For most of those interested in it, the World Cup exists on two levels. First, there is the intense partisan connection that all supporters feel for their own national team -- some of the deepest and occasionally darkest feelings known to man. Then there is the wider interest in the game -- a more generous and objective love of the skills and stories generated by the competition, such as Germany’s remarkable ability to destroy teams on the break, Diego Forlan’s incredible shooting accuracy, Maradona’s touchy- feely management style, and, of course, Paul the Octopus.

Typically the earlier stages of World Cups are experienced mainly on the first level, while in the latter stages -- after most of the teams have been knocked out -- supporters tend to broaden their appreciation and enjoy the game in a more general sense.

In my case, as the supporter of a country (Scotland) that failed even to qualify for the World Cup finals, my interest has been on the second level, except for a passing interest in seeing my country’s traditional rival (England) knocked out -- an aspiration that has thankfully come to pass.

This division of appreciation onto two levels falls in quite well with the main dichotomy identified in Gaming the World, a study of the globalization of sport by Andrei S. Markovits and Lars Rensmann. This dichotomy makes a sharp distinction between the cosmopolitan and tribal/nationalistic aspects of the game, two poles, which the two U.S.-based academics treat with a surprising lack of emotional detachment. In what often appear stark dualistic terms, Markovits and Rensmann treat cosmopolitanism as the unquestioned good; tribalism/nationalism as its evil opposite.

Looked at in these terms, the early stages of the World Cup, characterized by the extreme devotion and bias of fans, is the “dark side” of the game, although it is these very emotions that actually power the entire sporting eco-system.

Markovits and Rensmann’s focus however is not really on the World Cup and the way it is run by FIFA, one of the biggest, richest, and -- according to Andrew Jennings’s book Foul -- one of the most corrupt NPOs on the planet. Rather Gaming the World focuses on the day-to-day incarnation of sport at the club level.

Soccer -- fútbol, Fußball, futebol, football -- is the world’s most popular sport, and literally hundreds of millions of people are now watching the 2010 World Cup. The championship has also attracted the interest of many non-sports fans since it’s being held in South Africa and marks the first ever World Cup held on the African continent.

The media coverage of the event -- at least the American coverage on ABC and ESPN --monotonously details the alleged evils of apartheid and the glories of the Soweto riots.  Various segments between matches portray Nelson Mandela as little short of a god and faithfully follow Hollywood’s White Devils/Black Angels script. Needless to say, there is no discussion of ANC terrorism or the murders of over 4,000 white farmers since the end of apartheid.

Race is also on display on the pitch and for all the talk of diversity, multiculturalism, and a global community, most of the 32 teams in the field feature racially exclusive teams.

I must note that whiteness is relative.  Many “whites” in Italy or Spain would get classified as “ambiguous” in Sweden or Poland.

What must the Russian team think playing France?  They have the dubious distinction of having the first white minority soccer team in Europe.  The website Le Projet Juif chronicles the decline

Where can I hide until they think it’s all over? There must be somewhere where I can be sheltered from the shouting, insulated from inarticulate punditry, blissfully unaware of other people’s metatarsals and the progress of a leather sphere moving between 22 men about whom I know nothing and care rather less. But even if I decide, Trappistically, not to look at TV, listen to radio, surf the web, or open a newspaper between now and whenever the pestiferous thing limps to its inevitably inglorious end, sadly I will be unable entirely to ignore the World Cup.

The year-round football season is bad enough, with its 24/7 coverage of some of the world’s least interesting and least attractive people (and their harridan WAGs) interfering with important matters. But whenever World Cups come round (and the gaps between them feel like they’re getting shorter), most of the few remaining outposts of rationality succumb straightaway to footie frenzy -- gossiping, groaning, marveling, moaning, diagnosing and deciding how some Italian bloke should deploy 11 other blokes on a soccer pitch thousands of miles away, as if it mattered.

England is suddenly abloom with men, too often shirtless, who feel constrained to brandish Chinese-made St. George’s flags (the only kind of “patriotism” these helots are permitted) while they glug Danish lager and periodically arise from Chinese-made, popcorn-plastered DFS sofas to do Mexican waves -- that is, when they are not apostrophizing the blind ref, or the mistakes of Rooney or Ferdinand or somebody else who has spent much of his life musing on his metatarsals and endeavoring to remember the salient fact that he is engaged in a game of two halves.