Game of Our Lives

All right… maybe we jinxed it. But now that he’s ripped off the Band-Aid, David’s ready to take a hard look at England’s last game (and anyway, his money is on France). Misery loves company, so he calls up journalist Marcela Mora y Araujo to talk about what’s next for Argentina. And the whole crew looks ahead to the final in our new and improved edition of What to Watch.

David goes to the mat for England as he dares to dream of a World Cup victory for the Three Lions; meanwhile, his guest, writer Kanishk Tharoor, hopes they lose — call it payback for a couple centuries of empire. With the quarterfinals upon us, it’s time to seriously consider what each team is made of, whether that’s argyle, chain-mail, or rootless cosmopolitans. Plus: the Totally Football Show’s Iain Macintosh leaves his own World Cup bunker to meditate on Neymar’s tears, and our hosts take bets on which team will leave Russia with the ultimate prize.

On the verge of packing their bags for home, Mexico got a reprieve when South Korea beat Germany in a stunning upset. Now the country’s fans are riding high…straight to the polls this weekend. Can a football victory — or defeat — change the course of history? David takes a look back to the 1970 World Cup, which he watched on two TVs in his dad’s living room, and plays out some what-ifs about football, elections, and the future of global politics. And he looks ahead to another politics-and-football showdown between two “masters of the dark arts” — Sergio Ramos and Vladimir Putin.

“If football nations were rappers, Brazil would be Tupac.” Guest Musa Okwonga from the New York Times blew up on Twitter last week with his arch comparisons of rappers and World Cup teams. Today, he joins David to talk about xenophobia in Europe, the basic decency of Mo Salah, and how to expand his analogy to poets — Italy as T.S. Eliot, anyone? Plus, Senegalese coaching sensation Aliou Cisse, women finally being allowed into stadiums in Tehran, and next week’s Red Sea Derby.

It’s on! Preening pop stars, a surprise home team blowout, and a handshake seen ‘round the world. Host David Goldblatt and crew break down Russia’s rout of Saudi Arabia, dissect Vladimir Putin’s upstaging of the FIFA Congress, and talk with football journalist Tim Vickery about whether Lionel Messi and the rest of South America’s stars can restore the continent’s football glory. Finally, we hear from Shireen Ahmed about how the hopes of Toronto’s Muslim diaspora rise and fall on Mo Salah’s sore shoulder. And of course, we tell you what to watch this weekend.

Goals, tragedies, victories, politics—and, yes, songs. Host David Goldblatt is back to guide you through football's biggest tournament! Season 2 starts June 8, 2018.

When the World Cup begins, the absence of just two countries will mean that over a third of the global population will not be represented. India and China are not traditional football powers, but in recent years they’ve become huge and lucrative markets for the sport. In this episode, writer Supriya Nair talks about the new middle-class popularity of the Premier League in India, the clunky attempts to revamp the Indian domestic game, and her own private ritual of staying up until 3am to watch her favorite team: Italy's AC Milan.

In the 1980s and 90s, Colombian football was some of the best it had ever been. The price: near-total control by the country’s drug lords. This week, Goldblatt talks with fan and novelist Juan Gabriel Vásquez about what it was like growing up in Colombia during that time, how following the sport helps him see his country’s changes, and whether there’s any such thing as a pure game.

One of the top teams in Nigeria is Mountain of Fire and Miracles FC, a Pentecostal club in Lagos. It’s a team that provides stability for its players within the fraught world of Nigerian domestic football — and also represents the country on the global stage. “Someone is sick, we all pray and fast,” says church sporting director Godwin Enakhena. “There is a deal that’s coming, we fast and pray about it, and say ‘God help this young man get this deal.’” This week, he and David Goldblatt discuss his team’s remarkable rise from amateur youth club to elite team, the challenges facing Nigerian domestic clubs, and the rules that keep MFM FC on track.

David Goldblatt revels in the cheeky culture of English football chants. Season 1 starts March 15, 2018.