How World Cup Losers Explain the World

Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 06.19.06 | 11:11 AM ET

Serbia & Montenegro, Paraguay and Ivory Coast are already eliminated from the World Cup in Germany, and if Michael J. Agovino is right, the players will soon forget their losses. It may be a different story for the teams’ fans. In a piece for the New York Times this weekend, Agovino explores how losses in soccer’s biggest event, particularly upsets and losses to longtime rivals, can affect the way a country’s citizens feel about themselves and the way a nation presents itself to the world. He writes: “Famous upsets in sports abound ... but it is still soccer, by far the most popular sport, whose results are so entangled with a nation’s history and sense of identity.”