The World Cup. The Liberal Arts. A Forum.

Even after December 18, the World Cup will be everywhere, on almost every screen, phone and radio. People will be talking. People will be playing. Many will be disappointed. A lucky few will not.

Football/soccer has followed in the tracks of British commercial expansion, taking an elite recreational pastime into an intensely commodified and commercialized form of sport, play and spectatorship. People across the planet have taken the game and the rules and made it reflect their styles, their communities and their societies. Maybe. It is one of the few spaces where everyone can talk openly about the beauty of other men’s movements. Sometimes.

Managed by one of the most profitable non-profits around, FIFA hosts a recreational spectacle that links deeply skilled and relatively young workers, multi-million dollar investments, nationalist fan bases, hidden in plain sight exploitation, and a game prone to upsets, humiliations and 0-0 ties. El Jogo Bonito is something worth talking about, thinking about and sharing.  Come talk football/futbol with us.