Why Everyone Cares About This World Cup

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“From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kidrowett.”

This is the day. Out there it is, burning home and meets the world cup. The world cup meets selling homes. Two weeks into the world cup, the most watch sports event on the planet has already broken records. Hitting its highest attendance ever,

and generating the most school scored in history. But one of the biggest stories of the tournament is happening off the field. Feel like I've been lied to in my entire life of the out America. Like, I mean Florida, this beach is insane. Like just as good as Australian beaches.

Is a wave of international visitors encounter an America they've never seen up close.

“I love rent. I taste it here that it's delicious and I take two bottles before.”

An Americans encounter them and open their arms to the world soccer fans. It's hard to set them. Think Americans are but because every single person I met and that's American has been unbelievable. Today, my colleague Tark Pangea explains the magic in the complexity of this moment. And daily producer Anna Foley talks to two fans in the middle of it.

It's Monday, June 29th. Tark, welcome back to the daily. It's lovely to have you. Lovely to be back with you. So, I have been watching the world cup. It has been incredible. The competition itself, but also the amazing scenes that we have seen from fans

from all over the world colliding with each other. And this is the thing that you told us would happen when you were last on the show.

There is always this anticipation and anxiety that leads up to the world cup.

And then the games begin and it becomes this human experiment of what happens when you bring the entire world together around a sport. It does. And tournament after tournament gives us this brief moment of uplift of joy of people coming together and we're seeing it in places big and small here in the United States. And I'm so pleased that people in this part of the world are able to experience this.

And we should say this wasn't perhaps expected because there was a lot of angst around some of the geopolitical tension that was hanging over this. I mean, one of the host countries in this case, the United States is literally in the middle of a war right now. And the U.S. has even had beef with the co-host, Mexico and Canada. One of them Trump has threatened to bomb and the other he's threatened to turn into the 51st

state. So this wasn't straight forward. You're right. This wasn't straight forward at all. America's posture to the world has been one which is kind of antithetical to a tournament that is supposed to bring the world together and bring the world to it. This was a country that was talking about building walls reducing immigration, sending people out and for fans who were trying to come here,

getting visas was proving very difficult. Then there was a question of ice enforcement of the tournament, the possibility of that. And even on the cusp of the tournament, we had the situation with the referee from Somalia, FIFA referee, someone on the list to work at this tournament, sent back to Turkey where he flew from. And that does give you a sense of dread if you are not, someone who is sure they're going to be able to get into this country. But tournament stars.

And we've seen wonderful images. We've heard wonderful songs. We've all heard anecdotes of things that only the world cup can bring. It is what happens when the world comes together.

tell us how that happened. Like, what actually shifted? What shifted? The people, it starts with these

teams, 48 teams in the biggest world cup ever. And they have to choose base camps where the team will be staying between the matches and these enormous stadiums in these cities. And where they tend to go, are certainly not big cities. I'll give you some examples. Spain going to chat a nougat. Right. And there is a phenomenon there called Lamin watching. So, Lamin Yamal is one of the most famous athletes in the world. He is going to be the next

massive superstar of Domesian Ronaldo. And here we are, seeing him go to a Walmart.

Then, we have Erling Harlan, who also has a claim to be one of the most famous people in the world.

“He's with Norway, in Greensboro. How cool is it to have Norway in Greensboro, North Carolina?”

It's awesome. It's epic. But the best example of the one that is so much the cutest is what happened when the Algerian team arrived in Lawrence, Kansas. They prepared by getting the marching band of the University of Kansas to learn the national anthem of Algeria. I want to say thank you to Team Algeria for choosing our hometown Lawrence Kansas to come here. And so welcome. This, I believe it's a college town.

Would never have had anything approaching this in terms of a global event.

So far, everybody here has been very friendly and very welcoming and I'm really glad Algeria's

“going to be here. And one, two, three, Viva, Algeria. You see local people dressed in the Algeria”

jerseys. They are all rooting for this Algerian team. So, hey, I love the support, I mean, oh, especially since they're in Lawrence, you know, I got out of the portal. Right, okay. So, you start to have this mutual excitement bubbling up on both sides. The teams and the Americans that are receiving them. And then there's a next wave that comes, right, when the fans of these teams begin to arrive. Talk to me about that.

Now, this is my favorite part. This is where fans from every corner of our world arrive, full of hope, full of cheer, and just ready to have fun meeting each other. And showing their colors,

“the showing their songs. And we've seen that. We've seen images of”

the famous or now famous Norwegian Viking Road taking over New York and New Jersey, including an escalator. Where you have Norwegian fans sitting down and rowing as it takes them into the subway system. There are buses that have been organized by the city of Dallas to take fans to various points of interest. In Norway, we have nothing like this. This is too much. I love it. But the one that's proved more popular than most has been the trip to Bucky's.

We're going to believe this, guys. This is a gas station. This goes on for miles and miles and miles. Gotta get to Bucky's. I agree with that strategy. And the guys behind the counterlight, they give a sing song, "What is this place?" I can say it forever. We've also had all of these stories of fans, whether they're French, Japanese, or from anywhere else, trying American food, and actually liking it. Hot French fries in a chocolate milkshake.

That shouldn't work, but that's actually really good. Texas BBQ seems to be a big hit at the moment. The Philly cheese steak. A national delicacy? Yeah, a national delicacy. I love the view, I love cheese, so you know, it's a perfect combination. And then... Scotland.

What's been the most Bostonian thing you've seen or witnessed?

It's going to be some yardems, it'd be a couple of the guys don't like it, but I think it's great guys. They hadn't been to the World Cup since 1998. Right. And they really have made up for lost time, haven't they?

“The Bostonians are something special, honestly. The people of Boston will never forget.”

The days the tartanami invaded their city. And obviously, drank the city dry, but all in good shape. We went from regular Boston to all of a sudden, party Boston, 24/7. The Scots making up for lost time is going to be one of the stories of the World Cup. Scotland did, unfortunately, just officially get kicked out of the World Cup this past weekend,

but they clearly left it impression. I mean, it was so pronounced this love story between these Scottish fans and the Bostonians that received them, that I think the Boston Globe literally dedicated a full page in the newspaper just thanking them for visiting. They did indeed, and now the Scots have a tradition for this. The way the fan culture works is be loud, be fun, drink all of the beer, but leave the people happy you were there.

This was a culture that was created almost as an opposition to the polygonism that was around English football and English fans in the 80s and 90s. That had no idea, that's so interesting. And it's not just the Scots. You can't manufacture some of these meetings. They are chance meetings. And we're seeing this in a way that perhaps we were not expecting because of the sensation or the feeling around the U.S. Right. And so these international fans, they're being exposed to

parts of America that they may never have seen otherwise. And for Americans, you do see people

“trying to show their most open selves. I think there's also the inquisitiveness people want to know”

about each other. And there's a pride as well. So look, this is our town. This is who we are. And we want to show our best face. It also feels significant that this is happening at the same time that the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary. And some of those official celebrations have become very tied to President Trump and they've become contentious in some cases for that reason. And then at the same time, you have this other celebration that's

happening all across the country that also feels like it's saying something important about the United States and its identity. Yeah, it tells us that this country is a patchwork of people and it was built on everybody. This is an immigrant nation. The World Cup has shown it to be so

“not only are the fans coming from overseas to support their teams, the entire diaspora of”

these teams is also behind them. My man, a guy who was Jordanian. And what's your name, sir? My name is Faru Hoar Fred. This man called Faruq. I moved to the state 46 years ago. 46 years ago. Yes. It's a split love. I love America more than anything. And he just could not tell me how much he loved America. It's the one that gave me the opportunity. It gives me everything. My kids, I have three boys and a girl. They're all successful. He was

beaming about what America gave to him. But Jordan, it's my love. But he also said, I love Jordan. How do you feel? My God. This is the proudest moment of my life. Really? For a small nation of hours, you cannot believe how proud we are. I am so proud that my country has made the world cup.

Came to the first game and I'm a second game that I'm going to go watch. He was off to Dallas next to

see them against Leonardo Messi. Every day of the week, God bless America. God bless everything about this place. And God bless my nation Jordan. Thank you, Faruq. So you can't have that duality. It's also what it's shown. You can be two things. You don't have to last yourself to one flag or to the master one idea. Right. And in many ways, this is kind of the diaspora world cup. Off the field and on the field, the word diaspora has been said over and over about this world cup. But with that comes a

degree of complexity. It is not a seamless thing. This can sometimes be difficult. Just talk about

This is a team I've been following now for months since the start of the war. This team has faced

hardships unlike any other. This is the first time a team participating at the world cup has been

in conflict, military conflict with a host nation. Right. That has struck us here too. I mean, the complications around the Iran team has been this major story of the world cup for many reasons, right? Yeah. And the fans have had their own kind of hardships because of the feeling towards the government in Iran, the love of country in that context and the love of team. Do we support this team? Who does this team represent? And there's split the Iranian community somewhat.

“I think most Iranians remain firmly supportive of the team on the field. But I've spoken to so many”

people who are trying to find ways to support the team, but also in a way protest or find a way of

opposing the government back home. You're saying this really big Iranian community in the United States is itself in conflict over how to relate to their own team, right? Because they have such a conflicted relationship to their government. And the idea of how to support them is presenting all of these conundrums for these people. It does. On the most extreme edge of this are people who simply will not support the team and say this is a propaganda tool of the government in

Iran. This is not the Iranian team. But it's the majority in the middle. They're the ones I think

“that are finding it the hardest because they do love this team. They do love their country as well.”

So how do you support them? So we're almost seeing kind of the internal divisions of the Iranian

opposition, Iranian politics writ large, around the outskirts of a well-cup stadium in Los Angeles. Right. You're seeing this internal struggle of this diaspora play out live in front of us. In the stadiums outside them, this internal debate inside of a community over how to relate to their team, it's all there in public. It's all there in public and it's all in the face of those players. So when the Iranian national anthem plays, you hear widespread booing, gearing across the stadium.

But when the team then takes to the field, it's like a home game.

“What we are seeing in real time is a mashup of nationalism, of identity, of patriotism,”

of a sense of people trying to work out who they are, what they want, and what their future holds all around this international soccer tournament. Well, Tark, thank you so much for being here. Nice to be with you again. We'll be right back. I'm Jonathan Knight, and I'm the general manager of New York Times Games.

If you play our games, you probably know there's something a bit different about them. Just like there are writers behind the articles you read in the times, there are creators behind our daily puzzles. Tracy Bennett curates the day's world of solution to keep it lively and varied. When a Lou creates each connections board, including all those categories that try to stump you. Sam Azarsky comes through every last letter,

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Is Iran. The team is playing in a host country that's in open conflict with theirs, and now the whole world's watching as this fragile ceasefire gets tested again and again.

Iranian team, just hours before Iran played their first game. They talked about what all this is

like this year, and the complex business of sorting out national pride and fandom in the middle of war. Is there anything you miss from Iran? Of course. This is Farhad. Tell me something. Okay. People, the smell of land, people very hospitable, kind, caring, full of love. I've been a third of my life over there, and two-third here. Believe it or not, I remember the first one-third. To me here, time flies extremely fast. Farhad came to the U.S. from Iran 47 years ago.

Back then, he'd been trying to get a visa for years. For five years, I tried nothing happened. But it's nothing seemed to work. This was right before the Iranian Revolution. A lot of other people were trying to get visas around the same time. One day, he showed up at the embassy. The whole street, completely filled with people. There were thousands of people there. Chances seemed slim, he was going to be able to get his paperwork. But then, he heard a man call

his name. And I was sort of surprised. No microphone, no speaker or nothing. He just yelled it, and I happened to be right there. So he handed me my passport, and I didn't even know what that meant. I said, can you tell me what this is with broken English, of course? And he said, "You got visa." I said, "I saw I can go to United States." He said, "Yes, of course." So I was really, really shocked, really, really shocked. Very lucky. Yeah. No. How did this thing happen? I took it as

“honestly, as an act of God. I could not logically reason it. How did this thing work down?”

Farhad says he's replayed that moment every day. He's lived in America. Which, it's been a while. He got here in 1979, settled down in Ohio, got married, had kids. I'm a lifelong soccer fan, World Cup fan. One of whom is Kevin. So we had this video tape. It was like the 50 greatest World Cup goals. And Kevin's lifelong obsession with soccer started at home with his dad and an old few just

tape of World Cup goals. That's how I discovered World Cup and goals in nation. Kevin couldn't get enough. One VHS tape turned into boxes of taped games in the living room. Soon, Kevin was playing soccer in a neighborhood league, and Farhad was taking him to the American players. Oh, Brad Friedall, Brian McBride, Thomas Suley. Kevin became a real student of the game.

“In the second half, like the U.S., I think hit the post like four times in that game.”

Even now, he can recite what happened in one of his favorite games from when he was 11. I'm obsessed with these. I've rewatched all the old U.S. games. Kevin has tremendous and one-to-knowledge. I can't. He's like an insipropidia of soccer, honestly. Why did you love soccer so much? What drew you in, do you think? I think a big part of it is the connection with my family, the fact that my dad loved it.

It's one of the major ways that I have been able to connect with my past and my heritage, my Ronnie inside, in particular. This is all of course, a classic. Father and son watch a sport, feel closer. It's how they surely love one another. They live in the same apartment complex these days. Kevin told me a typical night for them is he'll go over to his dad's look at some Persian food and turn on a game.

And Eranian soccer has always been a part of their bond. Back in 1998, when Kevin was 11,

the Eranian national team was good. It looked like they said a chance to qualify for the World Cup. So Kevin and Farhad started following the team, cutting out articles in the paper about

“their games. And so then, I think me and my mom and my sister came home from somewhere and my dad said,”

I have the biggest soccer news for you. And I think it took me two guesses, but I realized it was that Iran had qualified for the World Cup. So that's a moment that I'll always remember. Iran actually played the U.S. in that World Cup the first time ever. And for Kevin, it was the first time his two identities were pitted against each other in the sport he loved. We went to, you know, this restaurant that was a lot of U.S. fans. And then it's like

our little table where the Iranian section and the rest is like USA. But I also, I'm cheering for both teams.

So yeah, those are always sort of interesting situations when like you have two teams that you

you really like and they're coming up against each other. Iran won that game, two to one.

U.S.? No, it was at least for my self satisfaction that Iran came positive, not that I wanted U.S. to lose or anything. But I was happy after so many negative things in media regarding Iran and so forth. At least it shows yes they can make effort, they can move up, they can be proud of

themselves in the international level. I never can turn my back to where I was raised and so forth.

That is part of my nature. The U.S. and Iran wouldn't meet again on the World Cup pitch for more than 20 years and 2022 in Qatar. At that point Kevin and Farhad had moved to Southern California, the other side of the planet. But the opportunity to see their two favorite teams square off, it was just too good to pass up. So I got some U.S. tickets for myself, but I was like,

“"I can't not go to the U.S.A. Iran game without my dad." You know?”

What started as Kevin's plans to take his dad to one game? Ballooned into an epic father's son Middle East trip. Farhad was in charge of logistics. So this is our flight pattern and this is all the games that we showed me the maps of all the stadiums. I make two copies just in case we lose all. Train times like took it to get there. Yeah my dad is legendary with his notes and his heart. He ran the itinerary with precision and rigor. But Kevin was the one who had the idea

to start off their trip with his dad's lifelong dream to go to Mecca. When Kevin said it, it just touched my heart. To me that has a highest value, nothing can beat that. We basically started our FIFA tournament in a spiritual way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say it's like a nice semester. You know you have a religious pilgrimage and a sports pilgrimage. Yeah exactly. And when it came to the U.S. versus Iran game, here they were again. Two teams that they could

cheer for. One game. How to choose. There was definitely like a little bit of attention about it. It was nothing like Kevin's experience in 1998 in that little Ohio restaurant. And you hear that Iranian fans like gearing and stuff and whistling at maybe if the U.S. did something or whatever.

This game was louder. And full of people who were born and raised in Iran who never even had

a question which team to cheer for or how to cheer for both. I've always been Iranian to American. Even though it's not every day that they come up and play each other in soccer but there's been like sporting rivalries or political things between the two countries. It's just it's always been that way in my whole life. Like I can't even imagine not having that. Of course this year, this world cup. With the Iranian team playing in the U.S., it is a different kind of complicated.

There's an actual war. There's fallout around the world. There's nationalistic rhetoric and threats. And amid all of that, the Iranian team was scheduled to play World Cup games in Los Angeles.

Basically in farhodding Kevin's backyard. There's two kind of conflicts in me which one is

like obviously the war is going on. But then it's like I really want Iran to be in the world cup.

“Are they going to be able to travel? Are they going to be allowed to come into the U.S.?”

Especially because Trump had made comments which were kind of conflicting each other of just like, yeah, they can come but I can't guarantee their safety or something like that. That was troublesome to hear that sort of thing. Kevin doesn't want the games Iran plays to become political, but he's also not naive. When he sees the players on the pitch, he knows that he's seeing them right off a plane. The U.S. restricted visas for the Iranian players, which forces them to stay

in Tijuana. At the start of the tournament, they were only allowed to be in the U.S. for a day at a time. The war is imposing itself, whether Kevin likes it or not. I love both Iran and the U.S. I mean the governments, people. I love the people of Iran,

“I love the people of the United States and that's what the countries are about. I'm not really”

crazy about the governments right now. Either of them. I try to block out politics from when I want to feel something good about these countries. I think about the people. I think the teams playing soccer on the World Cup stage and how these people are being represented in that way as opposed to by whatever the governments are doing. It's interesting because I think the World Cup, it is often that politics and geopolitics seeps into it. Does it feel that way to you

politicized, especially the World Cup. In 1998, from the Iran perspective, that was highly politicized

because after Iran won, it became the government's evidence or something like we were in the right or something like that. We'd be the U.S. at this or whatever. It became a political message. Right. How will it feel to cheer for Iran today? I mean for me, I'm going to be really happy about it because I'd love cheering for my background in general, but there's an added joy of the fact that Iran was able to send a team even though the situation is going on. Yeah. Well, I guess I'm curious.

“I think for some people cheering for Iran today, the Iranian team, could be cheering for the regime.”

I guess I'm kind of curious how that hits you and how you differentiate what you're doing when you share for Iran. Yeah, I could definitely see that it could be seen that way by some people. For me personally, it's more about the the players and the Iranians as a people. So that's kind of the perspective. I'm going from Iranian American specifically. So I'm able to kind of separate it in my mind a little bit. But if we didn't have the context of what's going on right now and it was just

Iran is in the world cup. I get to see Iran play in person. That would have me very excited already to begin with because it's you know, it's something that kind of taps into my my heritage. Like these are some people who are like me and I don't get to relate to them every day because you know, especially growing up, there weren't a lot of Iranians around. But now this is a completely different situation because of the

war and everything going on. There's kind of like this feeling like you're standing over a ledge or something. It's like there's this huge thing that's happening. But there's a kind of element of unease and danger and you don't really know how things are going to be resolved. Yeah, it feels like you both have such a lovely relationship just to each other but also to let's game and to soccer. And then there's this bigger geopolitical context this war that's kind of like hanging all above it.

More a spicier. It's spicier. It just makes everything a little bit spicier. It turns up the heat. It's like a saying. Yeah. Yeah. I guess how does it feel to sit in that spice, I guess. As I said, it's more challenging. We pass through it, hopefully.

Sometimes you know, you look at the curve in mat. You know, always goes down before it can. It has to

meet a minimum point before it starts going up. So you know, there has to be a low point.

“In low point exactly. Exactly. So what point of the curve are we at? I think and I'm hoping”

this is as the lowest it can go. Not further than that. And as far as whether this game not versus politics was not involved, it is more challenging, more spicier or whatever you want to call it, but hopefully it will pass through all these things. Kevin and Farhad left for the first Iran game with five hours to spare. They were worried about

traffic and parking and they didn't want to miss a second of the game. Farhad's a planner after all.

Adney seats near one of the corners of the field, where before the game started, a huge Iranian flag was involved. And the country's national anthem played. There were booze all throughout the stadium. Some people turned around so they're back space to flag while the anthem played. Others waved pre-revolution flags in protest. Farhad and Kevin just stood there, taking it all in. You know so much of what we talked about

earlier today was like feeling chores. Have any of those feelings come up for you now that you're sitting here? There's a little bit just of the way the crowd is going and the way that they were booing like the anthem but then with the players come in and play they were cheering the players. So there's a little bit of that. Are you saying that you resonate with both the booze and the cheerers? Is that what you're saying? I mean a little bit because I understand what everything's

“representing you know. Because I think for a lot of people especially who are here right now in this”

stadium, it's the people who errone means something different to them because it we run means their childhood and where they grew up before the revolution. So I think a lot of people

and all that but when the anthem comes on then that represents a different part of Iran you know.

“So it's like you're kind of watching people like draw lines in the sand in real time.”

Around tight that game. I actually tied all of their games in the world cup and over the weekend they were officially eliminated from the tournament. I talked to farhodden Kevin on Sunday and I asked them how they were feeling. Kevin was excited. His other team, the U.S. is doing well and he's eager to watch them play in the next round. Farhod was disappointed. He felt like politics and the

repercussions of the real world had saved into the game and it all made it impossible for Iran to succeed.

Before the Iranian team left Los Angeles they wrote this note on a white board in the dressing room at the stadium. It said from the ancient Persia of thousands of years ago to the civilized Iran of today the spirit of Iran remains alive instead fast. We came to Los Angeles with pride, competed with honor and leave with dignity. Thank you Los Angeles for your hospitality and thank you to every Iranian who gave their heart, voice, and soul for Iran throughout these

180 minutes. May peace, respect, and friendship prevail among all nations. I read it to Farhod and

asked what he thought. He said, "They wrote what I feel." We'll be right back.

“Here's what else you need to know today. The U.S. and Iran have agreed to stop attacks in the”

straight-of-war moves and allow ships to move freely through it, according to a U.S. official. Iran had yet to confirm that agreement as of Sunday night. Palsing the hostilities would bring calm after a series of attacks in recent days. After accusing Iran of striking an oil tanker in the straight on Saturday the U.S. military carried out attacks on Iranian air defense sites and other military infrastructure. Iranian forces retaliated on Sunday saying the targeted a U.S. naval base in

Bahrain and an air base in Kuwait with drones and missiles. No casualties were reported. And more than three days after two earthquakes devastated Venezuela, the death toll rose to more than 1,400 people with thousands more injured as the desperate efforts to rescue survivors were stymied by chaos and delays. The government's response has been complicated by a rush of civilian vehicles carrying relief supplies in La Guida, the most affected state in the country,

leaving aid workers stranded in traffic. There have been more than 430 aftershocks since the earthquakes on Wednesday, prompting many in La Guida to sleep outside for fear that more buildings could fall. Today's episode was produced by Anna Foley, Rachelle Banger, Eric Crocky, and Diana Wynn. It was edited by Brendan Klinkenberg and Ben Kellhoon, fact check by Susan Lee, and contains music by Alicia Beetoup, Sophia Landman, Marion Lazano, Pat McCusker, and Diane Wong. Our theme

music is by Wanderley. This episode was engineered by Chris Wood. That's it for the Daily. I'm Natalie Kitroff. See you tomorrow. I'm Gilbert Cruz. This week on the Book Review Podcast, our monthly book club needs to talk about one of this summer's busiest novels, yesterday year. Tradwife gets sent back to the past. Can she actually do it? I'm in. When it got to the twist, it was something that I did not expect. Really? Tell me more.

“Everyone's got some secret, some things are hiding. It's like, I want to know what happens.”

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