The World Cup tournament reminds me of my reporting years in pre-glasnost Moscow rooting for Dynamo Kiev (now Football Club Dynamo Kyiv), then the best soccer team in the Soviet Union. Dynamo’s reign — it won five national championships between 1980 and 1990 — was one of the many unforeseen consequences of the Soviets’ “nationalities policy.” While politically subservient to Moscow, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, as it was then known, enjoyed certain autonomies as well, among them building their Dynamo sports empire to bedevil the sports-crazed Russians. Soccer is life, as Dani Rojas , the exuberant Mexican striker on...