Soccer and Globalization

When I read the title of the essay “How Soccer Explain the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization,” by Franklin Foer, I was at first confused about how the author was going to connect soccer with globalization, and after reading the essay I still do not see a solid connection. I really have no idea why Foer would make this kind of connection in the first place, but it was a long shot that I was unable to follow. I understood how he connected the parents enrolling their kids in soccer to build their self-esteem and let them experience the non-win oriented side of sports, but how does that connect to globalization and the workings of the world? It might connect to globalization because for the most part, sports are the same all over the world, which brings people together, but that would have made more sense if the essay focused on all sports instead of just soccer. Soccer is not even called the same thing in Europe as it is in the U.S, so how could that sport connect to globalization? I might have gotten confused when reading the article because I did have to go back and reread several paragraphs, but I really did not see the connection Foer was trying to make in his essay