What does this South American World Cup teach us?

The Uruguayan polemicist and football fanatic Eduardo Galeano once wrote: "Tell me how you play, and I will tell you who you are."

So now as the World Cup, in the country made for football and made by football, draws to a close it is worth asking what this World Cup has told us about football and about us. That such a question can be raised about what is essentially 22 men in shorts kicking a ball around shows us how football is seen in Latin America. It is a game all of the continent embraces including its leading literary figures, apart that is from the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges who wrote, "Football is popular because stupidity is popular". But he was the great exception and why and how football has such a place in Latin America is the theme of Golazo written by Andreas Campomar and subtitled A History of Latin American Football.