What is beauty?

A New York Times column, "Still waiting for Beautiful Soccer," asks:

"...when are they going to start playing the beautiful game? There have been plenty of goals, saves and drama. But where's the flowing football? Maybe the players left it behind with their clubs last season and they are simply too stale or tired to reproduce it."

While International Herald Tribune writer Roger Cohen in his blog, The Beautiful Game, says :

"Like I said, goals are nice, but the first rule of this game is to prevent the other side scoring. Nobody here in Germany comes close to Cannavaro in knowing how to do that. Thanks in large part to him, Italy has now gone 22 games without defeat. That’s worth pondering. Cannavaro proves that brilliance is not the exclusive preserve of attention-grabbing midfielders and strikers. Stopping goals can be beautiful, too."

As for me, I say that this has been one of the best World Cups in a long time and there has been plenty of beauty: everything from the play of Ghana to Maxi Rodrigues' stunning strike against Mexico...

Sure, we've had the insipid long balls from Rio Ferdinand but Cohen is right, there are other aspects to beauty too...