Notes from a Small (Cold, Dark, Miserable) Island
Mike and Matt are two Americans stuck in London. Expect dodgy accents, transatlantic bantz and notes on queueing.
Notes from a Small (Cold, Dark, Miserable) Island
15: Football shirts and soccer jerseys ft. Joey D'Urso
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
We're currently in the thick of the World Super Cup of Soccerball and wow, has the 2026 tournament been a doozy.
This week we're joined by Joey D'Urso - dedicated footie fan, political journalist and author of More Than A Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power.
Joey is just back from New York and tells us how excited Americans about hydration breaks, ruthless commercial opportunities and penalties for using their hands.
Can the USA break through the knockout stages? What happens as England progresses nervously through the next few rounds? And what are the real political stakes of Austria v Jordan? We tackle all the tough questions.
Joey's book is More Than A Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money and Power and his Substack can be found here.
Welcome to Notes from a Small, cold, dark, miserable island where we stand up for your right to wear shorts in the office 365 days a year. Let's go. I'm Mike. I am Matt.
SPEAKER_03This island, it ain't cold right now. It's roasting. It's roasting. And the real test of the keep calm and carry on ethos is being thrown at the English people right now who are here in London, here in East London, are whining their faces off. I know how cold it is. On the parents hot it is. So hot that it's cold. You're like conditioned. On the parents' group text when we got the announcement that they were gonna do half days for the rest of the week, one, you know, one of the dads chimed in with a this is ridiculous exclamation point. Like, yes, keeping the children from being packed 30 deep into a single room and risking their health is you know what?
SPEAKER_02I listen, I was actually on that dad's side because um I I I spent the last heat wave in 2022. I mean there's been f a few since then, uh, with some kids in like 40 degrees C heat in the house. People's houses are hot. Your flat must be hot, man. But then that's your problem. It's not the state's crying out loud. I thought the state here was supposed to help us out. Um Yeah, it will survive though. Yeah, I think we'll survive. The Prime Minister won't survive though. Yikes. Um, this is fascinating because I think as we touched on in in explaining the political situation, it's completely different um from the United States where we have to wait four years or for an untimely death. Or maybe in this case a timely death. We'll see. Uh uh and the guy just leaves. And there might not even be an election. There might not be even an election in the Labor Party if nobody comes to stand against Andy Burnham. Um how do you get a new leader? And can we please copy this in the United States? And the will of the will the the the gestalt of the Labour Party will decide who the leader is. Yeah. And and at an indetermined date. Well, he has set out a timetable, but that is uh dependent on whether people will challenge him for the Labour Party leadership. And I think we should remind our listeners that, you know, nobody uh of us necessarily, unless you're a Labour Party member, will have a vote. Only party members will be able to vote on the Prime Minister. A very, very small number of people have decided, and it's been very you know, because there's been what six Prime Ministers recently, uh, most of them have not been actually chosen by the electorate. It's um quite an interesting situation.
SPEAKER_03We just allow these b mini coups to you know to happen within the party.
SPEAKER_02And now and then And again, I think maybe many listeners will be um thinking that's a great system. Maybe we should try it. Should try in some of them former colonies, hey?
SPEAKER_03So now Stromer, the lamest of ducks, hangs out, absolutely starts hacking boxes and checkers.
SPEAKER_02My my prediction in our predictions episode has failed to come true. No. Thought nothing would happen.
SPEAKER_03I was wrong about the NBA finals as well. I just that I didn't put that on record that's Yeah, and the people in New York are Oh god, I'm sorry to pre- I didn't know.
SPEAKER_02I know like more like probably 50% of the audience of this program is are New Yorkers, but sorry guys, like Well, if anything, it does give.
SPEAKER_03Okay, I'm happy for you. It does give clueless English people a new team to buy apparel for. Yeah. Uh so we'll see an influx of of Nick's gear, uh, you know, like Nirvana t-shirts on people and be like, hey, name one player on the next. Uh so Nick's gear incoming 2027.
SPEAKER_02Wow, wow. Um well look, uh all of this is very germane because today we are joined by one of my former colleagues, Joey Durso, globetrotting journalist, uh an expert in both sports and politics. I mean sport and politics. Uh Joey's here to tell us all about the World Cup, which is happening, you may have noticed, right now. It's happening back in the homeland. Joey's recent book is called More Than a Shirt: How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money, and Power. And the American title is the same, except I think it says soccer jerseys, not football shirts. Is that right?
SPEAKER_00It's actually not the same, it's identical. Uh it was actually published in the US as of like a month ago, and I was I was in New York actually about three weeks ago. And it's in various shops. I saw it in Barnes and Noble Union Square, which is very exciting, but um, it's just got the same name. They just it's cheaper for them to just, you know, post the same version than the other.
SPEAKER_02I I think maybe the terminology s does translate uh a little bit. Does it make sense?
SPEAKER_00I think shirts don't imply a sort of crisp, a crisp, something you wear with a suit. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and you you you should go into these Barnes and Nobles when you're on the road and just make sure that it's not being misfiled in the Haverdashery section. Yeah. Tailoring.
SPEAKER_02Um how was the vibe? Because we uh both Matt and I have not been in the homeland recently, but you have, and you've been around the football fans, the soccer fans. Were they stoked? Was it palpable?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, so I was there just coincidentally when Arsenal, the Champions League final, when Arsenal uh uh lost, of course, but they'd just won the Premier League. And I walked, you know, I'm not an Arsenal fan, but I was sort of curious about the whole thing. And I um walk I walked past Spike Lee's bar in Brooklyn, which was uh fancy free, I believe it's called, and there was huge crowds outside at like eight in the morning. Um and I watched it and I saw shirts all over the place, like Real Madrid shirts, Arsenal, Liverpool. And I also did something I'd never done before. I've been to New York many times, but I walked the the length of Manhattan just on my own, just like all the whole day. I just I'd always really wanted to do it. That's really cool. So I took the the the subway to I can't remember what it's called now, the very, very north of um just across the Harlem River, like, and then walked for like all day to the um battery park. And I was just taking all in there are lots of not just kind of commer advertisements on the side of the road, but like bars where they have inflatable balls up there and just these little and and oh and more than that, like cages where people were clearly playing like pickup games and whatever else, in the kind of Harlem and those places far from the tourist location. So it does seem like it's changing a bit.
SPEAKER_02So it was, it is coming home.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, you know, like to our home. The the story of the US, it goes back longer than you think. In the late 19th century, there was quite a booming scene in like factories and whatever else, but it the Wall Street crash just killed it.
SPEAKER_03Really, really, really. Um and then did baseball then must have taken over because late late 19th century is when is when yeah, baseball blossoms.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't really know why baseball the the that clung on and soccer, football didn't. I guess maybe it just had like deeper roots, but it was just there was a really big the big team was Clark ONT, Clark Our New Thread, which was like a uh a clothing factory in New Jersey. That was the big team, but again, Haberdashery. Yeah, Haberdashery, yeah. But it was like wiped out by the crash and that was it for 50 years.
SPEAKER_02That's that's fascinating. I uh notice I having gone to a uh a couple of football matches, Chicago Fire, for instance, is like the immigrant communities often sort of prop up the the local teams. So there'll be a huge Mexican contingent follows the sh follows the Chicago fire there. They they sort of bring their own customs. Um but I mean this could be I mean everybody was talking back in the 90s. I mean, this is sort of probably predates to our consciousness here. But uh if not a life, no, I'm on recording. The World Cup. Do you do you remember the World Cup? I don't remember the 94.
SPEAKER_03Do you hardly uh to be honest, I hardly registered in my Well, I mean part of it is stamped because of this uh unfortunate commentator uh who was like propped up as the US star back in '94, Mr. Mr. Lawless. Oh, yes. This is sort of the base of things in 94. The less we say about him the better. But um He called who did he call if a full kit Wanker?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Wayne Rooney, like live on uh I don't think he realized that's quite a rude word in England, but uh I guess in the US no one knows what it means, so it's fine.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's him getting humiliated by uh by uh uh you know uh his his m more esteemed panelists has been has been an ongoing uh click show. Sorry, was it Rooney or was it Thierry Henri and Zlatan? Sorry, yeah. Thierry Henri and Zlatan are just rolling their eyes. Well, uh Zlatan is being outright rude and uh Henri is being cool about his uh you know sneak disses. Anyway, so yes, I remember 94. Okay, so 94 World Cup. More it just in the US though, not this whole whole continent situation. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the US has kind of done a heist with this World Cup. I mean, it's cool Canada and Mexico, but like Canada are not even gonna play their next game in Mexico. They're gonna sorry, Canada are playing their next game in LA because they finished something in the group. So the US has like 80% of the games and all the good ones, all the later stages.
SPEAKER_02We're gonna have all the games, we're gonna have all the good games. You know, finally debuting Trump.
SPEAKER_00Didn't take long. Didn't take long.
SPEAKER_02I think the thing that might actually inspire some people, and I and I hear from people who are not natural, like my family and stuff who are like not natural football fans, some of them, and they're talking about it. But like part of the appeal is that it's been actually a good tournament, right? Like there's been tons of goals. We love the fucking scoring, right?
SPEAKER_00Loads of goals, and just that the vibes are good, you know, people are having a good time. I think I've seen some nice posts about I certainly subscribe to this, you know. I I like visiting America, I I love lots of places. I went to Texas three years ago, it's in the book. I loved it, I loved barbecue and all these things that maybe like if you are an American, you think are a bit like, I don't know, do people really want to just eat disgusting amounts of like meat and uh drive a massive car around? And it's like, yeah, that's cool to us. Like that's a that's like that's like your version of kind of going to an Italian square and having a beautiful glass of wine. Like it's a different culture, it's an interesting culture, and it's really exciting and cool. And like maybe you guys forget that about yourselves.
SPEAKER_03I I think that I think that's a good point. No, I know. Well, this is the thing. If we get yeah, centering around hydration breaks, I think, is a real is a real big uh uh thing for me.
SPEAKER_02This is the Americanization.
SPEAKER_03The Americanization, but also like So you're on you're on the side of they're bad.
SPEAKER_00I am, however, um Because of because of history, because we don't wanna we don't want to change the game? Yeah, I think it it's just this delicate thing, and the rules have basically been the same for like 120, 130 years, and it's become this popular. And if you meddle with it, there's a real chance you could kind of kill the golden goose. And it kills the flu. And I think a really big part of why it's popular is like tension, right? Like Morocco against Brazil was a good example. Morocco, the underdogs were doing really well against Brazil. Brazil were like on the ropes, and then the hydration break comes, and then back to the default of Brazil being better. But the flip side is one of the reasons there are more goals could be the hydration brakes, because if it's too hot, you get a little rest and then you have a bit more energy. So I don't, yeah, I I'm against them, but who knows?
SPEAKER_02I I have never met a British person so far. I mean, I haven't sort of done a huge poll here, but everybody is like so anti-hydration breaks. And I have had some people point out to me specifically, oh, it's the American. I guess the conspiracy theory is that like Fox wants to show some commercials, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, what what are you were we anti-revenue? Are we against getting, you know, ad money? Can't believe we're defending Fox sports now, but we are. Sounds like communist. I saw this bit where where like some English fans were were at an at a World Cup match and the hydration break came and they're like, oh God, this is stupid. And then they are like, well, might as well use it. And then they go as he, you know, they go and get margaritas, and they're like, You can get margaritas at the stadium. And I was like, Yeah, there's all these great food options at at stadiums, you know, hot dogs with fruit loops on them. It costs you a lot of money. Uh but also the thing of like Is that a real thing? Yeah, every the start of every baseball season, they always put it on the body. Oh, I know that. Like the pays. Specifically the fruit loops. Oh, no. And they always be putting dry breakfast cereal on hot dogs these days. Oh, it's okay. So, but uh less hamstring pulls, like, do we not uh you know, sports science is such a big thing now. The the hydration break for uh, you know, I know it's bullshit. Air quotes hydration breaks, but do uh these guys are running miles and miles and miles. Should we can we not, you know, give them give them some break? And isn't 22 minutes enough time for flow?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean I think it can go go both ways. So there's an argument when they've started extending the half time, so I think in the most recent Champions League final it was like 22 minutes rather than 15 because Coldplay wanted to get on and off the pitch. And like that's actually not necessarily a good thing because of recovery times if you wait too long. So it's like I think the sport science is quite unclear with these things, but um yeah, I mean getting a margarita sounds good. I don't know. I mean it's just like it's a difference in what sport is, like it's in the US, it's like a luxury consumer experience. I went to the Dallas Cowboys Stadium, it's unbelievable. It's like being on a sort of first-class airport lounge spaceship. Whereas a lot of English grounds, even the really famous ones, are kind of a bit horrible. Uh, and like you're you're you have no legroom and like the food is just not very nice, and like that's kind of the charm of it. But it's come through these sort of working class communities and sort of factories and all these things, whereas the US, it's come from the sort of capitalism consumer products. So it's a very, very different culture. But a big part of that is a a UK Premier League match. It's over in two hours. So you don't need to eat. You don't need to go to the toilet, even maybe. Like you don't really need facilities in the same way that if you're going to an NFL match with lots of stop and starts and it lasts so much longer, you you want to be entertained, you want to eat well, you want to drink.
SPEAKER_03So, yes, you don't want to be entertained. I mean, that's the main thing.
SPEAKER_00No. I went to one for the first time, actually in Madrid recently. I managed to get a freebie ticket for that from someone and Oh, the the NFL uh game in Madrid. Yeah, and I d I had never but I kind of enjoyed it. Like it was cool. I I one thing that was like obviously it's really complicated and I don't understand all the subtleties, but it's also really simple. Like they're just trying to get it that way and then they're trying to get it that way. Like I get that. Do you know what I mean? It's like there is a simplicity on top of the complexity, and you can kind of enjoy the simple without understanding the complex.
SPEAKER_02We we did a whole sort of sport. I tried to be an ambassador. I I'm a football fan, but also a a football fan and uh baseball fan, and I enjoy a little bit of cricket, but like the similarities, you know, like if you if you understand the rules of rugby, you can sort of get the NFL and and sort of vice versa, right? It's um there's sort of uh what do they call them like sporting uh branch uh family trees or whatever. Um but but you know, but like football kind of lives alone. Um it is the biggest uh spectacle. Um and you know what? I think probably it's a good time to talk about your book, um, which I picked it up and I expected to learn about the game, but I actually learned a lot about global geopolitics in the 21st century. Uh you you snuck up on that one. Um what what tell us a little bit about sort of like what uh started you on this journey to uh and you and it's sort of very widely widely traveled, and interestingly so, to investigate all of these stories about the football shirts um of the world.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so basically the sort of the last 10 years of my career I've been flicking between doing politics, whether that be you know, Westminster British politics, which I did, whether sort of social media stuff which I did with you at the BBC Mike, or or and then football, um which I covered for the athletic, and sort of bouncing between those two worlds and sort of never quite knowing which one I preferred, and then basically realizing, well, I can do both, or the sort of combination of the two, which is a much more feels much more of a niche um and feels like I've got much more to say that other people aren't saying. And this idea that, well, the two are just completely fused now in a way that even 10, 15 years ago, I don't think the same conversation was being had. But if you look at this World Cup with Trump, you look at the previous one in Qatar, Russia and Putin, and lots of top clubs around Europe being owned by oil states. I mean, it's just completely it's it's a way of looking at the world in a slightly different way, I think. And you know, the first chapter is about the war on Ukraine, and a way of understanding that is through the shirt of um Shulke in Germany, sponsored by Gazprom, the Russian State Oil Company. And I just think shirts can be a way of understanding these things that are otherwise pretty sort of complicated or abstract. Uh and yeah, it seems to, yeah, it's it's fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the the Ukraine example was w is interesting. It's um you you go into uh various sort of you know industries, the rise, like you say, of the of the Middle Eastern powers. Um the World Cup is obviously um a right now it is uh is becoming a global power play where where um you know Donald Trump gets the uh FIFA Peace Prize or whatever it was. Um be off some stiff competition.
SPEAKER_00It was a very competitive process.
SPEAKER_02Um but you know what it doesn't seem um uh uh aside from a few stories about visas, uh referees from Somalia not being let in the country, it seems like politics is a little bit of a backseat so far in the tournament. I don't know what you think about that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I saved someone yesterday, like, where's Trump? I'd forgotten about that guy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. What's the other thing? I could see RFK Jr. at the last US match. Um sort of taking who knows supplements out in the luxury boxes.
SPEAKER_00But a similar thing happened in Qatar, right? And there's all those very pertinent questions about human rights, some pretty terrible things that have gone on there over the years. But as soon as the football starts, people want to talk about that. People want to talk about Messi and Mbappe, not like, you know, whereas in the week the weeks before the tournament, and I did various media interviews about this because no one's got anything else to talk about, and now people are talking about the actual games. Um, so it's like, you know, I think and that's what happens, and that's that's why it's so useful to politicians who want to, you know, either sportswash is the word, but it's a very effective propaganda tool.
SPEAKER_03Politicians or you know, activists will need to insert themselves. Like you're gonna need to go and actually do the protest. You're gonna have to, if you're a politician, you're gonna have to go and you know sort out the tickets and make sure that, you know, you're uh in in a place so that when they put you on camera, they boo you very loudly. You you know, they they will have to make an effort. I guess I'm a little interested just at not having uh looked at your book. Uh yeah, about uh US uniforms didn't get any corporate sponsorship uh until long after it was a European thing. Um so yeah. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So the NFL, they don't have them, right?
SPEAKER_03No, just uh baseball and and basketball. I don't know about the NHL, but that that has come in in the last 10 years with the.
SPEAKER_02And the logos are not are not sort of so prominent.
SPEAKER_03It's not like, yeah, it's not the Arsenal hit like I thought it I thought that team was called Emirates for force.
SPEAKER_00Which is of course the the the the basically a propaganda vehicle for an autocratic state in the Middle East. People kind of forget that when you say, oh, I live near the Emirates Stadium or whatever. It's sort of just part of the geography of London. Um and it's literally, yeah, it's Dubai's state airline, and Dubai does a lot of bad things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you trace this though in the book, the um the origins of it. Um remind us of the story. It it happened almost sort of randomly somewhere in the middle of England where people started to put uh-s on shirts.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell So it was early 70s, and Don Revy's- Have you ever seen the film The Damned United? Um, it's that sort of era and Brian Clough. Good film. Uh great film. But Don Revy, who's the sort of heroic leads manager, um they were training in like a park. You know, back in those days it was so much less glamorous. They were just training in a park. And this guy from Admiral, the sportswear manufacturer, he had a meeting nearby and it wasn't a success. And then he just saw all these players and he was like, We make sports um kit. Do you do you want, you know, we can do it for you? Like, I don't know if any any money changed hands. It was just like, you know, you wear our logo, we give you some free kit. And that was kind of that. Before that, it was just made in-house. It was all very ad hoc. These big teams won big trophies, but there was no real sort of thought behind it. And then when that that went really well, and then you know, everyone started doing it because and they started selling the Leeds replica shirts in shops. And then everyone was like, wow, we're leaving money on the table here. Um, but that was sort of very humble beginnings, and it took sort of 25, I'd say, until the sort of mid and late 90s before this got kind of ruthlessly commercialized.
SPEAKER_02I am really surprised actually that American sports teams don't sort of copy this because everything, as as you know, is so commercialized around uh US sports, you are just bombarded with advertisements all uh all the time when you uh before you walk into the stadium. Yeah. Um shirt, they don't replace Dodgers with um I don't know, uh Jamie Dodgers.
SPEAKER_03Whataburger Yeah, and so yeah, it's been relegated to just the patches, you know, the upper corner patches thus far. Nobody can read from far away.
SPEAKER_00But then when you get the colours, I think I do know the reason, which is that it's the same reason why international shirts at the World Cup don't have them, and it's because FIFA don't want companies competing with their own sponsors. So they got loads of money from Aramco, from Visa, from Coca-Cola to sponsor the World Cup, they're all over the billboards. And if you know England against Ghana both had a big logo on them for whatever, that would sort of detract from the value of their own sponsorships. And I it might be a similar thing in the NFL, but they have all these adverts everywhere, and if you had shirt ones, it would the other ones would lose their value.
SPEAKER_02I I have seen some crazy stuff. For instance, in SoFi Stadium, all of the Heinz ketchup.
SPEAKER_03You can't call it SoFi Stadium.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you can't call it SoFi Stadium. I think is the that one's at the LA the LA Stadium? What and what's the Bay Levi?
SPEAKER_00Levi, not Levi. My friend actually was at the Mercedes Benz last night, Atlanta against uh Morocco against Haiti Haiti in Atlanta. And I said because I was interested, I was like, look out for Mercedes ads and like set send me pictures. And he he was like, This is so they've done such a good job. And he sent me these pictures of like white stickers over things absolutely everywhere.
SPEAKER_02I for in in SoFi Stadium, there were there's black tape over the Heinz ketchup box. Oh, yeah, great. To black out the the the Heinz because Heinz isn't Heinz redacted. Oh, it's crazy. Um but you know, aside from all the commercial sponsorships, uh the teams, I I suppose we should also talk about the actual action, right? Team USA is doing pretty well, has played two kind of mediocre sides so far and like crushed them, but it's all right. England, shaky performance last time, but by the time people listen to this, they may have turned it around or not. We'll see. Um how do you see this playing out? Do you have any predictions?
SPEAKER_00Predictions is yeah, I mean, uh teams the teams that win often start badly. So our Argentina lost against Saudi Arabia in 2022, Spain lost against Switzerland in 2010 when they won the whole thing. So one shaky performance in the group stage doesn't necessarily mean you know, like England and Spain and Brazil have all had bad performances. So I mean I I I think uh as an Englishman you've got to always believe it's coming home and then be brutally disappointed. So I'm gonna run with that.
SPEAKER_02Awesome. You're remaining loyal, that's good.
SPEAKER_03Um any outlier squads or you know, USA.
SPEAKER_00Like they look really good. Um you'd probably expect them to get out of that group, but they absolutely blew away Paraguay and were so dominant against Australia. I mean, impressive. Let's see. Yeah, and I think it's slightly up in the air still, but they could get quite an easy route to the maybe quarterfinals. So, you know, and that's surely massive underdogs against one of the big European teams or South American teams, but they could definitely get to the quarterfinals. Yeah, a one-off game like it's a low-scoring sport, strange things can happen. I think they would be pretty pleased with quarterfinals. Mexico just cleared their group. How are you good? Yeah, it's a bit of a strange group that one. It's sort of no one looked particularly good in it. And well, South Africa have qualified, which is pretty cool, because they looked really dead and buried, and then they beat South Korea. So um yeah, Mexico. I mean, it's great for the tournament, right? Having the host doing well. It just means it's all a big party. Um, like in Qatar last time they were just so awful and just lost every game really badly, and it's a bit of a shame. So I think it's good for Canada going through, although not actually playing in Canada anymore. So that's that's just good for everyone, I think, if the hosts do well.
SPEAKER_02The uh the US-Australia game is one I really sort of started to notice that Americans were just going crazy. The the crowd was like on fire. You could even tell on television that that people were just so into it in that game in Seattle.
SPEAKER_03The American football fan, the American global football fan, the fan of the sport that they call soccer, who lives in America, is generally to stereotype, is generally like a cool guy, like a cosmopolitan. Like when you see somebody rocking a shirt in a city, you're like, that guy probably reads, that guy, you know, pays attention to world politics, that guy's probably got groovy opinions. Um, so I think uh, and they're not served by you know the traditional sports uh ecosphere. And so I think Which is typically what more like macho and uh Yeah, yeah you might even check out a NASCAR race. Yeah. Um so I think this let yeah, the the every four years or the every two years, depending on what's going on with the Olympics and whatnot. Yeah, I I feel like it's this you you know nerdy athlete, nerdy jock, um pent up. I'm I'm really ready to let it rip for for my favorite sport. And so I hopefully that's what that's a bit of what we're seeing uh with the with the US World Cup supporters. And maybe they'll organize a little protest while they're there.
SPEAKER_00I think you're right. And like, you know, you guys are the Americans, but I get the sense that's kind of changing. And in sort of small town America, in sort of red state America, it's becoming a lot more popular and it's nowhere near, you know, NFL, whatever. But it's like it's not just the sort of fixed-wheel bike hipsters anymore. It's like much getting much bigger than that.
SPEAKER_02Uh and and you w wrote a recent Substack, um, which you know people can um find. Uh we'll put the link in the show notes, about the safety considerations of the NFL, of American football, the concussion issue, and how that has perhaps drawn uh more players uh uh to or you know, parents sort of pushing their kids to play soccer instead of football, uh to use the American terms. And then like, you know, the popularity of uh football, European football, um rises in correspondence, right? Um like safety the concern.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You're not offending me, it's fine. You're right, yeah. I I yeah, I just had this conversation with a guy in New York who was saying, I think it I don't know if it's his own kids or sort of nephews or nieces or whatever, who were saying, yeah, well the parents are not wanting their kids to play American football anymore because of this terrible stuff about head injuries, and it's incredibly overwhelming evidence now that turns out that running headfirst into people at incredibly overwhelming. Um yeah. And the helmets actually make things worse because it means you can like withstand these massive forces that you could never withstand with your uh unprotected head. So um yeah, it's pretty bad. And and I think one of the reasons, there's many reasons why soccer is so popular and so big around the world, you know, it's see it's simple and easy to understand, you don't really need expensive equipment, but also it's safe. Like, and there have been, you know, rare terrible terrible knee injuries or whatever else. But in terms of like life and death, like it's extremely rare for a life and death injury. And in lots of other sports, you know, cricket, rugby, uh ice hockey, NFL, like really bad injuries do happen pretty regularly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and so it comes down to because I'm such a big flag waiver for basketball, which also doesn't require much equipment, you're just out there, you know, in your shorts and shirt and and one round ball. Um yeah, these these sports that level the playing field, pun pun acknowledged, um, with with just kids and and a single ball, and figure out a way to do it that's you know, yeah, you're gonna blow out a knee from running so much, but um no nobody's carrying any weapons or trying to murder anybody.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Though the header, I will say, like after reading that substack of yours, Joey, uh and then watching the next match I watched, um, and just you know, the the two dudes leaping in the air and both simultaneously whiplashing their their heads in the exact same direction, that definitely gave me the yikes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, and there's yeah, a heading, and there's been you know the England 1966 World Cup winning squad, they've basically all but Jeff Hurst, who scored the hat-trick in the final famously, have died. And several of them have dementia, and like it's pretty bad. Like, you know, I don't think there's an autopsies and stuff, but there's a lot of evidence now that those guys, a lot of them develop dementia through CTE, through heading, and that was because back in the day the ball was heavy, it was made of leather. When it got wet, it would be like heading a brick. And I think it's different now, the balls are lighter and whatever else. Poor. Yeah, but but it's it's it's not good. And I think, you know, foot football soccer is not um immune to these criticisms. Yeah. And there's a lot of talk about, especially like young children, I think they're basically banning heading now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I definitely have heard that. Or when my own children have sort of um had a go, you know, no heading until age 14 or something like this. I don't know. Um Wow, it's like when can I get a phone? When can I head to Baltic? When it's my first kiss.
SPEAKER_00Surely when you're not looking that it's in the garden every time doing heading.
SPEAKER_03You come back from, you know, come back from the evening and you're like, kid is secretly out there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You've been heading behind the bike shed again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um for for our listeners who maybe this is the first World Cup they have experienced uh in uh Britain, um what's the best way to ex to sort of get involved? I mean, I I always think going to the pub, and I've sort of been uh hanging out at the local pub, although um going to uh the night before we record this to the pub to see Scotland was quite an adventure. Um, I watched that on the sofa, but that was that was terrible. That could have been seven, nothing. There was a there was about 50, really, really uh we we we stepped into the pub uh about two minutes into the match, and it was like stepping into um the like the final if it went to a penalty shootout. That's how nervous the energy was at the beginning of that match among some random Scottish people in West London. Um people were like, get get out of the fucking way, man. Go out of the fucking way. Like, whoa. Um, and then that was even before they just got hideously thrashed. Um then that experience aside.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh would you suggest to your uh local American to uh check out the pub? Uh fan zones, uh just get yourself invited to a party. What is the classic uh watching experience?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but yeah, either either a pub or uh someone's house. Yeah, I don't think it's too kind of complicated really. But yeah, getting down to pubs always a good one. I noticed that you know I've seen pubs being like, do not come, we're at capacity, tickets only, we are going to turn everyone away. Like it's a big deal, and pubs are gonna be full and people will be quite rowdy. And if you don't want like beer spilt on your small child or whatever, then maybe like don't go to the pub. But like it's it's a big deal. Like if people are new to and also because the last one was in Qatar in the winter, um, which made it all a bit strange, like it was freezing outside, it's the the first summer World Cup for eight years, which is a long time, and like but also the group stage is like a weird sort of warm-up act, right? Like, England are gonna get through the groups, people knew that, people like the Garner thing was disappointing, but fundamentally not a huge deal. Whereas every knockout game is like a massive, massive deal. And England are genuinely like among the favourites to win the World Cup. I'm not saying they will, but like it is plausible. And like if England they'll almost certainly get through this round of 32 game, which will be against a sort of smaller country, probably. But from that, the stakes are really, really high. And it's like a bigger a big and people are new to this country, it'll be like the biggest thing you've seen like in your time here by such a long way. Like it's huge. Nice. And there's nothing really comparable because like the club game is like obviously everyone supports different clubs, and like Arsenal had their huge parade, but like the majority of people in London were like, oh, we hate Arsenal, we hope that we hope it rains, kind of thing. Whereas like the World Cup is like everyone's on the same side for once, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it'll it'll slowly ramp up. Um it it it's so exciting. I'm I'm excited. I'm excited for England. I'm excited for all the I'm excited for the US uh leaving geopolitics aside. I was I'm excited for the internet.
SPEAKER_00I think that's like a very sacred thing.
SPEAKER_02No, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's kind of I think that's tiring for everyone else, you know. Just wave your flag and have a good time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yes. Yeah, I'll give you permission.
SPEAKER_00I'll give you permission.
SPEAKER_03Joey, for the for the hardcore fan, I was wondering like whether this time is whether this time is a fantastic time, like because you could spend eight hours a day just lining up matches, um, even though the time zone makes it makes it challenging. Like US Turkey is 3 a.m. tonight. Um and I know you say like these are warm-up and a lot of them are sort of given results, or you know, at best Curaçao is gonna get a draw and like wow. Um but is it is it like is it a fun time for you? Are you are you sort of marathoning matches or or are you uh you know just picking and choosing and getting some rest?
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, I absolutely love it. I mean, annoyingly I am quite a morning person and if I I'm I work best in the morning and sort of fade out by mid-afternoon. So like the the 3am games, I've just really struggled with that. Like I wish I was someone who could stay up till 4 a.m. and then sleep and then just work all afternoon and evening, but it's just not my vibe. So I I just sort of am missing those ones. But like I think later on I will just watch them and take the hit. Um but yeah, I absolutely love it. Like I can just watch it all day every day. Like, particularly, I think now we're in this sort of funny group stage last round where it's a bit lower stakes, but any knockout game is thrilling. No matter if it's the two most obscure countries ever, it's great. And like I just want to watch it all.
SPEAKER_03The spirit is obviously maybe even more so than the Olympics, because it's one specific sport and it's the most popular sport. Um yeah, the the the spirit that the nation's fans bring, even uh you know, even if they had these issues getting in, um, is is wholly unique to the World Cup from from the spectator from my spectator's point of view.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I always wish the Olympics was a week longer. It's too short and it's hard to follow. And especially if it's in a bad time zone, it's like and it's if you're working, it's just wow, as soon as you tune in, it's all done. Um so yeah, that's my advice to the Olympic committee. Make it three weeks, not two.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and also we should six weeks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Let's supersize this bastard.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just have like three things on a day and I'll watch them all.
SPEAKER_03But like if I you know I think from the English perspective, I think we should then always root for like an Oceania uh Australia-New Zealand uh hosted event so that we can have have things going on when we wake up in the morning and then finish at a decent hour.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, so that's quite an interesting point when it comes to football, English football soccer in the US. It's really helped by the fact it's on in the mornings. Um, whereas saying, like in East Asia, it's the middle of the night, but like people wake up on a Saturday or Sunday and they're at home and they just watch it while making breakfast. And that's I think that's really helped. And the Premier League breakfasts are like a big marketing thing over there. So like the time of the day I think makes a massive uh difference. Because people are kind of generally at home on a weekend morning, you know?
SPEAKER_03100%. And that's that that cosmopolitan cool guy definitely is going to the Abbey.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, classic. He's not having eight pints at 7 a.m. Maybe not, maybe maybe four, but uh of a premium IPA. And then bed or and then a little snooze, or just I can't keep going. If I have four pints in the morning, I'm it's Americans take beer like so seriously. More seriously than like Europeans.
SPEAKER_02Oh, really? Really? Like the sort of IPA Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I was in New York and I went to this craft bar and there's like a menu. And I was like, weird? Wow, really. You should check out the weed scene, man. Yeah, it's not my thing, but it's everywhere.
SPEAKER_03But as far as something being like broken down into the chemistry of it and explained to you by uh an over-educated hipster, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's everywhere in New York now. It's crazy.
SPEAKER_02It's like This is the Yeah. This is the American tendency. Take things, expand them, segment them, so many sell them back to the world in so many varieties.
SPEAKER_03How many different Pop-Tart flavors can we make? We invented football, by the way. Should we get I just I like I know we'll link to your substack and everything, but I absolutely delighted by uh uh the the one that breaks down what is the historical significance of every single group stage match. Do you have any uh you want to just talk about that project and then and then highlight uh a couple favorites?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it's something I'd been sort of thinking about for a while. I mean, uh yeah, so to making a political link between every match in the World Cup and you know, France and Senegal, England against Ghana, that's pretty obvious. That's a colonizer against the colonized. And there genuinely is a bit of resonance there, you know. I think for Ghana, it's like a massive deal getting a point against England. But for other ones, you have to try a bit harder, and the links are pretty tenuous. Um, I think Saudi Arabia against Cape Verde, they're both massive desalinators. So, like so they don't have fresh water and they are huge on the desalination scene.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, what does the hydration break really signify in that one?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, exactly. Water from the sea turn into fresh water. Uh, Austria against Jordan was another tenuous one. The link there was like an Austrian guy gets shot in Sarajevo in 1914. The Archduke San uh Franz Ferdinand kicks off a chain of events that lead to the First World War. The first world war, the empire's collapse all over the world. Oh, you know, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, German, and the Ottoman Empire. And through the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, the Brits draw up a new country, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. So as I said, tenuous, but you can you can you can get there if you try hard enough.
SPEAKER_03Aaron Ross Powell You could turn it into a mocking chant uh if you have a PhD.
SPEAKER_02I feel like the the the one thing that is going to if if the US were to play Iran, and I don't know what we are. That's not gonna happen. Yeah. So very unlikely. Okay, so that would be the big the big one. Although I suppose further on down the line there could be uh could be other sort of geopolitical things that sort of throw up. Um the host it doesn't look like the hosts will f will face each other either.
SPEAKER_00Um Well they could in like the semifinal, but you know, if they get really far, then anyone can kind of host anyone, but um not for a while.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, looking looking perhaps unlikely.
SPEAKER_00I mean a USA Mexico match would be just Well it's so hard to predict now in this new format because you know there's the third place teams, it's all very complicated. It used to be very simple, it was just the top two, and then there's which is why it makes sense to expand it to 64. It would be much easier than 48. But Yes.
SPEAKER_02Now you're talking now you're talking 64 matches over eight countries with 80% of the matches in the United States.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Go. What's it? I believe that we will win. Oh that is so lame, sorry.
SPEAKER_02Um a little on the nose. Well, look, it's been uh it's been a it's it's it's it's been a great tournament. It will continue, hopefully, to be a great tournament. Uh thank you for telling us all about it. Um Joey Durso, Joey's book, More Than a Shirt, How Football Shirts Explain Global Politics, Money, and Power. It is really fascinating. If you are interested in politics, if you're interested in sport, uh if you're interested in both, you should buy it twice. Um Thanks so much, Joey. Uh thanks for having me. I I didn't get to actually uh go over this um during the interview, but actually I saw a high-level football match with Joey uh about five years ago. It was a 2020 Euro uh uh uh competition uh held in held in 21. Held in 2021 because of COVID. Uh we caught a semifinal at Wembley Stadium and uh Joey uh De Urso in Italian is uh the bear. Uh like the restaurant or the television show in the beef uh restaurant and Joey Chicago. So it's Joey the Bear. Joey the Joey the Bear was Joey Bear Italy versus Spain in the semifinals of the Euros. It was a very spirited match at Wembley Stadium. The Italian fans were were up for it, the Spanish fans were going crazy. Italy won that in a penalty shootout, if I if I recall that we that we witnessed. And uh it it it is like can you imagine the NBA being like all right? Free throws. Free throws. Yeah, or a slam dunk contact. Yeah, slam dunk will be even better. Ooh, 4.3. Um yes. And um Italy went on to win that tournament. Uh they're not in the World Cup this time, though. Uh we shall see. We shall see how the action proceeds. Um I I think that's it. If you can you can email us, you can tell us your own predictions for the World Cup. Uh we'll uh probably um they'll probably end up being wrong. Yeah. Um I mean uh you know that's no offense on you. Yeah, there's a lot of nations. It's big. It's big.
SPEAKER_03ColdDark Miserable Pod at gmail.com is where you can contact us with your ideas and your interjections. And I think that's it for this week. Well, no, it's not, Mike. Come on, we've been doing this for months. You know that I know you're pretending to pull back the curtain. Uh well, I wanted for this, you know, once every four years occasion, and you know, once a generation on US soil to give us something that is like the intersection of America and England, something epic and sweeping, but also totally trashy and sold out. Oh wow.
SPEAKER_02Awesome.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I I bring to you this musical accompaniment to our World Cup episode with apologies to Will Farrell and Neil Leslie Diamond. I did not bring a string section with me. So I will have to replicate them with the power of my voice. Are you ready? Hit it.
SPEAKER_04Cool dark miserable island.
SPEAKER_03That's the strings.
SPEAKER_04Cool dark, miserable island. Cool dark, miserable island, cool dark podcast.
SPEAKER_01Don't take it down, take it down, it don't don't take it down, take it down, it don't.
SPEAKER_06Dee-do-de-doo, de-do-de-doo, ank ank, dee-doo de doody, de-do-de-do-di, balls, special cup full of balls.
SPEAKER_05Rules of sensitive y'all. Don't touch the balls Golden Sounds. Hopefully, there'll be golds. The girls know the gold, then you're fine sources. For this, and for the squad, hey, I said football, the garbage in an America. Hope no one ruptures the quad. Don't just health care in an America. Alright! So that happened in America Visa Fees, I ticket prize! That feels will get you to America Today Do do do do. Literally today, do do Today in the World Cup, the US tries to close out group D against Turkey as Germany the defending Japan is Japan is today. My country to the V today! Open for the right V today! God save the king. Remember no kings today! Do turn on your hot light!