Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life, by Alex Bellos <br></br>Japanese Rules, by Sebastian Moffett

World Cups illuminate global culture. David Goldblatt examines the role of soccer in its heartland - and on alien turf

Is there any cultural practice more widespread than football? No world religion can match its spread. The English language and the vocabulary of mathematics must run it close, but each remains a lingua franca of the world's élites, not its masses.

And is there any singular event more global than the World Cup? Even the Olympics pales into insignificance compared to the ratings, money, politics and passion that it generates. More countries are members of Fifa than any other international body. In a world order increasingly dominated by the US, no other global event gives such precedence to the developing world, or comes closer to reflecting populations rather than power.

Yet despite the cosmopolitanism of the game, its deepest passions are insistently local and national. Clubs, their fans and their hinterlands are the deepest of all. Support for national teams was once restricted by the absence of television coverage of games. But as the international circuit has been steadily commercialised, travel has become cheaper and broadcasting has been transformed. So national teams may have acquired more cultural baggage than ever before.

Among the contenders at Korea-Japan 2002, there is plenty. France look to Les Bleus as a symbol of a successful multi-culturalism in the face a resurgent domestic xenophobia and as an assertion of France's status: a sporting force du frappe. Argentina's expatriate squad express the bankruptcy of the Argentine league and economy, but will carry the nation's hopes of defiance in the teeth of a global economic system. England's experiment with rational Scandinavian managerialism will, I hope, not be exposed by the accumulation of injuries and the possibility of violence that reflects an over-worked society.

Two teams with more baggage than most are Brazil and co-hosts Japan. Exploring it requires very different skills; Alex Bellos faces an open goal. No society and nation is so singularly understood in terms of football as Brazil. Is it any wonder that Nike were prepared to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for rights to the branding of the yellow shirts? Bellos not only scores, but he arrives in the box at the end of a mazy, magical dribble though Brazilian history and society that is worthy of Garrincha.

Brazil is a country of extraordinary size, racial diversity and economic inequality. Bellos finds them all woven into the vast fabric of popular culture where football, carnival and religion intersect. Football provides a canvas for the expression of Brazil's religions; from the born-again evangelical movement among players, to the use of Afro-Brazilian magic in blessing pitches, to the thousands of football shirts left as offerings at the national Catholic shrine. In football and religion, solidarity, identity and hope are entwined.

Carnival has been central to the expression of transgression and creativity. The first black player at the élite club Fluminense in Rio covered his face with rice powder before matches to whiten his skin. In Sao Paulo, the unofficial fan club of Corinthians – the Hawks of the Faithful – is also one of Brazil's leading samba schools.

The excess of wealth among the stockbroking élite of Rio produced "autoball", in which cars were written off pushing a huge leather ball around a pitch. The urban poor, with no access to full-sized pitches, have created futsal; a seven-a-side indoor game so popular that it has gone professional and global. Football becomes Futsal, fans become performers, journalists become managers, players become politicians. Politicians have become fans to the extent that the largest stable grouping in the Brazilian parliament is the Flamengistas – supporters of Rio's Flamengo, the country's biggest club.

At the intersection of money, politics and football the darkest side of Brazilian society emerges. In the last decade, the quality of Brazilian football has steadily declined to the point where the possibility of not qualifying for Korea-Japan was real, and Phil Scolari, the team manager, has pronounced the death of the beautiful game. Domestically, attendances have collapsed, debts are astronomical, violence on and off the pitch is endemic, and the national FA has squandered its Nike millions on secret salaries, campaign contributions and expense accounts. Bellos's exploration of this morass shows a society in which the powerful act with impunity.

Sebastian Moffet in Japanese Rules faces a very different task; for the peculiarities of Japanese society present a tightly organised defense to a Western writer. An aggressive pressing game is only likely to meet with frustration. Incisive passing and thinking is needed to cut through the silences and feints of modern Japan.

Although its schools and universities have been playing football since the late 19th century, the professional game is less than a decade old. Before the J-League was launched in 1993, baseball was the most popular spectator sport and football languished as the preserve of corporate teams playing untutored hoofing games.

The strict hierarchies, corporate control and American cachet of baseball had sustained it for 30 years. But, as Moffett argues, the changing economy and culture of Japan in the Nineties made it ripe for a game in which cities and communities provided the focus of identity rather than companies, and in which complex team work and individual creativity had to mesh.

Japan's deep pockets, phenomenal capacity for reverse engineering and insatiable consumer desire for novelty made the J-League a massive success in its early years. Its more doubtful progress since can, in part, be explained by the incompatibilities of Japanese society and football's dominant cultures. Excessive respect for reputation has been disabling for Japanese players, who preferred not to tackle foreign stars. Pathological fear of failure has stifled individualism. Japan's World Cup is testament to the strength of its construction and infrastructure industries rather than the quality of its play.

If the World Cup were really a test of probity and dynamism, Brazil and Japan would be lucky to make it beyond the group stages. But because football and society correlate in such bizarre and complex ways, the game can allow hope, inspiration and magic to triumph momentarily over material realities. It is why football is the global game and why, on 30 June, over half of the entire planet will be watching it.

David Goldblatt's 'World Football Yearbook' is published in August (Dorling Kindersley)