You can listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or other listening apps.
Watch episodes of The Long Game on YouTube.
A NOTE FROM THE PRODUCER
Jennifer Indig is the Lead Editorial Producer for The Long Game
This week on The Long Game, Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer sit down with Franklin Foer, author of How Soccer Explains the World, on the eve of the World Cup.
More than twenty years after the book was first published, Foer reflects on why soccer remains such a powerful lens for understanding globalization, nationalism, identity, and political power. As he puts it, many of the “local affinities and tribal affiliations” that observers expected globalization to weaken instead “survived and sometimes became more intense.” Jake and Jon discuss what that insight can teach us about today’s world, from state-backed clubs and sportswashing to immigration, U.S.-Iran tensions, and the politics surrounding this year’s tournament.
Transcript here.
Comment below or email Jake & Jon at longgame@voxmedia.com.
REFERENCES AND SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS:
How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer
“Why Does No One Care About the World Cup This Year?” David Wallace-Wells, The New York Times, June 03, 2026
“Soccer Imitates Life,” Henry Kissinger, The Washington Post, June 29, 1986