Specifically, the World Cup is a tournament that takes place only once every four years; winning it is the dream of probably 60 percent of the male children on Earth. This year, that dream will come true for 23 players, a coach, and various support staff. What I'm getting at is that winning the World Cup is a rare, highly sought after achievement.

Add to that the fact that soccer is the cruelest, yet the most beautiful, sport. A simple mistake by one player can result in a goal for the opposition and a single goal can decide a match. So too, a single act of brilliance can win a game.

Another element that plays into the tournament is that it is the biggest opportunity that many of these players will have to be discovered by a club in one of the world's best leagues, sign a big contract, and begin living the kind of life that Americans associate with baseball, basketball, and football stars.

So, what happens when you throw all of that into the mix? Lots of different things, but one thing that happens frequently is that teams play incredibly conservative soccer. They think defensively, don't commit a lot of players to the attack, and as a result the game can get bogged down in midfield. This is the kind of thing that keeps novice American fans away from the sport when they tune in to watch one game "to see what this World Cup thing is all about."

As a neutral fan simply interested in a good game, your best hope is that somebody scores a goal in the first 20 minutes of the game. That is usually enough to open it up and create an entertaining game.

There are teams that are more or less immune to the "defend first" mindset. Brazil will always attack. You'll usually get an attacking game out of the Netherlands, Argentina, France, and England. South Korea and the U.S. will usually try to impose their game on the other team but not always. (The U.S. tends to be fairly crafty about devising a strategy for each opponent so they're fairly unpredictable at this point.

The worst team for a neophyte fan is Italy. Italy is known paradoxically for having incredibly talented attacking players yet playing extremely defensively, as though they knew that every game they play would finish 1-0. Italy has their admirers but, to my knowledge, they are far outnumbered by those who feel that Italy habitually commits crimes against the sport.

This is a much longer answer than you probably expected so I'll end by offering up a list of games that should be worth watching, for one reason or another.

June 9, Germany vs. Costa Rica--The World Cup opening ceremonies are usually pretty entertaining, although they are also rarely aired by English-language American broadcasters. Try Univision for the opening ceremonies and ESPN (or espn2 or ABC, whoever is broadcasting it) for the game itself. Germany doesn't have as good a team as usual but the hosts are usually worth watching because of the colorful presence of their fans.

June 10, Argentina vs. Ivory Coast--Argentina, as mentioned before, can play the game and the Ivory Coast has some players who are capable of amazing things. Disorganization is the typical bugaboo of the African teams but they're getting better at that part of the game all the time.

June 11, Serbia and Montenegro vs. Holland--It's hardly fair that the Netherlands have to play against two countries, but they're talented enough to pull it off. Angola/Portugal might be interesting too, if only for the karmic payback that a match pitting a country against their former colonial overseers.

June 12, USA vs. Czech Republic--What else would I be watching? Australia/Japan should be interesting, too. They're both soccer nations on the rise with a lot to prove, plus they're in a group with Brazil, so they're going to be playing all out to get some points from this match.

June 13, Brazil vs. Croatia--There's a reason that fans around the world will sing, "It's just like watching Brazil" when their team is doing well. The other two games today should be good as well--South Korea is relentless and France can be spectacular. There's a danger that Switzerland will be playing for a tie, though.

June 14, Spain vs. Ukraine—Spain is well known for World Cup underachievement; Ukraine has made it to the finals for the first time ever. The historically inclined may also be interested in Germany/Poland.

June 15, England vs. Trinidad and Tobago--T&T would like nothing better to get a result against England. For their part, England will want to get the Cup off to a strong start so they can keep their confidence high. England has kind of a fragile ego when it comes to soccer—they idolize their heroes to amazing heights but pillory their goats. If they suffer a loss here, they could succumb to infighting or worse, although they'd really have to blow another game to really come apart.

June 16, Holland vs. Ivory Coast or Argentina vs. Serbia & Montenegro—This is the toughest group in the tournament this year and after the first match, it's likely that at least one of these teams will be desperate for points.

June 17, USA vs. Italy—This is the key match in Group E. Is the U.S. a genuine up-and-comer or will Italy show that the new world soccer order is the same as the old one? Tonight we find out.

June 18, Brazil vs. Australia, although France/S. Korea might not be a bad choice, either.

June 19—none of these hold much interest unless either Ukraine, Spain, or Switzerland lose their first match.

June 20-23—The last games of the group stage are played on these days. The results of the previous matches will determine if there's any importance to these matches or not, so look for the matches where teams still have a chance to go through to the next round. The best match on paper here is Holland/Argentina, but that's only true if they both haven't qualified for the knockout round after their first two matches. England/Sweden also has great potential, as does Mexico/Portugal.

June 24-July 9—Only the truly hard core watch the third-place match (between the two losers in the semifinals) but everything else here should be worth watching since the winners advance and the losers go home. The final, played on July 9, may or may not turn out to be a great match, but it's always worth watching.