Soccer equals inequalities. Everyone shares the same enthusiasm. Socioeconomic class differences do not matter. And in some cases, like Belgium and Spain, soccer unifies multi-ethnic or multi-national states. What really matter is being the supporter of a winning soccer team and waiting for seeing thier team to make history. During matches, people take to the streets with their flags, singing their national anthems, so they are full of nationalism. Couples stop arguing, politicians forget battles, no worries about the future, because during 90 minutes their coutry becomes the greatest all over the World. Problems can wait another 90 minutes to be solved. The biggest problem of nationalism is forgetting soccer that is just a game and it is a game to help to fell proud of your nation. The ugly face of nationalism come up in this case which is called football hooliganism that is seen in many countries.

This paper will going to argue World Cup that encourages and promotes nationalism and xenophobia.

Nationalism and football are borned togeth

Since the first World Cup championship done in 1930, the 2002 World Cup, was the best in terms of the concept of nationalism. Although England, known as one of the most nationalist country, was very calm in the 2002 World Cup. None could escape from the idea of nationalism and it was difficult to be anti-nationalist during the matches by painting faces, holding flags and singing national anthems. However, being nationalist was not a bad thing in this championship because there were no extreme nationalist people or hooligans as in the past Cups (http://www.observer.co.uk). The difference between the past World Cups and the 2002 one, was that nationalism existed only in people's heart and all countries were together to celebrate any success. Swick (2002) mentioned that, "the world as seen in reflections from the Cups". To give examples, Norwegians found cheering on Senegalese, Americans were taking interest in the match played between Turkey and Costa Rica, Japanese people painted their faces red, white and green to show their interests in the Italian players etc. None could dream those pictures in somewhere else. It was the first time that a World Cup promoted nationalism in a good way (Swick, 2002).

Extreme nationalism and xenophobia started during the Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany. In 30's and 40's soccer played contra the German players was really effected by this

Some common words found in the essay are:
World Cup, Belgium Spain, Irish English, World Cups, Ultras Italy, Cup None, Forza Italia, Hitler's Nazi, Italia Italy, Rica Japanese, world cup, brown 1998, national anthems, nationalism xenophobia, cup championship 1930, extreme nationalism, forza italia, world cups, swick 2002, definition nationalism, 2002 world, world cup championship, extreme nationalism xenophobia, flags singing national, singing national anthems,
Approximate Word count = 932
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)