The Assistant Professor of Football: Soccer, Culture, History.
The academic treatment for English-speakers who get that soccer is more than gamedays, stars and goals. Who wonder about the histories, subcultures and politics that make the game so different from many American sports cultures; and who care about a critical take on soccer as a global capitalist machine. A European-guided journey, with one expert "visiting professor" each episode.
Episodes
88 episodes
Forged in Iron, Sold for Parts? West Ham, Millwall, and the Business of Community
West Ham are in the Championship, Millwall are back on the fixture list, and the Docker's Derby ended 2-2. Historian and lifelong Hammers fan Max Portman joins the show to ask whether relegation can be liberation, just as it was for 1860 Munich...
Relegation is Liberation: Munich 1860's fall into the Fourth Division
What happens when a club loses its right to compete — not through relegation on the pitch, but through a financial trapdoor built by the very man who was supposed to save it?This summer, 1860 Munich missed a license deadline a few millio...
An Austrian and an Indian walk into the World Cup...
... or: an Economist and a Tactics Nerd on what the last 6 weeks tell us about where the game is going. A spontaneous and incomplete post-final reaction.HELPFUL LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:
Season Round-Up with Guests and Music! Titles, Finals, Chaos, Hope, and Relegation
The traditional The Assistant Professor of Football season round-up is back. I asked guests from this past year, and some from previous years whose clubs had remarkable seasons of one sort or the other how their clubs have fared, what moment st...
World Cup 1994: An American Game, Revisited
If you're old enough — what do you remember about the 1994 World Cup?And if you're not, try to picture it. Soccer in the United States before MLS existed. Matches inside the Pontiac Silverdome, a domed football stadium in Michigan — humi...
Eurovision Reactions: a Special Episode with Phil Harrison
Phil Harrison, a former Visiting Professor on soccer in Albania before the fall of the Iron Curtain, and me are giving our take on the song contest in Vienna this past Saturday. A very helpful visual breakdown of all points - jury and public - ...
2/2: The Eurovision Song Contest - Campy, Chaotic and Completely Serious
Eurovision has many things that soccer does - underdogs, spectacular collapses, bloc loyalties, political scores settled through performance, and a continent watching the same spectacle at the same time. And this year, the Eurovision Song Conte...
1/2: The Eurovision Song Contest - Campy, Chaotic and Completely Serious
Eurovision has many things that soccer does - underdogs, spectacular collapses, bloc loyalties, political scores settled through performance, and a continent watching the same spectacle at the same time. And this year, the Eurovision Song Conte...
Small Town, Big Story: FC Thun's Long Road to an Unlikely Championship
Thun. Population 44,000. Located in the Swiss Bernese Oberland, where the river Aare meets a lake, with the Alps as a backdrop. Switzerland's biggest military town. Not exactly a place you’d expect to find yourself talking about Champions Leagu...
The Beautiful Game and the Fragile Democracy - with Political Scientist Cas Mudde
Today's assistant professor has spent his career studying the forces that threaten liberal democracy — the far right, populism, nationalist movements that have reshaped politics from Hungary to the United States. He's one of the most cited poli...
FK Bodø/Glimt: the history and community behind the headlines
Bodø/Glimt, the team from the town of Bodø north of the polar circle, counting around 45,000 inhabitants, made it to the round of 16 in the UEFA Champions League this season. After beating Atletico Madrid, Manchester City and Inter Milan, they ...
Rush Episode: Bodø/Glimt, fresh off the plane from its Champions League fairytale
The day after he arrived back from his clubs last Champions League game this year, a loss at Sporting in Lisbon, Freddy Toresen, the local football journalist from Bodø, gives us a long view of the club and its identity. This is just the first ...
Europe's "Jew Clubs:" On Tottenham Hotspur, Ajax Amsterdam, Bayern Munich and Austria Vienna with Pavel Brunssen
What do Tottenham Hotspur, Ajax Amsterdam, Bayern Munich and Austria Vienna have in common? They all, for better, or for worse, have come to be seen as “Jew Clubs” throughout their history. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Sometimes the club emb...
Liverpool F.C, a Global People's History: Alan McDougall on his new book
Every time one of the big clubs show up on this humble podcast, the audience is a little larger - and maybe I should do more on the likes of Bayern or Liverpool. But I always shirk back a bit. Too mainstream, I think. And if you like Liverpool,...
Go West, and Grow up Playing Soccer! How do so many internationals play for American Colleges?
The phrase "go west!" was not coined by the Village People or the Pet Shop Boys, but by Horace Greeley, a famous newspaper editor a long time ago. And seen from Europe, all of the United States is West. So that’s what Luca Puster tells his youn...
Salzburg's Actual Soccer Club: The Austria Will Outlast You All - Even Red Bull
This story is a journey to one of the original sins of commercialization in modern global football - the 2005 takeover of Austria Salzburg, a former Austrian champion, UEFA cup finalist and Champions League participant by a well known energy dr...
Holiday Read-Aloud & Christmas-themed Chants: "Kane and the Christmas Football Adventure" (no, not Harry)
Welcome to the 3rd Advent/Christmas/Holiday episode this year. It’s a read of a children book again, and that book involves a time-traveling boy and his dog. They time travel, through goalposts, to the first organized football match under Footb...
"Lost a Bet:" Soccer, Gambling, Addiction - and the Power of Recovery
Thomas Melchior placed his first soccer bet in 2005. He was addicted to gambling for 13 years, and imprisoned for the crimes he committed in his addiction. Now, he stands in front of stadiums on gamedays around Europe to raise awareness for the...
Soccer History is American History
In the US, the big soccer boom is always supposedly around the corner. The most recent example: right now, in the lead-up to next year's World Cup. But that waiting until the beautiful game is the "number 1 sport in the U.S." clouds our v...
2/2 England's State of Emergency - and Football's: Book Talk with the venerable David Goldblatt
This is PART 2 of a two-part episode. The 1st part aired two weeks ago, and is the most recent on on the Assistant Professor of Football. Please add a like, a comment, a star rating or spread the word by mouth!I was a little starstruck w...
1/2 England's State of Emergency - and Football's: Book Talk with the venerable David Goldblatt
I was a little starstruck when David Goldblatt showed up on my screen today. His books have done very well for very good reason. You may have read The Game of Our Lives: The Meaning and Making of English Football or The Ball Is Rou...
No More BS: It's Boycotts this time, at West Ham
It's a fall of unrest in East London again. Hammers United, the largest organized fan group at West Ham United, has so far refrained from calling on members of the board or the CEO to resign. Until now. They have launched the campaign "No More ...
Behind the Scenes on a UEFA Conference League gameday, at Slovenian upstarts NK Celje
Before the Conference League anthem came on in Celje Slovenia, one warm August night this year, today’s guest had a lot of work behind him already while I was was on my way via train, uber and rental car from Bosnia. He is Rok Gregoric, press a...
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Ivica Osim, Open Wounds (2/2): Live from Sarajevo, and from my own Story
This is Part 2 of an unusual episode, on the move through countries, memories, wounds, war, peace and the beautiful game.Sturm Graz is and was a workers club when I came to the club in the 90s, one year before Ivica Osim arrived. We knew...
Ivica Osim, Open Wounds (1/2): A Roadcast through Bosnia, and through my own Story
Sturm Graz is and was a workers club when I came to the club in the 90s, one year before Ivica Osim arrived. We knew he was a mathematician, soccer player and coach, and he knew workers clubs, from Željezničar, in Grbavica, back home in Sarajev...
