Could the Football War happen again at the 2026 World Cup? Harry is joined by Dr. Nick Watanabe author of The Beautiful Game?: The Stories Shaping the Future of Soccer to dive into the Football War, FIFA's diplomatic responsibility and what happens to the players caught in the middle.

CHAPTERS:

Intro (:00)

How pervasive is the fake narrative? (1:23)

1970 World Cup vs. 2026 World Cup (3:45)

Does US fear world soccer culture? (9:30)

Sports nationalism and the Dokdo-Takeshima fight (14:27)

Would social media fight propaganda or spread it? (20:15)

Is 2026 heading for a new Football War? (22:30)

The failure of FIFA's "football diplomacy" (27:15)

Honduras-El Salvador Match 3 was a World Cup CLASSIC (32:25)

What happens to the players used as pawns? (35:50)

The Beautiful Game?: The Stories Shaping the Future of Soccer (42:40)

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The whistle has blown and we're into extra time.

2

I'm joined by Dr.

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Nicholas Watanabe, Professor of Sports and Entertainment Management at South Carolina, and

author of the beautiful game Question Mark, the story shaping the future of soccer.

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We're gonna talk about the football war, or I guess I should say the hundred hours war.

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So, Nick, did you know about the football war before you listened to the podcast?

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Did you h did you know about it before we begame we began?

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Um, yes, I have just because um I teach courses that are somewhat related to this.

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Um, I'm not as like some of my colleagues who do sport diplomacy.

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This would fall right exactly in their area, but I teach international sport, you know, a

lot of sporting events and I like to bring a lot of context, so

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In my research, of course, the football war has come up.

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and then there's also the wonderful book, Football Against the Enemy, um, which if you

haven't read it is a great one.

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And you know, you it would be impossible to write a book like that without actually

talking about the football war.

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So yeah, I have some some background, but not as deep as everything that's been talked

about in the previous episode.

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I was listening and it's lots of great information, so

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Yeah, I was going to ask, like when because you had heard about it before, how much of

that was the narrative that is in the beginning half of the podcast, where it's like the

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the one version, the Kapuchinsky kind of version of it, versus how much of it is the real

kind of what happened understanding of the of of what was really happening with global

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politics as opposed to the kind of like cheap it was soccer version.

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I think a lot, especially from a sport side that obviously we get is that it's oh this was

entirely about football.

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yeah, the football's such an important sport.

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These two countries were really good friends with each other and all of a sudden, oh, this

match happened and they became worst enemies, which, you know, is pr preposterous.

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It'd have to take quite a match to for that to happen.

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I mean

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We've ha I mean we you know, if you look about how many of enemies really play against

each other across the world all the time, you know, that hasn't triggered other conflicts.

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So clearly, you know, a rational actor would say, yes, there had to be something else,

which you did a wonderful de job detailing.

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But at a surface level lot of people do like to use the the cheaper yeah, football,

football is the cause of this and and it also goes very well in hand with this narrative,

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especially in the, you know, seven

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And eighties that emerged out of England that, you know, football and football fans is a

bunch of hooligans who cause problems around the world.

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And police forces and governments love to cast the blame onto them rather than larger

social issues, right?

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And so this is not an uncommon thing where the ills of society uh are reflected in

football, but then football and its supporters will get the blame because we do there is

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some

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Bad history there, but it's not to the level where we're we're the ones who've really

started the war.

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Yeah, and it I I you you brought up how Britain's kind of exporting the idea of like

hooliganism and we uh Lestrange, who is who was in who is the uh diplomat that was in

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Honduras, the British diplomat that was in Honduras, writes back and he says like, Yeah,

that nothing nothing outside of what normally happens outside of a Man City match is, you

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know or I guess Man United at the time.

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i is this is all this is all par for the course.

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This is not a big problem.

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and I think that is kind of a really interesting level to this story, and it brings me

into my next question, which was, you know, we're today, while we're recording, is the

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start of the twenty twenty-six World Cup.

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But th the that and the nineteen seventy World Cup, which is what they were qualifying

for, feel like two different sports completely.

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Can you talk a little bit about the you know, what's

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some of the things that have changed, both uh less so in the sport, but more like in the

coverage of it and the politics of it, from nineteen seventy to twenty twenty six.

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So uh it's not even a World Cup thing.

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It all sport has changed drastically from nineteen seventy to today.

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the big probably watershed moment you would get in a lot of your traditional textbooks

would be nineteen eighty four, right?

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The Los Angeles Olympics, or as I like to call it, the commercial games, where we realized

we can take a sporting event and a mega sporting event and really commercialize it, right?

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That's where we brought in all the big US companies as sponsors to, you know, everything's

advertised.

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Um

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And now if you think about the World Cup, we've taken that to in a a whole different

level, right?

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There's like an official, you know, car sponsor.

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Well, car sponsor is pretty normal, but you know, there's like they even segment the

official alcoholic beverage of FIFA is Budweiser, right?

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So you it's the level of back then they were like, Oh, we can get sponsorship?

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That's crazy.

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We're just playing a game.

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Like, come on.

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Now it's like, no, we must have every sponsor we can get segmented, dynamic ticket

pricing, you know, all of this.

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So,

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One does hearken for those days where you could probably afford to get a ticket if you

were interested in going to the World Cup.

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uh and, you know, where everything wasn't commercialized.

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So it is a it is a very different time period, right?

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It is a different sport too.

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the rules of the game in fact have been changed to try to make it so that, you know, the

so that the game is more commercial, more exciting.

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for example, the backpass rule.

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So it used to be you can't

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could kick the ball back to the goalkeeper with your feet and he could pick the ball up

with his hands.

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And then he could pass it back to you.

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And then he could kick it back to him and he could pick it up.

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Um after Denmark in nineteen ninety used this or ninety two, what was it?

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I forget one of those years, uh used this to the extent that it was

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egregious.

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They essentially eliminated the back pass rule.

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But they also, you know, even changed at the World Cup a win used to be two points, a tie

used to be one point.

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And so all you really had to do to advance was tie three times.

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And you advance draw three times, you move to the next round.

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And they said, Well, this is terrible football.

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So a win they made were three, so that you would have to go out and at least win one

match.

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You'd have to try to score goals to make the game more exciting.

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Weirdly, because we're now at the mega world cup of forty-eight teams, the probabilities

actually this year say that about sixty-seven percent of teams that draw all three games

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should advance the next round.

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So we've actually gone a little bit backward in terms of the contest design side.

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But yes, the the sport's entirely different than what we were looking at, you know,

several decades ago.

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Yeah, and and the coverage too.

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So, you know, I I have that little clip in the episode uh about the it being the first

games in c or the first World Cup in color, right?

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And and and being the the first World Cup not in Europe or South America.

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And

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The one of the things that afforded teams like Honduras and El Salvador, and of course the

countries behind them, was kind of like an anonymity.

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Like, because you're not getting these, you know, because you're not constantly like the

all for instance, running up to this World Cup, all the friendlies on TV, everything's

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broadcast.

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I had so much trouble.

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Trying to find any kind of recording of the first match or the second match.

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Why?

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Because most people in El Salvador and Honduras did not have televisions.

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And so they were not widely televised.

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The reason that I had the third match and all of the wonderful calls from that is because

that was played in Mexico, where they were doing the hosting the World Cup.

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And so they actually recorded that one, you know.

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live as it were and aired it to television.

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So it I think that's a big part of it too is that in 1970, like there was this kind you

you could have not only could you afford to be, but you could also actually just be kind

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of like an anonymous team that shows up on the at you know at the c tournament that nobody

really knew about and nobody was following.

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And so that kind of leads into the reason that Honduras and El Salvador tried to kind of

publici publ

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like publicize these matches uh by propagandizing them.

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Um so a big aspect of the misinformation that El Salvador was able to push was based in

the fact that like Americans don't have the same soccer culture as say shirt certainly

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South America South America or Europe.

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Like what

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Why does soccer culture and and and they were they used it, they kind of weaponized that

difference to try to be like, oh, soccer culture's a little scary.

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You can we can start a war over this you know football match.

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Why why do you think soccer culture like that scares America so much?

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I mean if you think about it, you know, uh there there's many levels.

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One you could juxtapose it to, you know, what the idea of baseball was in the seventies.

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You know, even though we do have disco demolition where we we literally have riots at

sporting events and yet somehow it still has that idea of, you know, the natural or, you

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know, field of dreams that is this American traditional sport where people who truly love

this game go out there and play this sport that's supposed to reflect American ideals.

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And you know, at the end of the game you you know, you're supposed to shake hands or even

get a beer with one another and every

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things nice and friendly.

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And that also goes to the way we do stadiums in the US.

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In the US, you buy a ticket.

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Doesn't matter which team you you cheer for, you sit wherever wherever you bought your

ticket, right?

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Whereas if you go to

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any soccer culture around the world, the idea of putting an away fan in the middle of the

home fans is the absolute craziest idea ever, right?

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You know, I continuously have to warn even my own students.

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I take them for study abroad to the UK.

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We buy home tickets to teams that they clearly are cheering for the other team for.

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And I be like, you can't wear your shirt.

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You can't wear those colors, right?

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Like think about that.

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You wear the wrong color t-shirt into say let's say Manchester City.

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You're gonna watch a Manchester City match and you wear a red t-shirt into the middle of

the home section, everybody's immediately head's just gonna snap around, be like, Who is

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this guy?

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What's he doing?

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You've marked yourself right.

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So I think there's these really big differences in how we think about the game and also

how we've consumed it and sort of the tradition around it that sort of cast those

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differences.

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At the end of the day though, there sh there's a lot of similarities that

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really do exist, but I think it's easy to see soccer as this foreign sport that wasn't

really something that was around in the US but was, because we do have a rich soccer

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history, right?

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I can point to US participation in the early nineteen hundreds of where we're

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literally sending multiple teams to the Olympics and and actually winning medals, right,

in soccer.

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And so we have this history and yet at the same time it evolves to this point where it's

such a counterpoint to what the way we watch sport is, the way we consume sport is, and

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that then causes that fear, right?

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We fear the other.

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We fear what we do not know.

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And that becomes what soccer is.

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Yeah, I think that you're right where it's kind of like a a the idea of of like large

scale mob violence as as like f team supporters.

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When I lived in the UK for two years, I attended Arsenal matches and and and I'm Arsenal

fan.

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Uh and you know, it w the you get boot you get booed hard if you are not an Arsenal

supporter in the Emirates.

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And I, you know, I was reading Nick Hornsby's um Fever Pitch.

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And he talks about like in the seventies and eighties and and even even the early

nineties, it was fights.

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It wasn't just that you would go to a match and get booed.

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Like in America, like if you go to uh you know, a basketball game and you're wearing the

other uh a home game for the opposing team and you're wearing the wrong colors, you'll get

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booed.

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That's a thing.

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You'll get booed.

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And if you're in Philly, you'll might have something thrown at you.

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But like

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in in in in the UK and and in other places, like they especially especially in the

seventies and eighties, it was it was fights, large scale fights.

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Um and people were worried about that.

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And if you were a s you know, a a kid attending a game or or even just a young adult or

somebody who was not physically fit and able to fight, like, it was dangerous for you to

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go.

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So that I think that really is kind of the thing that

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El Salvador and Honduras were playing on this that cultural difference where I think

America was aware of the of the violence that's happening in in soccer across the world,

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but they didn't really have an analog for it or understand why it was happening.

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And so they kind of were hoping to play on that juxtaposition.

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Um so let's talk about some things that are the same.

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We talked about a lot of things that are different, right?

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About the soccer now and the soccer then, but let's talk about one of the things that's

the same.

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Nationalism.

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Yeah.

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Have countries changed the like how how have people are still doing it.

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How have we changed the way we're stirring up nationalism through these soccer matches?

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Back then they had the propaganda campaigns that were literally pamphlets that they would

hand out to people and they like booed during the national anthems.

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How are we doing it now?

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What's the modern way to be a jerk about it?

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Well, hm, this is a good question.

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First off I have to say I'm glad you support the correct Premier League club.

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So come on you gunners.

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Great season.

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Um, yeah.

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Was at Emirates for the Everton match this season, so the won the the Max Dowman match and

actually by pure chance his elementary school teacher was sitting behind us and like

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showing me photos of like eight year old Max Dowman, which doesn't look too much

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Different than the current one because he is still so young, it's a little bit

frightening.

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Yes.

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So

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Max Dalman is the teen teen sensation for Arsenal who is youngest Premier League dis debut

or second youngest Premier League debut, youngest Premier League scorer, youngest

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Champions League starter.

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It's list of awards goes on and on, just for the for those who are are not aware of Max

Dalman.

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But yes, cond the the nationalism.

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some of it's different, but some of it's the same.

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So maybe it's not as directly nationalism in terms of it the government pushing it.

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But we still see it a lot, for example, in media discourse.

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And of course that depends where you are in the world, but there are certain, you know,

state-run media that are very emphatic about the use of sport.

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you can look at, you know, the easy one to look at right now is Saudi Arabia and their

attempt to use sport to, as we would say, sportwash, right?

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To if influence how people feel about the world.

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Um but

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It even happens, you know, in actual commercial media.

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So my wife and I actually have a paper.

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Um I'm in Japan right now, so this is a perfect example.

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Um Japan and Korea both have a territorial island.

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It's literally just a rock in the middle of the water.

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You can

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no one can even really live there.

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And Korean's called Dokto and Japan's called Tekeshima.

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both of them both countries believe that it is their sovereign territory, um, and do not

agree over it and routinely do political stunts such as landing

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fifty people to go there like they're actually gonna live there and then they're like,

nope, this is just a rock.

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We gotta get back on the boat and go back and turn around.

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probably offending both our Korean and Japanese audience here.

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So this is a a amazing job by myself.

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But um for example, what we looked at actually is during the Olympics there was Japan and

Korea played each other.

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And after the match one of the Korean players brought out a sign that says Dokto is our

own or something like this and oh firestorm, right?

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Japanese media, oh, this is our island, how dare you, da da da da da da Korean media it's

all, you know, a nationalistic firestorm.

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All over a sign at the Olympics.

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end of the day, nothing changed other than it riled people up, right?

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Um, and that's still sort of how this happens, right?

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It's especially through media that this happens.

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Now one of the big shifts now is we have social media so people can then get on and also

participate.

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And that's where things get a little bit different now because they can boil over to a

different level.

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You know, there's the friendly jabs at each other, right?

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I do that with one of my former British colleagues.

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I'm always constantly making fun of him, you know, especially when, you know, the

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British are coming over here for the World Cup, and I'll be like, can I direct you all to

Yorktown and have a site where it all went wrong, you know?

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So, or oh, South Carolina, you don't you guys have a little bad history here?

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Please don't visit this thing.

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I give them a hard time about that.

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That's you know, friend friendly banter in the words of a of a British.

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But what happens on social media now can get to a level that people go way overboard.

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And so there are some similarities still in how we evoke nationalism.

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obviously, but we also have different tools now that can make it spread even worse.

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I can only imagine what social media would have been like during the football war.

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Right?

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Those gangs roving the streets, like both sides tweeting live videos, it would have

probably cast this even further, right?

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Well so I do have a c I have a question about that that I'll get to in a second, but they

one of the things that I found really fascinating and that I couldn't quite fit into

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because it's a wall of text, into the podcast itself was Honduras passed out like tons,

and this is before this is, you know, months before the matches, passed out uh pamphlets

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upon pamphlets.

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So there was the one that I said where they had slogans like pick up a stick and kill an

Al Sal Salvadoran.

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Um which is an out an insane thing for a government to print.

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But they also had these pamphlets that they gave out to Salvadorans living in Honduras

that were essentially like, hey, if you were a good person, you just leave.

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And if you don't leave, we're we're not responsible for what happens to you.

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And so they had been sending you know, that that propaganda campaign had been so very

long.

235

Um that you you know, what part of the part of the lies or like the the mis

236

understanding we have about the football war is that like it it kind of was all flashpoint

the around these matches.

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Honduras was building this this awful case against like nationalist case against El

Salvador to oust all of the people for like I said, months, if not years before this

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happened.

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Um but we were talking you were talking about social media.

240

I had a question for later on, but I'm gonna ask it right now.

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Social media definitely help w can can be the double edged sword, right?

242

Because it can spread the hateful pamphlets that you know Honduras are putting out and you

know, hashtag pick up a stick and kill an a uh and kill a Salvadoran or something.

243

But you can you also see sometimes, and this is it's more earlier social media than more

recent, people using social media to do ground reporting where they actually report what's

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actually happening.

245

And I wonder if you would be i i if they had that kind of reporting if you would have such

a bad response because you'd be able to kind of debunk a lot of the top down propaganda

246

that was coming over the radio and the and the print media from both countries.

247

you know, that's a very good point.

248

You know, i there is that ability to debunk.

249

So I think early era social media, it could have been a a useful tool, right, to show look

what look what's actually happening, right?

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Trying to put this out there.

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Unfortunately the social media I think we see today is more algorithm driven that is all

about what gets clicks likes more than what is the truth.

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Right.

253

We can all talk about post-truth era stuff like this.

254

I'll go on and on, but this isn't a a PhD level seminar for us to debate about that for

hours.

255

But the reality is is right, algorithm drives interest.

256

And so unfortunately the truth doesn't always get the most views and clicks in how the

system works, what is provocative.

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And explosive those.

258

And in that sense, like how we have Twitter/slash X running today could entirely shift the

dynamics, right?

259

And make things worse.

260

I mean, just look at it now.

261

And the current World Cup's going to be an interesting case.

262

You have Iran and the United States playing each other.

263

Well, not playing each other, but you know, playing a world same tournament at the same

time while they're engaged in military conflict, while both the US and the

264

Iranian government are using social media accounts to try to make fun of each other.

265

It is it is quite juvenile, if you ask me.

266

It is something expect of teenagers, and yet you have them sending jibes.

267

And I'm I was talking to another reporter the other day.

268

I was like, you can expect the moment US wins, or the moment Iran wins, or the moment US

loses, Iran's gonna post something, right?

269

Or the US is gonna post something.

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That it's just look how big powerful we are, or hey look, they're total losers.

271

We're clearly

272

in this international conflict and they're using sport to do that, right?

273

So this is, you know, sport again becomes that useful tool to, you know, project that

nationalistic image that we desire as a as a nation, right, onto both ourselves and to

274

others.

275

So I think you touched on something that's really interesting w by bringing this into the

modern World Cup.

276

because at the start of the last episode, I kind of made that illusion.

277

I made that gesture where I talked about in broad terms what that World Cup was, and then

it's like, you thought I was talking about now.

278

D what do you think do you think that you could have a

279

incident maybe not maybe not a full blown war, but do you think that there is a chance

that this World Cup will start an international incident based on the fact that America's

280

already shown its willingness to deny people entry, villainize teams, attack cultures, w

the government specifically, not the people.

281

Yes.

282

I don't I don't think we're gonna get an international incident from this World Cup.

283

But I think the reason for that is because FIFA is essentially will do everything we say

at this point.

284

Um, right.

285

The governing bodies basically bent over and said, Oh, you said our referee can't come in

the country?

286

they can't come in the country.

287

you said these Iranian delegates can't come that normally we would always have come?

288

No, i they can't no right and so it's constantly

289

Yeah.

290

Yeah.

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They'll go we'll we'll send them a plain Mexico.

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We'll do whatever it takes to make the country happy.

293

So I think that's where it's a little bit different as the governing body is bending over.

294

Yet at the same time, there are potentials for flashpoints.

295

and I just worry that, you know, with the US, with this many different people, with ha

what's happening with ICE, all of these things.

296

I won't say it'll start a military conflict, but I can say that it could start made there

are potentials for numerous types of international incidents that could further cast the

297

image of America uh in a very negative light globally.

298

Which, you know, y I I I always wanted to be careful about how important sport is in the

diplomatic realm.

299

but

300

You know, I don't want to say it's this most important thing.

301

Clearly there's a lot more important things that happen at global geopolitical scale, but

having this does not help.

302

And t traditionally, right, the World Cup or even the Olympics are almost like that that

truce time, that ceasefire time.

303

Everybody's gonna come to the table.

304

Wanna calm down.

305

Look, even Putin di has calmed down, right?

306

Which is the the crazy crazy thing to say.

307

Putin has specifically like lowered down and like not fought wars because of m him hosting

mega sporting events.

308

And yet here we are like, hey, we got we got the World Cup, the FIFA Peace Prize.

309

We'll we'll bomb ten percent of the countries that have that that are member nations of

FIFA that gave us a peace prize.

310

Like so, right, it's

311

It's it's tiring, but you know, there are some instances but I don't think it'll grow to

the to the level of it would be a war or anything like that.

312

Sure.

313

And I think I think though it it is likely that whatever would happen would be

sportswashed.

314

Like whatever it would be immediately it it would be almost like sports generated in a way

that like immediately sportswashed in in a way that's really fascinating.

315

That you know, the football war was not.

316

It was uh obviously kind of like done afterwards.

317

Like the the matches happened pretty clean.

318

Um now that being y you mentioned FIFA.

319

You mentioned FIFA, you mentioned the FIFA Peace Prize, which is an absolute I'm gonna go

and say disgrace.

320

Um so FIFA is not the hero now, wasn't the hero in nineteen seventy.

321

They saw what was happening with Honduras and El Salvador.

322

They they knew this stuff was happening.

323

Although the third match was always slated to be in a neutral football site, it was you

know, in in Mexico where they're hosting the cup.

324

They still made sure to have it off.

325

But they didn't actually do anything to stop this.

326

They didn't alter the matches in any way.

327

They didn't do a what what might have been a smart thing was just have all three matches

played on neutral soil.

328

What is FIFA's responsibility to put diplomacy before football?

329

this is this is a very interesting question.

330

So I just got back from um the United Nations uh World Cup summit.

331

So I was inside of the UN for two days talking about, you know, the f my part was more

about the future of football, right?

332

That's a lot of what I look at.

333

But you know, we had actual major diplomats like you know, ambassadors from other

countries come in.

334

I've heard it more than once where it was said

335

You know, sport is a form of diplomacy.

336

And it was also then equated that war is also a form of diplomacy and all of their

outcomes is to get peace.

337

And I was like, ooh, yes, and in very different ways.

338

So then if you think about what is FIFA's role in this?

339

Are they really a diplomat?

340

Are do they really have this ability?

341

I think

342

I think under Set Bladder you saw this attempt to actually be a diplomat where he would be

going, we're gonna go to South Africa and we don't want anything bad to happen during this

343

time.

344

We're going to Russia.

345

We gonna ask Putin, right?

346

This is peace.

347

You must respect the sport.

348

Sport is everything.

349

I think in the seventies they still had this very pure pure um attempt, right?

350

Sixties and seventies.

351

Um

352

He is not a a a saint.

353

Uh go go go read about Avery Brundage, the University of Illinois grad who uh led the IOC,

who's the president, right?

354

He's famous for, you know, the games must go on at Munich, right?

355

After the Munich events and tragedy there, right?

356

That the sport must happen.

357

And so I think that really is a reflection of how these administrators of sport back then

felt about it.

358

yes.

359

W no matter what, the sporting event must happen.

360

The game must go on.

361

We have scheduled this for the integrity of the sport, you must play it.

362

Forget that it could be the powder keg that literally starts a military conflict where

hundreds could die.

363

It's hey, let's this game must be played.

364

That is the ultimate importance.

365

So I think they are to blame more for their naivety, right?

366

It's um, you know, can can y you know, what's the difference between negligence and

stupidity?

367

Well, you know, which one can be tried criminally or you know, which one can you go to

jail for and which one is just you're an idiot, right?

368

And and I and I feel they sort of h sit on that borderline.

369

Sometimes they're just entirely ignorant of what sport and

370

Soccer can do.

371

On the other hand, there are times where they're clearly negligent.

372

And I feel this is one of those negligence moments.

373

Like, we can see everything that's happening, but um, you know what?

374

Sport is important.

375

Sport is everybody understands sport.

376

The game must go on, right?

377

And you hear this over and over and then unfortunately things happen.

378

Yeah, I think that there's a really interesting line to be drawn between FIFA

379

being corrupt, which it certainly has been at times and is you could argue is just

continually.

380

And FIFA just trying to essentially wipe its hand like wash its hands of responsibility

for things.

381

Like it it wants to be the soccer guys, but then of course they have so they have so much

power that they they've graduated beyond just being the guys who organize soccer matches.

382

And I I think they don't ha they haven't reckoned or or are trying to hide from the fact

that they are more than just a soccer body at this point and they need they should be

383

better about it, regulated, all kinds of things.

384

but let's actually talk to a little bit about the the actual soccer, the actual football

that happened during this game.

385

Like I said, really hard to find audio of the first and second matches possibly does not

exist.

386

Um

387

Or at least isn't still around that I can find.

388

But the third match totally does exist.

389

And uh I played the clips for you in the in the main episode, and it was in the it was a 3

2 extra time game, pouring rain, star player gets injured, goes out.

390

There was a bicycle kick in it, and and you can find this video you can find, so you I do

tell you, go on the internet, watch it's a great kick.

391

What this this match should be an all-timer, right?

392

A World Cup qualifier that like still lives on as a one of the greats.

393

Do you think that what the the football were happening the way it did actually kind of

stop this game from being remembered as one of the great World Cup qualifying matches of

394

all time?

395

I mean I I think it has to be this case, right?

396

This is is everything there, right?

397

I mean you throw in the weather just to start with, like, okay.

398

Then you get that three two score line, you have

399

You know, it's it's it's seventies football.

400

It's it's not like today.

401

You you have people kicking each other in the mud.

402

I mean it is it is everything that uh especially you know, actually I'm gonna bring bring

back the British.

403

It's a lot of British old school fans, this is almost the football they hearken for.

404

People kicking the hell out of each other, three two score lines, you know, let's not

complain about Arsenal set pieces or anything like that.

405

but

406

It is an all time great, right?

407

We we can we can think of some of these great matches, like Tabramos's shot hurt around

the world to get the US into the World Cup.

408

If you if you don't know I'm talking about, that's you know, his bicycle kick essentially

to get the US back into the in to qualify for the World Cup.

409

A a critical moment in US soccer history.

410

Um I can go the opposite way.

411

Um my own tragedy, literally called in the Japanese media, the tragedy in Doha, where

Japan

412

Japan was winning 2-1.

413

They're gonna go to the 94 World Cup in the US, first World Cup ever, and Iraq takes a

short corner, corner taken short.

414

You already know the rest of the story.

415

Iraq scores.

416

Japan is drops from being first place to like third place and back then.

417

Right, out of that group only two top two wins.

418

So literally on the last kick of the game they're out of the World Cup.

419

So uh I watched that live.

420

That was not great to watch.

421

So but no, there's all these great World Cup moments, and especially even in qualifying.

422

And yes, the football war essentially has washed us out because when we talk about, you

know, what happened in Honduran football?

423

well, didn't they

424

get into a war with some other country right, that's what it is.

425

It's not they played one of the greatest matches of all time.

426

And then some military conflict happened.

427

Yeah, I when I was watching the game, it it first of all, I mean the the quality of the

recording's not amazing, so it's it's it's a little bit hard to see.

428

But it is really excellent, fun like you were talking about seventies football where

people are you know, feet legs legs are slamming into each other, people are doing hard

429

hard tackles, and the goals are just really fun to watch.

430

There's another one where the the I think it's the El Salvador Keeper goes up

431

And he just bounces off his chest right to the Honda and def uh you know, striker who

slots at home easy.

432

And it's like, Yeah, no, that's the good stuff.

433

I love that.

434

Uh so I have one l one last question for you, and that's

435

We we talk a lot about the countries, El Salvador, Honduras, we talk a lot about the the

people of those countries that are affected by this.

436

All of we we think about all of that all the time a and as kind of the teams as abstract

from the people playing on them.

437

We don't ever talk about the players on the field.

438

I tried to at the end of the podcast give you their perspective.

439

They didn't think about this as like a big, you know, kind of proxy war

440

Soccer match at all.

441

If they were playing soccer and enjoying it and have real you know kinship with their, you

know fellows across the pitch.

442

What happens to the players when you're used like this?

443

Like, how how does that affect them when the governments and the countries behind them are

so full of animosity and the players are just kind of not?

444

They're trying to do their job and play a game.

445

I mean, it it definitely has a major impact, I would even say a emotional and

psychological toll on the players, right?

446

And we have seen this this is not the only moment this has happened in history, obviously.

447

that, you know, governments like I mean, I'll use a fictional version, everybody thinks

about Rocky Four.

448

Ivan Drago, right?

449

He's essentially used as the I must break you, right?

450

And then, you know, by the end it's like

451

I don't fight for the country, I fight for me, right?

452

And you like, oh, what's like we wanna show his individualism.

453

But the reality is is even today there are still athletes who are very heavily um

influenced by their nation states, if not controlled, right?

454

If we just use the world directly.

455

So, you know, it can have a big big toll on them, especially like, you know, emotionally

and psychologically.

456

I think sometimes it doesn't always fully affect the performance they have, but it also

affects like

457

how they can talk to people, all of this.

458

I mean a good example exists right now in soccer is uh is North Korea.

459

Um we don't really see much of the North Korean men's team they're not exactly amazing but

the North Korean women especially at the under-20 under-17 level are actually one of the

460

best teams in the world for women um and the North Korean women's club team actually just

won the Asian women's champions league and so

461

So, you know, we're getting video of them coming back to North Korea and there, of course,

meet, you know, uh Kim Jong-un, the dear leader, right?

462

And they're literally jumping and and literally jumping up and down clapping while they

all meet him, just like it's a a rally.

463

And it's like it's in, you know, you can see how much certain governments control

athletes.

464

And then yet for those who are out there and playing

465

And being used as part of propaganda, and yet all they want to do is go out and play the

game, right?

466

And look, that's not my enemy, but the media and the government say it is.

467

Well, you know, it's it's it's like, well, how do I react to that?

468

Like it's like I I usually would shake this person's hand, should I shake their head?

469

Like, how do I even behave in these situations, right?

470

So it does create a lot of turmoil within the athlete.

471

I said it doesn't affect performance, but after time it can affect performance as they

start to think more and more about these things.

472

You know, w what should I be doing out here?

473

Like in in r I mean, when it's bad enough, you know, you have to splake think a split

second decision, do I shoot, do I pass?

474

And now you're out there like, man, do I shoot?

475

Do I pass?

476

Is this how should I do you know, what what's the best thing for the country?

477

Like all of a sudden your head fills with too many thoughts, right?

478

And so, you know, those things can really impact performance of an athlete.

479

That said, I think the bigger side it does come that psychology, right?

480

It and it really can take a toll on somebody to like, I'm playing a sport, yes, they're my

competitor, but you know, off the field, I I would shake their hands.

481

Now all of a sudden it's like I have to cast them as an enemy.

482

I mean, the outcomes are usually one, I will cast them as an enemy, and that doesn't go

well, right?

483

You can get some very violent outcomes within a match.

484

Or two, you really are constantly at turmoil with yourself.

485

and what your identity is as an athlete, as a member of this c team, as a member of this

nation.

486

Yeah.

487

The the players that you know all gave their their responses all said that the like they

they they did not have animosity for these other players and they like the the lasting

488

images of them shaking hands in the pouring rain.

489

And I think it's really drain it has been draining on them in the time that has elapsed

since when people go and talk to these players, it's never tell me about

490

you know, the games.

491

Tell me about your that, you know, campaign, the nineteen s seventy World Cup where you

went and you got and spoiler, hundred or El Salvador lost all of its matches and I don't

492

think it scored a goal.

493

I think it went goalless.

494

Um nobody asked them about that.

495

It's always about the football war.

496

And I feel that that's really sad.

497

I I could have reached out to them, talked to them, gotten

498

you know, got gotten quotes, but I honestly held back because they've answered those

questions.

499

Time and time again.

500

I put some of their responses, the things that I would have asked them into the podcast as

quotes, but I I just didn't want to, you know, c continue delivering that narrative to

501

them.

502

They already know.

503

They know the f they know the first part of that podcast really well, and they live the

second.

504

So I think that's

505

something that I would take from this is is just

506

They they're the pe like often it's the pla the players are some of the people that get

hurt the most when you start put heaping that kind of pressure on them.

507

Now, that was my last question.

508

We did su I had so much fun talking about soccer politics.

509

I I know this the uh subject isn't exactly the the brightest, shiniest, funn thing, but it

I think it's really important.

510

So tell people where that they can find your your work and uh you know, plug anything you

need to plug.

511

Uh first off I'm gonna say it's a pleasure to be here, right?

512

I mean this is this has been great.

513

Um I think a lot of my students would uh would say that um this fits perfectly with my

ethos in some sense.

514

I do bring some doom and gloom into everything I do.

515

Um if you've watched the big short um Mark Baum, the character played by Steve Correll,

people often are like, Oh, Nick's sort of like him.

516

He walks around going

517

This is stupid.

518

You're an idiot like going around like this.

519

But no, I mean I I love this discussion because I think it really shows the reach of

sport, the importance, but I also I like to also highlight the over importance sometimes

520

that sport has, right?

521

And a lot of sport professors, I'm not gonna name names, sorry.

522

Sorry everybody in my field, there are a lot of people who like, oh, sport.

523

can solve the ills of society.

524

Not like no I can't.

525

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

526

Look at the wars, look at all this stuff.

527

This we sport hasn't fixed any of these things, right?

528

So I I love this discussion.

529

Uh where to find me?

530

Um you can I'm still on X Twitter mainly 'cause I refuse to change social media platforms

out of pure laziness.

531

Um I'm at Watanabe, W A T A N A B E number two, letter K.

532

Um, but I

533

Mostly just post junk about soccer, or overpromote my book.

534

You know, the there's the old Simpsons thing where Homer is giving information.

535

He's like, uh, and make sure any b time any anytime anybody say anything, make sure to

interrupt them and say, Well, in my book So yes, I have r I have written a book.

536

Yeah, so the book is the beautiful game, the story shaping the future of soccer.

537

It is nine chapters, sort of mini essays that are twenty pages each about so each can be

consumed individually, but a book as a whole.

538

Um that basically tell different things about sort of the future of soccer.

539

We cover um the future of the World Cup, where it's going, how FIFA has has done.

540

Um if there was a report card, it's not great.

541

Um probably uh

542

This week they're failing.

543

Um I'm yes, uh it is it is it is bad, but you know, I talk about things like how did

Beckham actually really end up in the US and how did that then lead to actually Messi's

544

arrival and a lot of that actually goes to how Real Madrid and Barcelona conduct business

and we talk about that in the book.

545

All kinds of things, the English pyramid system, the ACL injury issue in women's football.

546

We took we discuss a whole gamut of things that's in the book.

547

So if you're interested in soccer or just want to know a little bit more as the World

Cup's going on, it's sort of like a friendly companion.

548

I've written it for all audiences.

549

You don't need to know who you know played right back for Cheltenham town in the 1980s,

right?

550

To to appreciate what the book is.

551

so um yeah, if anybody's interested, please.

552

pick up a copy, give it a read.

553

You know, if you have questions, always feel free to fire them at me, answer I've had some

people actually ask me questions as they read the book.

554

I have actually a really long email chain going with someone in the UK right now that

keeps having a discussion.

555

It's really fun to see how some people react to some of the stuff I've written.

556

So um yeah.

557

Also I'm professor at the University of South Carolina.

558

So anyone interested in sport and entertainment management, sport business, um, we have a

wonderful program, so please reach out.

559

And that's at all levels, undergraduate, masters, and

560

Mm PhD, so

561

Awesome.

562

Thank you so much, Nick, Dr.

563

Nick Watanabe.

564

uh I I must, I must.

565

And thank you guys for listening.

566

Uh and remember, until next time, keep playing.