege Papers

Since World Cup starts tomorrow, I thought I extrapolate the benefits of soccer in this blog.

For those of you who don’t know everything, the FIFA World Cup is the quadrennial international soccer competition that is taking place in Germany this year. Most people don’t know that the largest and most attended sport event in the world is not the Olympics, but the World Cup. Nations from all over the globe come to the World Cup to show off their skill in a huge tournament. It is the most highly competitive sport gathering on the face of the planet. Two countries, Honduras and El Salvador went to war against each other because of suspicious call at a soccer game.

“Soccer” is the American word for what everybody else calls “football.” Football is the international sport. Most of the other countries are deeply immersed in soccer.

Take the example of Britain. The BBC is broadcasting every one of the games live on TV and the radio. They’re putting wide screens on trucks and driving them around the country. They’re going to put clips in the movie theaters. Brazilians are decorating the streets of Rio de Janeiro with green and yellow, the team colors.

Soccer is fairly unpredictable. There is no country that wins it over, and over, and over again. Brazil, with 5 championship wins, is the only country that has come close to having a football reign of glory. The main competitors this year are from South America, Europe, and West Africa, with the exception of USA and South Korea, both of whom are getting a whole lot better.

Soccer in the United States is on its way to the forefront, though still largely unpopular. This change is partly a result of the MNT (Men’s National Team) becoming a lot better on the international stage. We are now ranked 5^th in the world in terms of goals scored.

Many people have the impression that soccer is a little cute game for s and mobs of kids that run from one side of the field to the other. The saying is “Soccer Moms” and “Nascar Dads.” They think if you can kick a ball, you know everything there is to know about soccer.

That’s a long shot away from the truth. There is a whole lot more to soccer than kicking a ball and running. Just watch some of the amazing plays on www.fifa.com, and you’ll see what I mean.

I hope you’ll take some time in the coming weeks to watch some of the games.

Here’s another positive news story coming out of Iraq:

ABU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI IS DEAD!

At 6:15 PM yesterday night, two F-16’s took off on a mission to a town north of Baghdad. They were guided there by many different intelligence sources including prisoner and tipster info. The sources said that Zarqawi was at a house there following his “spiritual advisor.” Bad move. The fighters reached the target and destroyed it with two 500-pound bombs. Iraqi troops moved in and discovered Al-Zarqawi in the rubble.

Al-Zarqawi was one of the most infamous terrorists in the Middle East. He was the director of Al-Qaeda operations in Iraq, and an avid hater of the West. His “elimination” (in the words of Iraq’s prime minister) will be a blow to the terrorists there, but not necessarily a fatal one. However it is symbolic of our increasingly successful effort to quell the insurgency there.