Whether or not soccer is destined to become a genuinely popular sport in the United States, as opposed to an ingenious way to exhaust children, it is already a flourishing academic pursuit. Because of its transnational, multi-racial nature, its mix of beauty, bigotry, hooliganism, and rapacious economics, its ties to controversial politicians (Silvio Berlusconi owns A.C. Milan) and billionaires (the Russian oil magnate Roman Abramovich presides over Chelsea), not to mention its frenzied looting of young talent in the poorest streets and alleys of the world, almost every aspect of the game is ripe for cerebral theorizing and noodling.