By CHRIS REDMAN /EDITOR, TIME ATLANTIC

very four years national pride is gained or lost on patches of grass bookended by goalposts and surrounded by thousands of flag-waving, chanting fans. Call it football patriotism--where else but at this year's World Cup can you see the U.S. and Iran battle for (sporting) supremacy? Where else is Brazil the reigning superpower? In France, that's where, and TIME kicks off its goal-to-goal coverage this week with a special report on the teams, the venues and the country that is playing host for World Cup 1998.

Led by Bill Saporito and Wendell Steavenson, TIME's five-member World Cup team will for a month have the most envied jobs in Europe. Saporito--who in real life is TIME's business editor in New York--is on his third Cup tour. Unlike most Americans, he does not think that football is a gridiron confrontation involving an oval brown object. He grew up among Scottish, Irish and Polish immigrants, and started kicking the round white version as a kid. Saporito played as a fullback on high school and university teams as well as for the New York Athletic Club in the city's Cosmopolitan League. He also participated in tours of Europe, giving him a feel for the varying styles of some of the competitors. His picks? "I think this is Europe's year," he says. "France has a wonderful side, if they can withstand the pressure of being at home. Spain is capable of winning this thing, particularly with Brazil looking a little shaky. And there's always Italy and Germany."

London-based reporter Steavenson watched her first football match just eight years ago, but she's a quick study. "Something about the tribalism, something about the singing, something about those beefburgers at half time," she says with a sigh. "I was hooked." A supporter of London's Arsenal Football Club, she has spent the past year and a half commuting between TIME's Friday night deadlines and Arsenal's Saturday afternoon kickoffs. She once told an editor that if she had to miss the latter because of the former, she would quit. Luckily for us, she managed to organize this special report and witness Arsenal's best season in 27 years, in which they won both the Premier League championship and the F.A. Cup. In France, Steavenson admits, her loyalties will be divided between England and the teams on which Arsenal stars play. That's the fan's-eye view that our team will be providing you as this summer's games unfold.

Editor, TIME Atlantic