Hair style is such an important part of life for a lot of people around the world that even World Soccer Cup stars are rated these days according to the way their cut, curl, color and part their hair.

Beckhams hair styling for example is apparently very popular with the soccer fans in India. There is much talk about Beckham's hairdo in the Indian press. Chalk up one for the contribution of both the soccer and cosmetics to the globalization process.

In Germany, soccer fans are reportedly taken in by the way Michael Ballack coifs his top.

The Brazilian sensation Ronaldinho is another soccer super-star who rules the hearts and minds of his millions of fans with his long mane.

Hair also becomes an explosive expression of fan loyalties when it is dyed in the most impossible colors one ones team colors. Wherever Brazil plays, for example, the stadium seats undulate like a sea of yellow-green tresses.

Another way hair is marched into the service of soccer is the infinite variety of ways in which British soccer fans have long been shaving their heads, to leave behind only those skillfully sculpted wisps of hair that spell the name of the best team every to set a foot on the greens.

Keep an eye on the upcoming World Soccer Cup 2006. The next new male hair style might emerge not from the coiffeur salons but the lush green of the World Soccer Cup fields.