The celebrations were a reminder that the region's growing Latin American population brings with it soccer fever.

The period before the 1990s saw national soccer fever in league football, specifically in the Dhaka League, which possessed club teams which were famous both at home and abroad.

As universal as soccer fever is, it affects different nations in different ways.

At World Cup time, soccer fever even seeps into a Buddhist monastery.

"But soccer fever has yet to hit here the way it has in Europe."

Hurling, a rugged sport requiring tremendous skill and speed, has been buffeted by everything from cautious Irish-American mothers to the soccer fever of the World Cup.

And soccer fever is catching on in the white suburbs.

At the same time, the country will be buzzing with soccer fever.

With the World Cup just two years away from its United States debut, soccer fever is probably sweeping the host country, right?

Some even rankled at the suggestion that soccer fever had brought the country together in shared happiness.