The White House and European leaders are preoccupied with a very grave matter these days.

What's going on at the World Cup?

Televisions at the the U.S. presidential residence have been tuned to the World Cup, while the British and Swedish prime ministers tried to catch glimpses of the games during a European Union summit Thursday. Of the 32 World Cup teams, 10 are from EU nations.

"The president follows sports," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "And obviously, soccer's more popular in other countries than it is in the United States. But it's got a pretty good constituency."

Bush called the U.S. team on Monday to wish it luck before its first game against the Czech Republic. Even though the United States got beat 3-0, Snow rejected the notion that they were out of contention before Saturday's matchup with Italy.

"Here, wait a minute. Ill-fated American team?" Snow said in a response to a reporter who used the phrase. "They've got a big match against Italy coming up. Come on.

"It ain't over 'til it's over," he said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair watched the last 10 minutes of England's first half against Trinidad and Tobago on Thursday in private room before briefly joining the summit's opening session. His official spokesman said the prime minister left the session for the final 35 minutes of the game, which England won 2-0 to advance to the second round.

Sweden's Goran Persson acknowledged it would be a struggle to concentrate on Thursday's working dinner, which clashed with Sweden's game against Paraguay. Persson planned to keep up with the action.

"Who said that I will attend the dinner?" Persson said coyly, before adding that he would dine with the other leaders, but keep tabs on the game through mobile phone text messages. Sweden beat Paraguay 1-0.

The EU's midyear summits traditionally clash with the World Cup or soccer's European Championship, prompting leaders to slip away from meetings in search of a television screen. Spanish and German leaders have previously skipped summit sessions to follow crucial games. A 2002 summit in Seville, Spain, was delayed for an hour to allow diplomats to watch Spain lose to South Korea in the World Cup.

In 1992, Denmark's then-foreign minister, Uffe Elleman-Jensen, wore a hat and scarf in his country's red-and-white colors to a summit in Lisbon, Portugal, to celebrate Denmark's 2-0 victory over Germany in the European Championship final.