Phillyist is well aware that even though Philadelphia sports fans are the most passionate in this country, they tend to also be quite parochial. But next week, the single most important sporting event on the PLANET, the soccer World Cup, kicks off in Germany.

Now Phillyist has long been passionate about soccer, even though it has to look hard to find places to indulge its love for the beautiful game. This year, though, it seems like things are changing. We've seen more soccer news than usual on ESPN (though, sadly, not enough in the Inquirer and Daily News), and all 64 games in the tournament will be broadcast live in high definition on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC.

Heck, even WIP hosts Anthony Gargano and Steve Martorano spent Tuesday afternoon discussing the World Cup, recruiting listeners to be "correspondents" to cover the 32 teams involved and planning which bars to watch the games at. This might be the most shocking thing we've ever heard on WIP. Seriously.

Phillyist feels wonderfully liberated that soccer is sweeping the nation... or at least our fair city. So today we kick off our guide to the World Cup: who's involved, where to watch it, and how to make yourself sound like you've known about soccer all your life. We begin by detailing the best reading material to take up your time with between now and kickoff of the first game -- Germany vs. Costa Rica at noon on June 9.

Books about soccer are sort of like books about baseball, in that the sport inspires lots of prosaic writing. But unlike baseball books, soccer books aren't so easy to find in the U.S. There are, however two good books to start off your newfound soccer fandom with that you can easily find at Borders, Barnes and Noble or on Amazon.com.

The first is The World Cup: The Ultimate Guide to the Greatest Sports Spectacle in the World by Fernando Fiore. Fiore is the host of Univision's Republica Deportiva show on Sunday mornings, a widely popular two-hour show that deals with all kinds of sports from a Hispanic angle. Even Phillyist watches it, despite the fact that our Spanish is not so great.

The book is divided into three parts. First is a history of the World Cup, going back to its founding in 1930, told through a series of short and witty anecdotes. The more recent Cups include Fiore's own experiences, from watching as a kid to broadcasting the 2002 World Cup live from South Korea and Japan. The second part includes details on all of the teams in this year's tournament, including rosters, schedules, who the stars are now and who the stars might be when the World Cup is over. The final part is a tour of the 12 host cities and stadiums, many of which are real masterpieces of modern architecture.

The second introductory book is Soccer in Sun and Shadow by Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, which is this Phillyist's favorite soccer book of all time. It is also full of personal anecdotes about the history of the World Cup. The difference is that Galeano's book came first, originally published in 1998, and has since been updated to include the 2002 World Cup. Galeano's book is also more famous, and Phillyist suspects that even Fiore would admit that Soccer in Sun and Shadow set the standard for the style of writing that Fiore used. Soccer in Sun and Shadow was originally written in Spanish, but its translation by Galeano's good friend Mark Fried retains the fluid, almost lyrical nature of Galeano's writing.

Finally, if you want to learn a little about how soccer influences global politics, check out How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer, an editor with the New Republic. The lucky b*stard author spent a year traveling all over the world and documented how traditions and rivalries within the game can be related to globalization theory. And yes, the title of this post is taken from Foer's book.

In our next post, Phillyist meets the soccer press.

Image Credit: Ben Radford/Reuters