The Devotion of Global Football Fans

No one could blame you if you thought this men's World Cup was going to be a disaster. The presresident of the United States isn't exactly a welcome mat for the world, and there have been plenty of embarrassing stories for the country. There was the mom of Cape Bird's goalkeeper who wasn't let into the United States to watch her son play until the team started doing well and people clamored for her entry. The team from doctor Congo hadn't made a men's World Cup in fifty two years and hardly made this one because the United States was supposedly worried about Ebola even though no one on the team had Ebola. If you were watching Senegal Norway last week and were wondering where all the Senegalese fans were They weren't let into the country, but you probably noticice we let in like a million Vikings? I wonder what's different about their fanbes Oh, and who could forget we're literally bombing one of the countries that up until Friday was playing here? Missiles aren't the problem But But somehow the vibes at this World Cup are mostly positive. The World Cup might just be healing us on todayoday exxplained from Vox Support for this show today comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claud. Claud is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. With deep research Claud's research capabilities go way deeper than basic web search, comprehensive reliable analysis with proper citations Turning hours of research into minutes for problems worth solving, you can get started with claud at claud. a slash today exxplain. That's claud. ai slash today explained Support for today explain comes from Fetch Fetch is pet insurance if you hadn't figured it out. Do you have a pet According to a study from a pet insurance company from a few years ago, every six seconds a pet owner in the US Hit bill over a thousand dollars and it almost never comes at a convenient time So check out Fetch. you get paid up to ninety percent of vet bills. you can use Fetch for any vet in the U.S and Canada. Every vet is in network. Go to fetch com slash save right now for your free quote. That's fetchpet. com slash save Hi My name is Constance Gcrady, and I'm a senior correspondent on the culture team at Vox Constants Are you a big fan of the footie? U man, U I would not say I am a sports knower per se. I would say I am an appreciator of like things that make people all get together and be like really happy and excited and bond in a big group. But this is why you ended up writing a piece for Vox titled The World Cup is showing what Trump can't destroy about America. I think that the World Cup has been such an unmissable story in the culture for the past few weeks, even for nonons sports knowers like me and trying to figure out why and how is really, really exciting and interesting to me And what are you seeing that has piqued your interest? Because from what I'm getting, it isn't like Messy's hck trick. D They miss see for messy breaking the all time World Cup scoring goal. ing or messy, you know, like staking his claim for a secondcond Consecutive World Cup for Argentina San are you a messy fan? You know for me, what has really taken over my social media feeds for the past little while has been all these videos of world Cup tourists from overseas coming to America and just like loving it Like they're so excited about like the red fire trucks. I've gone to Walgreens, but there's fire station right outside and I'm gonna go ask if I can go have a look at the fire engines And they let me in endess soda refills at restaurants and really big grocery stores. Okay, I'm here in Florida. This is West Palm, I think. and that is pubs. I have bies. so cute I love this cookie And it's just it's so charming and delightful to watch. And I kind of wanted to feel like Well, why am I so delighted by these things dececiding is these videos are really exciting because they show deeply embedded the idea of America is across the world, right? People around the globe grow up watching American TV and movies. like they look at a yellow school bus and they say, well, I've seen that on the Simpsons. L this is like walking into a fictional universe. Hey dad, how come you never taken us to see a soccer game I don't know. And I think that's a real reminder of something that America has kind of struggled with under this presidential administration, which is People from other countries liking us. That's something that we used to actually be really good at What a lot of people see and like about this World Cup right now, not just in the United States, but can in in Mexico is the cultural exchange. It's like Mexicans dancing with Koreans. It's a Japanese guy giving an interview to like an American broadcaster in Dallas. Okay Okay USA USA Japan and USA I love it. Okay, we love you too. But you write about soft power specifically and how it relates to the president and how this World Cup is offsetting that relationship. Tell us about that, I guess, starting with L Presidente So soft power is this idea that One of the ways a country can get other countries to do what it wants to do is not just through economic force, it's not just through the military, but it's through powers of persuasion and attraction. And that's something that the US has historically been really good at. We're kind of the case study for soft power in political science That's because of a few different assets we have, most of which Trump has been attacking pretty aggressively, especially over the course of his second administration. We have the most powerful technology on Earth We have the greatest culture on eararth And above all, we have the greatest people on eararth We have this university system that people come to from all over the world. They're some of the most prestigious colleges around the world here. And that has been something that Trump has really pushed against with lawsuits and defunding We also do a lot of humanitarian work. you know, in the days before Do, US. foreign aids saved around three point three million lives per year Obviously, Doge dismantled USA. So these are all reasons that the rest of the world has had to like us And there are reasons that Trump has really been like, this is not a thing we're prioritizing. This is not something that America is doing anymore And the World Cup is intentionally or unintentionally offsetting what we've lost in American soft power during the two or six or ten years of Donald Trump. Yeah, I don't think this is something that Trump is doing intentionally. Trump has been quite vocal about not particularly being interested in the idea of soft power. Trump said to Bob Woodward at one point, real power is hate to use the word, but the word is fear. He very much is most interested in hard power Soft power he seems to consider like not very masculine enough I don't think that he's thinking of the World Cup as like a thing that's going to make the rest of the world like America more. that's just not a priority for him. But it's kind of serving that purpose in spite of him. I think in large part because Despite the xenophobia of Trump's base, a lot of people in America have been very welcoming to these tourists from around the world and excited to show them the country I thank you to Team Algeria for choosing our hometown, Lawrence, Kansas to come here. And so welcome. If you were in Texas right now for the World Cup, we wna host you. We wna show you' all the real Texas experience we got It's worth noting that a lot of the like really excited videos we're seeing from World Cup tourists are from European tourists who are more able to get over here right now But I think it's also wororth knowing that ese people do still have the desire to explore America even when we're really doing the most to alienate other countries. And I think that speaks to be incredibly outsized role of importance the U. S. has played In popular culture around the world, everyone grows up knowing what America looks like on their screens and in their living room and now they want to see it in person Do you think it's a sign that America can get back to the place it held. in terms of soft power around the world in spite of all these cuts to humanitarian aid, in spite of all the bullying, in spite of telling everyone else to Dal with the Strait of Hormuz being shut down I think it shows that we still have a fighting chance But you know, so much depends on what directions we move in after the end of what's going to be Trump's final term in office Trump is part of the story of America, whether we like it or not. and so are the impulses he's harnessed of xenophobia and isolationism and fear of others What gives me hope about the World Cup is how much it shows that a genuine interest in and respect for people from other countries and a desire to share with them and socialize with them and be hospitable is also still part of the story of America and maybe can continue to be so Wow, Constance. I feel so warm and fuzzy but how do we feel about the hydration brakes The consensus on that is that it's partially dark evidence of global warming and partially capitalism in action adding more outrs, right And it's bad. it's bad I'll take your word for it Chop. Okay, we're gonna to do that next on today Explades Support for the show comes from upwork. A some point in your life, you decided that you wanted to run a business if it applies to you. And when you did, you quickly learned that running that business was not going to be a solo endeavor. You can't do everything by yourself. That's why there's upwork. 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No credit card or payment needed Just head to pipeedrive d. com Sash exxplain to get started and receiving exclusive thirty day free instead of the usual fourteen day trial. that's pipeedrive d. com Sash explain and you can be up and running in minutes. Okay so the vibes of the Men's World Cup are mostly positive, but if you're luck enough to catch some World Cup in person or if you just watch it on Tlemundo, where they don't cut to commercials as much, you'll notice some serious negativity twice in every match I' tell the hydration brakes, which have done something that I thought was almost impossible in the football world which is to unite the entire planet in anger against its very existence We asked Roger Bennett from the Men in Blazer Cinematic Universe to explain how hydration braaks did the almost impossible. I'm not exactly sure what is going on to be candid, but what has occurred It a football this you said it's heart a very simple game U It is two halves of forty five minutes. That is the way it is It's the way it's always been Crucially, It's the way it is at the elite professional level and it is the way it is at an under seven game in Alaska like pretty critical and fundamental to football that the game at all levels is exactly the same. That is until the World Cup came to North America this summer where This is one of the hottest in global football history. And so Jani in Fantino, who your listeners may have seen is the head of FIFA He just imposed a new rule where they would have hydration breaks, which he said was part of a focused attempt to ensure the best possible condition for players drawing upon the experiences of previous tournaments. And they said they're purely a sporting matter. And I want to stress this because I hear as well, it's about money or things like. It is not. We don't make one dollar more revenues in FIFA with these hydration rates. So it's boiled down to every h forty five minutes, it breaks in the middle now for an extended period, four minutes and twenty seconds. per game U which means to about seven hours, thirty minutes, forty seconds, but who's counting across my lifetime that I have to watch these in the tournament And what it does on Fx in America. In that moment there's the players ample to the side. They now just talk about it as if it's a routine part of the game. They say, Oh, we've hit the water break and then boom We're in commercials. And that will take us to our match break sponsored by Lenovo. Now the football fans, the American football fans, I should say, the NBA fans out there, the W NBA fans out there. they might be saying what's the big deal? There's constant commercials when I'm watching a game or a match or whatever it might be, but this has really triggered The football purists out there Yeah, look, football is a working class game. Football is a game of fan, devotion, connection. Football is deeply historic and there's an authenticity to it. The heat is terrible in the United States, but many of these stadia are indoors or air conditioned until you have this kind of ridiculous, surreal situation where footballers are taking a break in an air conditioned stadium ambling over to the side. and what it's done is give cooach is essentially a timeout in the middle of the game reset You have players having a break, exhausted players who are being run down by a superior opponent have a chance to catch their breath. We've seen game after game. be utterly transformed by the momentum shift You know, it's it's a weird surreal kind of Purgatory world where this thing, which was meant to be because of the heat in Miami, meant to be because of the heat in met lifeife And when you see the figures that the broadcasters are making, said to be two hundred fifty million in terms of the commercials that they're running in those slots. It's a very odd moment in time. where people are wondering, What is this Why is this? And is this just for this World Cup or in dismal England in rainy November U, well the Premier League start to take water breaks and we'll cut to Coca Cola commercials Right. I mean You're saying it's without a doubt, having an impact on the actual play Teams might be winning now because they got a little timeout. they had some counsel from their coaches and now they're playing a stronger game after a hydration break Does that mean that coaches and players like them or are they complaining too? Yeah, there's a couple of different opinions. almost everybody hates them. and a lot of the players talk about how hard it is to find a rhythm in a game and then you're stopping and going over to the sidelines. And just from an exX players perspective, we know what it's like when you're in that mode, when you're fighting for your life and trying to not to concede a goal or when you've got a team under so much pressure that you know you're going to get a goal and a water break happens. If it's really hot Obviously it will be good to put them in, but I think you have to Look at it in every game separately in my opin. The opponent is going to try to take advantage of the to fix or to encourage or to to do mayaybe things that you cannot do when when you are you are in the touch line and the game ian. By the way, at the beginning, the water break It was just a water greatade and they would come back and often fox at the beginning was caught in commercial. You they come back to the game and it would be on and people would lose their mind. And so what they've done they've made it even more American. It's almost like a TV timeout in the NFL now where the official keeps the players on the sideline until they know the commercials are run and then they let them on and Anthony Robinson US player said he wanted to walk back onto the field and get back into his position And one of the officials was like, No, sorry, the commercials are still playing. stay where you are So this is the kind of surreal reality we're in Um Most of the coaches detest it, mostost of the players, the European players have spoken out about it. A couple of the coaches have admitted that they won games because they were able to take complicated tactical changes and communicate them Germany were playing Curacao, Tiny Curaca who just tied the game up one one, one of the most delirious moments of this World Cup And the young German coach admitted afterwards that he was able to adjust to playing against the diamond midfield shape that he didn't expect. and Germany ended up winning seven one and it was just if you watch the game, it was like it was like it flicking over radio stations the before the water brereak and the after the water brereak. Do you think they'll keep them around? Have they already pledged to keep them around in future World Cups This is the greatest fault line in football San and I'm not I do not have prophetic powers Ultimately, the whole game of football U it's currently In a battle between its roots and its authentic essence and just the commercial imperative that comes from being as big as it is You know, the Super Bowl and American sports in general are ' braazasonly commercial we foundy It's not funny because it's been a bit dark, but the whole groupaar about the ticket priceices for this worldorld Cup was really global football Again, finding American sports culture And seeing that you have floating ticket differential you know supply and demand And falling in love with that being like, wow, what we can charge different prices for our tickets. Let's go And you know, the working class cultures of European football being like, hang on a, we've traveled everywhere of our team for generations. How are you charging this? And then American fans caught ono it and was like, wow, those tickets are expensive. sameame Americans who were paying twenty thousand dollars to sit in the nosebleleed seats of the Kicks game in the finals Five billion people watch the World Cup. two hundred million people watch the Super Bowl U it is so big. It is the last megaphone, which is faintly audible around the world is. And when you have something that big It becomes deeply desirous to make as much money as you can out of it, and that's the tension So This is kind of about capitalism and the American version contra, perhaps the European version This is a question about European vacation policies, and you sound like you may have been a European in a previous life. so I wasnt born to be an American, S. I don't know canwer what you're ask go on. Here it is. I've been noticing, you know the Scottish fans, the Norwegian fans, the Dutch fans, especially just traveling from city to city to city and I''ve I've wondered like how much vacation exactly do these people have?. And then I saw someone online put it even better. They said to he your Bids get issued eight weeks of vacation, unlimited airline miles and a trust fund at birth because every match I turn on, there are forty thousand fans following their team to a different state or country on a Tuesday afternoon while Americans are hiding in a work bathroom checking scores. Yeah. whoever' whoever's hiding in the work bathroom is a liar. They're pulling they're pulling this up and hiding it behind swreads chek. Look We've always joked that part of the reason that football has taken off in this nation It's because Americans love an excuse to daytime drink and cup work. GDP plummets seriously in Europe during a World Cup and an enormous cliff These fans, by the way, many of them sell houses. they sell off everything. They save for this. Remember World Cups every four years