End April to mid-May brings a global football (soccer) frenzy most USA fans never see nor understand. The rest of the world will be glued to television screens at all hours of the night and day across Asia, Africa, Europe, Russia, China, North and South America to see return UEFA Cup Champions League matches pitting English side Chelsea against multiple cup winners Liverpool, while an injury riddled Manchester United side faces Ronaldhino-less Barcelona. Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford will rock this week like never before.

Both groups were held to draws in the opening games last week with Chelsea grabbing a precious away goal whilst Barca and ManU drew 0-0. So it is a wide open situation and close to 1 billion fans worldwide will tune in to see who will play for the cup on 21 May in Moscow.

Add in a neck-and-neck race to the finish line for top honours in the English Premiere League between Manchester United and Chelsea, each on 81 point (although if the season ended today ManU would win on goal differential) and each side with two games to play.

If that isn’t enough second league team Cardiff City play Premiere League side Portsmouth for the Football Association’s FA Cup on 17 May and you can now understand why this nation and the world are gaga over football’s closing weeks. I find the FA Cup most intriguing. The NCAA basketball tournament claims to be the largest win or go home tourney in the world, it pales in consideration before the FA Cup where every professional side (the more senior leagues get a few byes) plays head to head for the chance to host this precious piece of silverware.

There was no match as exciting as when non-league side led mighty Premiere Side at Anfield 1-0 then 2-0 before bowing out 5-2. This was like a group of guys from the Pub playing the 7th game of a series against the Boston Celtics even for the first half. All team names are placed in a hat for a draw and tiny clubs can play one of the Big Four (the thee from above plus Arsenal) and earn a huge amount of money. Indeed it has taken sides out of Administration/Receivership  and is true sport.

But wait, there’s more… The stars report to their national sides where for most of June they will battle (except for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who were all eliminated in qualifying) as we are 41-days away from the quadrennial national football battle for the European Cup.

While the NFL, MLB and NBA like to think they are global sports (Major League baseball started the season in China and Japan this year), football is the one true global sport. Huge marketing and contract deals for foreign nationals playing in the English Premiere League and elsewhere mean fan bases from across the world will crowd around television screens Tuesday and Wednesday in support of English football and buy Manchester United kits across Taipei.

Television contract rights soar and there is big money with top stars earning £100,000 per week. South Korea and Japan have players on teams in the league. So kit sales with local name jerseys are very big. Indeed there is growing globalisation of football unlike any other sport. While the NBA now drafts players from Europe who grew up in the club system and have stronger core skills and discipline than those who play above the rim in the schoolyards of New York and LA., this is very different. More than playing exhibition games abroad to make money, the real growth and money is in creating a truly cross-culture business.

Football will never be big in the USA because television bosses hate it. The clock never stops, thereby ensuring two things: a game only lasts X amount of time and there is limited commercial insertion opportunities… pre-game, halftime and post-game cutting analysis to 2-minutes and reducing value because no one is watching during the breaks.

I lived two villages away and went to the same sauna in Doetinchem as Guus Hiddink, the Dutch manager who led host nation South Korea to the semi-final game (against enormous odds, they’d never won a World Cup game before) of the 2002 World Cup. Korean bus tours so regularly visited the village and drove past his birth home that the local government erected city signs in Dutch and Korean. He is now working his magic for the Russian team (which qualified for the first time in many years) and is likely to go deep in this tourney. His name is in repeated rumours to be the next manager at Chelsea.

So grab a pint, sit back and enjoy the feast these coming weeks. It all ends Sunday, 29 June when everyone gets a rest before it starts again in August!