“Ten years ago the England football team played a friendly in Portugal. Afterwards I shared a taxi with some England fans. We chatted about the game. Then one of them asked: ‘What was the score, then?’ This man must have spent hundreds of pounds coming to Portugal to see the match. It begged the question: why are people football fans? Why will the coming World Cup be the biggest media event in history, measured by the numbers of TV viewers and clicks on websites? Football seems to give people something they can’t get elsewhere.” FT – Simon Kuper