Soccer’s best journalism is out there on the Internet these days. With that in mind, and with the 2010 FIFA World Cup just a few days away, we’re going to start a new (mostly) daily feature here. The World Cup Reader will give you three links from around the web that will help you stay up to speed on the big event down in South Africa.  The links might be useful, entertaining, thought-provoking, or just plain crazy, but they’ll give you just a bit more insight into what’s really happening south of the equator over the next four weeks.

Here’s what you should be reading today:

1. Over at SB Nation, Spencer Hall calls the World Cup “The Last Surviving Utopia.”
   

   It will not go as planned, things will go wrong, and controversies will be had. And for 80 years, that has been part of the appeal of the world’s only true championship: pulling it all off in spite of the improbability of any of this happening at all, and creating some truly beautiful soccer in the process.

2. Fake Sigi takes a swipe at ESPN for its unbalanced coverage of the stampede that injured 15 fans prior to the Nigeria v. North Korea friendly in Tembisa.
   

   Mayhem! Violence! Not Uncommon! With the subtext that this is something foreign to be distrusted and viewed with suspicion.

   This particular swipe, however, should be leveled at the Associated Press, as it’s their article that ESPN ran. The swipe itself, however, is valid, and it’s just one reason why the AP probably won’t survive this decade.

3. Over at the continuously awesome The Run of Play, Ryan O’Hanlon examines the paradox that is Jose Torres, who was so effective in neutralizing the Turkish attack in the 2nd half of the USA v. Turkey friendly on May 29.
   

   He’s not wanted. We don’t seem to want him. They wanted him, but now that he wants us, they surely hate him. He defies characterization. Categorization can’t catch him either. We know who he is—he has a name. We know what he looks like—he’s been on television. But still, we don’t know what he is. Sure, he wears our colors, but he lives with them. He has three names—two end in vowels and one flaunts Siamese r’s. It’s as if he’s saying, “I’m one of them, but I’m coming to you, only because I can.”