Many of the Turkish fans, far outnumbered by the Chinese among the 43,605 people who witnessed the match in Seoul's 65,000-seat World Cup Stadium, held radios to their ears, tuned to the latest results of the Brazil-Costa Rica game.
It felt appropriate that when the veterans marched past, the line of seated world leaders stood to applaud them.
Of course, with so much space to play with, there would still be room inside for at least a modernist ice hockey pitch, a basketball court and a public swimming pool, if not a 70,000-seat World Cup football arena.
"Washington is the seat of world power," he said.
In 1946, the skating surfaces were covered up, and the spaces were converted into the seat of world government.
It has become important as a major international meeting place and conference centre, as well as a seat of world organizations.
In his 2002 play, The Mercy Seat, a World Trade Centre worker contemplated running away with his mistress in the shadow of the 9/11 attacks, safe in the knowledge that his family would believe him dead.
For 2014, however, at least one seat at world champions Red Bull might be available.
Washington, D.C., traditionally takes a back seat to world cities like London, New York and Tokyo when it comes to real estate investment.
Commercial aviation took a back seat during World War II – a period which saw aviation design go from the last days of the biplane to the jet fighter in just six years – but enjoyed its most dramatic growth in the decade after.
In Galileo's 1633 indictment, it was the Catholic Church, then the seat of world political power.
