2 hours ago
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Greetings from Los Angeles – from your own podcasting correspondent. England aside, it’s been 20 years since I was in the host country for a major tournament. Professional commitments make this a marginally different experience from driving around Germany with Ian, Matt and Oli in 2006 just wondering when the next stein was going to be thrust into my hands – dancing with Trinidad and Tobago fans, feeling lucky to miss out on Brazil v Australia tickets because my hangover was too much for the sun.
The question you are asked most by people back home is along the lines of: “Is there World Cup fever in the States?” I am reminded of a local TV crew who walked around central Cambridge on the eve of our FA Cup quarter-final with Crystal Palace in 1990 asking people how they felt about the game, and being rewarded with lots of nice middle-class people who didn’t even know there was a football team in Cambridge.
Or when the Ashes arrives in Melbourne: “What’s the atmosphere down there, Max?” “Well if I’m honest, I’m mainly in my house with two under-fives who aren’t across the deficiencies of Bazball. I’m just on my hands and knees trying to clear up rice with a wet wipe.” On that note, to the partners of the journalists, players and officials at home dealing with real life and children while we gad about North America – you are owed an enormous debt. If my 18-month-old, Willie Rushden, ever reads this, now was not the time to get hand, foot and mouth.
It may have been pointed out, or you just knew it, but the US is impossibly big. Los Angeles goes on for ever. I tried to LimeGlide (think bike no pedals) from West Hollywood to Santa Monica the other day and found myself in a non-cycling zone on a dual carriageway. One moment you’re pootling with the wind in your hair in the sunshine, the next you’re hauling an immovable metal weight through a hedgerow miles from anywhere.
And with an hour break between games, we are confined to quite a small radius of a Trader Joe’s, the cafe over the road and a hotel pool populated by influencers with washboard stomachs discussing their new TikTok series or whether they’re on the guest list for the opening night of Nylon nightclub. But the games are on in the bars of West Hollywood and there are plenty of US shirts and the odd “Good luck later” to a passing Bosnian.
If anything, the first few days were about basketball – becoming a Knicks or a Spurs fan by osmosis. Choosing Spurs was a natural fit, and then to see them blow the biggest lead in NBA finals history (or whatever it was) was a natural outcome.
Guardian Football Weekly listener (and, less important, mayor of New York) Zohran Mamdani’s speech at the Knicks parade is perhaps the most inspiring thing I’ve seen or heard since arriving. Hairs on the back of my neck as he listed basketball players I’d never heard of.
Perhaps the most thrilling part of the tournament so far is the glorious, almost relieved, excitement of the US fans after the victory over Paraguay. Not the blow‑ins, but the people here who have covered the game for years – who are so invested in football growing and finding its place in a country dominated by other sports.
If England win the World Cup or crash out in the last 32, it will not have an impact on whether the game is popular. But for the US and Australia, there is so much riding on a major tournament. A quarter-final or better can give the game the boost it needs to be taken seriously. It’s a pressure the players don’t necessarily need, but that is the reality.
Those scenes in Fed Square in my adopted home of Melbourne were the closest I’ve been to crying so far. For Nestory Irankunda, a refugee, to take that touch, and score that goal, was glorious. In this time of rising populism and nationalism, there is a beauty in someone whose family have fled conflict representing Australia, a country built on immigration, much like the US.
I loved Connor Metcalfe being as Aussie as possible watching his goal back in the mixed zone: “Far out that was far out, that was ick!” – or words to that effect. Who knows why I openly love the Socceroos in a way that contradicts my emotions when Australia’s cricketers take the field.
Having some distance away from England has been good inasmuch as you don’t have to engage with daft old people obsessed with whether Thomas Tuchel sings the national anthem – I bet King Charles isn’t fussed. And who cares? England are good, and fun. Harry Kane has pace around him. Noni Madueke is smiling. Elliot Anderson is standing in the right place. Djed Spence is suddenly faster than Road Runner. There’s hope but not the terror-based hope we’re used to. Yet.
So much of the experience combines living with my friend and co-host Barry Glendenning and watching Fox Sports – with the ultimate question of whether Zlatan Ibrahimovic will kill Alexi Lalas before Baz kills me.
The US coverage has been largely good. There’s obviously lots of basic soccer stuff – but BBC and ITV have to do the same. An England game has a different audience to Crystal Palace v Brentford on a Monday night. Not everyone is an expert. Although I don’t need to see Christian Pulisic’s Wells Fargo advert during a hydration break again.
Fair to say Barry and I perhaps wouldn’t choose to live together for ever. But so far I can’t think of a moment where I’ve got on his nerves. Apart from – deep breath – eating an apple too loudly, not screwing the lid on a bottle of Coke Zero tightly enough, giving unsolicited advice on how to chop up a chilli, asking him if he needed the big saucepan, putting yoghurt into a bowl, doing too much laundry and criticising his unapologetic flatulence (both ends). But we’re coping.
And somehow people find this stuff compelling on Instagram, on the pod, on YouTube OR WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR CONTENT. Is it pilot season? We could crack the States. Barry just helped the star of Selling Sunset with her key fob (not a euphemism). Big things are coming. But until then, thanks for listening.
