World Cup team support depends on winning record - and sexiness

Break out the beer and fire up the grill. The World Cup is upon us again. After four years of waiting, you have a perfectly good excuse to wake your neighbors at three in the morning with boisterous cheers of delight ... your favored team has scored a goal. Come morning, you can stumble into work red-eyed and delusional, still blabbering nonsense about how many bad calls the referee made. No rebuke, only nods of agreement. Undoubtedly there are many upsides for it being World Cup time again.

Everywhere you look in Beijing, the Chinese are catching World Cup fever. The hype and level of excitement is surprising to me, especially since the Chinese national team is not taking part in this World Cup. But maybe it shouldn't be surprising, given the fact a large portion of the Chinese public openly mocks the misadventures of its national side that has made it to only one World Cup.

Some even go as far as referring to them as the "national pigs".