John Green & Daniel Alarcón on World Cup Fandom — and the Worst Messi Interview Ever — PTFO

[00:00:00] Pablo Torre: Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. [00:00:06] John Green: You either have to love something together, or you have to hate something together. And the great thing about the 26 players sitting in front of me right now is that you all f***ing hate your coach. Right after this ad. I remember the first time I was in this studio, I was like, I can't believe that an audio podcast has all this stuff. And then I slowly realized that it was just that I'd glimpsed the future. [00:00:40] Pablo Torre: You know, John, I like to think that the future of media looks like as what Patrick designed here, which is psychedelic in ways that delight me. It feels like you're playing laser tag on acid sometimes. [00:00:54] Daniel Alarcone: Oh, man. Yeah, it does give laser tag vibes. [00:00:59] Pablo Torre: So I always want to figure out the appropriate way to call a MacArthur genius. A genius? Sure. Daniel Alarcone, thank you for being here. [00:01:08] Daniel Alarcone: Yeah, it's good to be here. [00:01:09] Pablo Torre: John Green, how would you explain the genius of the guy sitting next to you? [00:01:14] John Green: Thanks for asking. The most uncomfortable thing in the world for Daniel is having won this award and me calling him a MacArthur genius every chance I get. Basically, Daniel is an important novelist, a major Peruvian-American novelist, but also a really important journalist. He writes for The New Yorker. He writes for Radio Ambulante, the brilliant Spanish language podcast that he helped found. And he is a proper genius, and I've known him since I was 14, so I feel qualified to say that. [00:01:46] Pablo Torre: Well, Daniel, do you have a way of describing John as you curdle inside of yourself in response to his compliment? [00:01:54] Daniel Alarcone: Yeah, people listening on audio can't see precisely how uncomfortable that makes me. Yeah, so I've known John for a very long time. John is one of the most brilliant observers of human ego and vanity that I've ever met. He is as kind in every interaction as he is on the page because he extends this incredible generosity to his characters that has always really made me jealous. And then he's just a great friend and a huge Liverpool fan to the point of, you know, possibly like to his own detriment, you know? [00:02:28] John Green: Yeah, probably. [00:02:29] Daniel Alarcone: I'm definitely an AFC Wimbledon fan to my own detriment. You could argue that all sports fandom is kind of to one's detriment because winning is so rare, you know? [00:02:36] Pablo Torre: If you haven't noticed, this is our World Cup episode. Hey-o! And I want to establish that John Green has been a guest on the show before to talk about his last book, everything is tuberculosis, which is quietly also kind of a soccer story, I dare say. Yeah. Because if nothing else, John Green is one of the strangest proprietors of a professional soccer club on the planet. For sure. How should we just speed people up on AFC Wimbledon? [00:03:05] Daniel Alarcone: Well, so I'm not an AFC Wimbledon fan. I actually don't— [00:03:08] Pablo Torre: I love that, by the way. Yeah. [00:03:10] Daniel Alarcone: It hurts my feelings, but I take it. I'm not convinced that they're real because John just, you know, keeps talking about this team and there's so much narrative that he builds around this club that it feels almost like one of his novels that he's invented. And I will not believe they're real until he takes me to a game and we get to actually prove it because right now it's just like this magical realist novel that he's created in his head. [00:03:31] John Green: Well, it's as good as a novel, and thank you for acknowledging that. It is. [00:03:35] Pablo Torre: Hasn't quite made as much money as The Fault in Our Stars? [00:03:38] Speaker 4: This weekend's box office produced a summer surprise. The teen romance, The Fault in Our Stars, had a $48 million opening weekend. [00:03:47] Speaker 5: Well, the young women and a few men turned out in droves for The Fault in Our Stars this weekend. Number one at the box office, $48 million. Poor Tom Cruise. The edge of tomorrow, debuting in third place. [00:04:00] John Green: We're not there yet. Someday we will be. Don't you worry, Pablo. AFC Wimbledon's going to pay off in ways that no one can imagine. I'm going to be the Ryan Reynolds— That's right. I'm going to go all the way with them. No, they're owned by their fans, so it's a different model than a club like Wrexham or any other fan. football club in England can have. But within the limits of being owned by the fans and everybody getting the same one vote, no matter how much money they put in the club, we've been incredibly successful, and I'm really proud of it. [00:04:28] Pablo Torre: Yeah, and you guys have known each other. All of your vulnerabilities, all of your idiosyncrasies, for how long now? 35 years. [00:04:37] Daniel Alarcone: Yeah, it's a long time. [00:04:39] Pablo Torre: We have sources close to your high school. Yeah, you do. Indian Springs in Birmingham, Alabama. And thanks to that source who shall remain unnamed, we have some photos of you guys. Oh, no. Our soccer experts here today on Pablo 25. [00:04:55] John Green: Oh, look at us. Look at us, Daniel. Just a couple of teenage dirtbags. Yeah, we've changed a bit. Could you describe the photograph for those who are not watching? I am wearing a Jägermeister T-shirt. My posture is about as bad as it is today. Daniel is phenomenally handsome. He has hair swept over one eye. This makes Daniel so uncomfortable, but it's true. [00:05:19] Pablo Torre: The hair covering the one eye feels so perfect as to seem deliberate. [00:05:24] John Green: Oh, it was absolutely deliberate. It worked. It was very effective at the time. [00:05:29] Pablo Torre: And you have a backwards cap on. I've got a backwards cap on. And the neck of your shirt. It's a gaping... [00:05:33] Daniel Alarcone: It's a thrift store purchase popular. It's a portal. [00:05:38] Speaker ?: Wow. [00:05:40] Daniel Alarcone: You can see the clavicle there, too, if you look closely. [00:05:43] Pablo Torre: Yeah, really showing some clavicles. Yeah. So, John Green, 95. This is his... Yep, there he is. Wow. Look at me. [00:05:49] John Green: I'm wearing a beanie that has a propeller on it. [00:05:52] Pablo Torre: I mean, I can't tell if that's literally true, but it does seem to have the characteristics. It is literally true. [00:05:56] John Green: I remember that hat. [00:05:58] Pablo Torre: Can we go to the next photo? The intensity on your face in the middle frame. I hate losing that. In this triptych of Daniel Alarcone's youth. [00:06:07] John Green: I mean, Daniel was such a good soccer player. And I love these pictures because you can see that he was very balanced. You're just dying on the inside. No, it's awful. [00:06:17] Speaker ?: I can tell. [00:06:17] John Green: Yeah. You were not a good guitar player. So, in the other photo, you're playing the guitar. And I will say you were not a great guitar player. But you were a very good soccer player. Thank you. What position did you play? [00:06:25] Daniel Alarcone: I was a midfielder, attacking midfielder. I did play with a lot of intensity because I hated losing. I still hate losing. [00:06:31] Pablo Torre: Well, how does it manifest in adulthood? I just think I work too hard. I work a lot. [00:06:36] Daniel Alarcone: Yeah. [00:06:37] Pablo Torre: You do. That said, one thing that you don't have on your resume is something that John does, which is the second most banned book in America from the years 2021 to 2024. That's amazing, dude. Which is Looking for Alaska. This is your first novel, right? [00:06:54] John Green: Yeah. Set at a small boarding school in Alabama, not completely dissimilar from the small boarding school in Alabama that we attended. There is one scene that causes the book to be banned. It's an exceptionally unerotic oral sex scene that is meant to be contrasted with the next scene, which is much less like physically intimate, but much more emotionally rich. But of course, nobody reads the second scene. They only read the first scene out of context. And they say, this is completely inappropriate for high school students. And we must remove it from all libraries and schools. It's a bummer, man. I mean, I want to be good spirited about it and treat it like it's not a bummer, but it's a bummer. I live in Indianapolis. It just got banned in the town directly north of me. It's a bummer to think that like people see me in the grocery store and they're like, oh, that guy's a pornographer. Like, I promise I'm not. I'm just not. You know me. Yeah. [00:07:45] Daniel Alarcone: No. I mean, I haven't checked your browser history, but I do know you. And now I don't think you're a pornographer. Thanks, buddy. I appreciate that. [00:07:54] Pablo Torre: Let's get that headline aggregated. John Green, colon, not a pornographer, dash, friend of 30 years. Yeah. There you go. Do you get notified when your book has been banned from yet another school and or library? [00:08:08] John Green: Sometimes, like the whole state of Iowa banned looking for Alaska, and then I got notified and we ended up suing them and winning. But a lot of times I'll just hear from somebody, you know, a concerned teacher or a teacher who's been affected by it. Authors get all the attention for this stuff, but the people who are most affected by it are teachers and librarians because their ability to do their job on a daily basis is so profoundly affected by these book bans. [00:08:32] Pablo Torre: Right. And so, wait, so, Daniel, when this is all happening to John's book, a book that is allegedly bearing some resemblance to your high school experience, I guess I'm really asking, is there a Daniel character in this book? There's not. No, there's not. That was a very immediate no. [00:08:49] Daniel Alarcone: No, we've had this conversation before in great detail. There's a notable absence of Peruvians in the book. [00:08:58] Pablo Torre: Hold on. We're going to aggregate that headline. [00:09:00] Daniel Alarcone: Yeah. [00:09:01] Pablo Torre: John Green hates Peruvians. [00:09:02] Daniel Alarcone: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, there's no, there's no, you know, young man with curly brown hair over one eye who plays guitar badly and plays soccer well. Well, you know what it was, man? [00:09:13] John Green: I couldn't write about you because I like to write about flawed characters and you're just too perfect. [00:09:21] Daniel Alarcone: Wow. Oh, man. Yeah. No, I can see that. I can see that. [00:09:42] Pablo Torre: The end of June and July can be a really rough period for sports fans with football still a few months away and basketball and hockey ended. But this year, we're pretty lucky because not only is there a World Cup, there is a World Cup in our backyard. And so make sure to check out the Athletic Podcast Network to stay up to date on all things related to the World Cup. You can wake up with the Totally Football Show from L.A., then dive deep into the biggest talking point of the day with the Athletic FC Podcast. And you can watch the TIFO Podcast, Fool Around, on their daily live streams in the afternoon. All shows are free to watch or listen on your favorite podcast platform. I want to give the origin story of Daniel, though, because you grew up in Peru. [00:10:29] Daniel Alarcone: No. So I was born in Peru. I lived in Peru until I was three and a half. We moved to the United States, to Birmingham, Alabama specifically, in 1980. And grew up in Birmingham until I came to New York to go to college. And your dad himself did what? My dad, his first job was a soccer announcer in Peru. And then he became a physician. No, I know. But we're on the World Cup podcast. [00:10:56] John Green: Oh, I forgot we were on a World Cup podcast. Yeah, we were talking about— Yeah, he was a soccer announcer in Peru. That's legit. [00:11:00] Daniel Alarcone: That's legit. That's real. [00:11:01] John Green: In Arequipa? [00:11:02] Daniel Alarcone: In Arequipa, yeah. He was basically choosing between being a journalist and a sports journalist or being a physician. And Arequipa was a small town back then. It was like 10 blocks past the plaza. It was like the countryside, you know? So when we're saying that he was on the radio, you know, it was not like the studio we're in now. You know, he was pretty much a child doing this, like, at age 15, because he took over from the announcer that had the job, moved to Lima, the capital. And my dad was, like, one of those hangers-on who was always, like, hanging out at the booth because he loved it. And they were like, okay, kid, do you want to do it? Here's your shot. And he did it. And that was his job, like, through the first years of college. And then he moved to Lima to go to medical school. [00:11:45] Pablo Torre: Do you ever get to listen to any of his— [00:11:47] Daniel Alarcone: They're not recorded, but I have had him for the family and, you know, in public. We've done a Ben Serra Ambulante where he's done it. And, you know, he hasn't done this in 50 years. And he'll grab a mic and go up and narrate a goal from memory. The goal he always does is a Peru versus Brazil goal in, like, the 1950 Copa América. And he does the goal with the names of all the players and, you know, exactly how it happens. It bounced off the crossbar and then, you know, back in. And it was like, yeah, so he can still do it. [00:12:15] Pablo Torre: I mean, one of the theories I have about, like, as we chart, obviously, the growth of soccer in America. If American children were exposed to Spanish-language announcers, we would be winning World Cups already. We would have inspired generations based entirely on this sort of poetic enthusiasm. The unapologetic delight in energy of a Spanish-language broadcaster. [00:12:41] Daniel Alarcone: Yeah, and just how much damage has Alexi Lalas done to the game. I was going to say, say it with your chest. Yeah, I'm putting it out there. It's true. But uninspiring young American would-be Lionel Messi's and Neymar's, you know? [00:12:56] Speaker ?: Yes. [00:12:57] Pablo Torre: I mean, I do want to explain, John. Part of what you do is also, like, talking to a lot of people on YouTube who I don't consider, correct me if I'm wrong, soccer diehards. [00:13:08] John Green: No, they're not soccer nerds. They're nerd nerds, as am I. Daniel and I talk a lot about how we, you know, he grew up playing soccer, and I grew up loving soccer and loving sports. But we also grew up reading nonstop and talking about books and talking about big ideas. And, like, that's 99% of the conversations I've had with you over the years have been of that variety. Even when we're talking about football, we're talking about it as, like, a nation-building exercise or whatever, as much as we're talking about the game. But I think if you see sports through that lens, you can see sports through a nerdy lens, right? You can see it as—in fact, that's what you do here in a lot of cases, is you look at sports not just as something that happens on a field where players are trying to get a ball past a line, but as a cultural, social experience, and one that has a profound impact on the world we end up sharing. [00:13:58] Pablo Torre: Yes. And I think one key difference between what I do here on this show and what you do in your capacity as sponsor of AFC Wimbledon is literally give pep talks. [00:14:09] John Green: Yeah. I'm not afraid to give a little pep talk here and there. When they let me in the locker room, I give a pep talk 100% of the time. I've said this to Daniel before. I was never a good soccer player, but I feel like I would have been a good locker room guy. Yeah. [00:14:21] Pablo Torre: Well, I want to, uh, play it, and we can sort of share with our audience what it's like— Oh, no! I thought we were talking about this abstractly. [00:14:27] John Green: No, we're talking about a very specific instance. [00:14:29] Pablo Torre: Oy yi yi. [00:14:31] John Green: I'm John Green. I sponsor the back of your shorts. I hope you know that there are people around the world watching you every Saturday, living and dying with every kick of the ball. We f***ing love you guys. I don't know what it's like to be a professional footballer, but I do know what it's like to sell 30 million books and you have to f***ing believe in yourself. At this point in the season, I have seen how much you f***ing believe in yourselves, and it is so f***ing inspirational. It fires me up every f***ing Saturday. I don't mean to curse so much, but, like, that's how much it fires me up. And I'm so excited to be here in person and see you play today. I know this is a massive game for you. I'm just really f***ing grateful that I get to be with you in person. So, thank you so much, and, uh, f***ing get 'em. Not my best work. [00:15:10] Pablo Torre: Again, for people who are not watching, uh, John was looking like Daniel was looking when John was calling him a genius. [00:15:15] John Green: I felt like I just, my whole body turned into a series of increasingly small polygons that folded in on themselves until I ceased to exist during that 30 seconds. [00:15:24] Daniel Alarcone: I love that. I'm so grateful that you played that so that John can feel what I feel. [00:15:27] Pablo Torre: I've never seen a person, uh, become an innie, just like an actual belly button and gone inward. But, but I, a couple of things that I relate to is if you're to put me in front of a room in front of a bunch of athletes that I need to sort of impact in any way, I am gonna curse. Yeah. A hundred times more than I would normally. [00:15:45] John Green: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I found myself unable to stop saying the F word. Yeah, it was the anti Ted Lasso, which I do appreciate. Ted Lasso could never. No. [00:15:55] Pablo Torre: I should say that your passion, you come by it honestly, AFC Wimbledon has had a rough season. [00:16:01] John Green: Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, most of the seasons are rough, Pablo, to be fair. Is 19th in the league about what you're used to? 19th in the league felt like a million dollars. So we had one game that we had to win to stay up. It was basically our last chance to win a game to stay in the third division of English football and not get relegated down to the fourth division. And I was in a bus in Sierra Leone, learning about the healthcare system there with a few friends of mine who also are co-owners of AFC Wimbledon. And we watched this game on very spotty internet on the bus. And in the 89th minute, AFC Wimbledon scored to secure their status in league one in the third division. And it felt as good as anything in football has ever felt for me. [00:16:47] Speaker 6: He's gonna power his way forward. Goes to ground, but it's Nelson into the middle. Transfer, Hagford! Oh, a judge won Hagford! For Wimbledon! In the last minute! [00:16:57] John Green: I think sometimes just staying up feels as good as winning a championship. And that's what it felt like to me in that moment. [00:17:03] Pablo Torre: Yeah. Look, the spectrum of relationships you can have with soccer players as the guys sponsoring, again, the back of the shorts. [00:17:11] John Green: Yeah, no, that's not familiar. The liminal space between left thigh and buttock is where I like to have my logo. [00:17:16] Pablo Torre: So it is. And as a journalist, again, I should clarify that we're bringing together in part because the away end is the World Cup podcast you guys are hosting together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is, of course, it makes all the sense in the world now that we're, you know, however many minutes into this conversation. Of course, you guys want to do that with each other. But there's also a version of being a sports journalist, being a magazine writer, where you get what feels like this dream assignment. [00:17:40] Daniel Alarcone: I think I know what you're talking about, right. And it ends up not quite being that. Yeah, so basically, I was asked to write a profile of Lionel Messi. And I was promised three days with the greatest soccer player of all time. Although this was, you know, maybe 10, 10, 11 years ago. So he wasn't quite where he is now. But he was, you know, in his prime, wonderful player. And I jumped at the chance. It was right after my wedding. Postponed my honeymoon to go do this. Postponed my honeymoon to go do this. [00:18:10] Pablo Torre: So just that conversation? How did it go? [00:18:12] Daniel Alarcone: She was into it. She was into it. She was like, we'll both go. And I was like, that was a harder conversation because I don't like reporting with other people. Like, it's like, no, it's like, you got to go report alone. [00:18:22] Speaker ?: Yep. [00:18:22] Daniel Alarcone: On the way there, it was dropped from three days to one day. And when I arrived in Barcelona, I checked my email and it was like an hour. Messi at this point is playing for Barca. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what happened basically is I showed up at the appointed time for like a 10am interview. And Messi wasn't there. And they put me in a room. And they didn't let me walk around the training ground. They didn't let me talk to anybody. They didn't let me watch a practice. And they kept me in there to like, maybe like 6pm. And it was just like, and you know, by that point, I was a mess. It was super hot. I'd been like literally drinking water out of the bathroom, you know, like lapping into my mouth. Because I didn't they didn't give me anything. And at this point, are you feeling like you are being hazed? Are you feeling like this is a deliberate thing? No, no, I'm just feeling like there are just there's systems around superstars, you know, that are designed to keep people like me away from them. And this was the system working at its finest. And I guess at any point, I could have just walked out and left. But I was on assignment. And I thought, I can still save this, which was which was ended up being false. And eventually, when Messi finally is brought to me after it was going to be in the morning that was going to be, you know, after morning training, then it was going to be before afternoon training, then it was finally being after the long after. Um, he came in and just, you know, it was the worst interview that is probably in the history of journalism. I mean, it was like, monosyllabic answers. He was super bored with every question that I asked him. I was sweating. I was so nervous. It was utterly humiliating. And it was also a good reminder of just like these people live in this world and you're on the very periphery of it. And you and whatever you think of the relationship that you've invented in your head between you and this person and their work, because that's their job. It's false. It's made up. You know, they give us, they, the athletes give us joy. They give us despair. They give us moments of great drama. They allow us to connect with our community, with our nation, with people all over the world, but they don't have to care about us. And when you're in the presence of them, they might be having a bad day. They might just not be the right time. You might be the imperfect messenger for these set of stupid questions that you'd written. And that's it. It was a real learning moment. I gotta say. [00:20:45] Pablo Torre: Did it affect your relationship with the sport at all? [00:20:49] Daniel Alarcone: No, but it affected my relationship with journalism. Like I never again have attempted to write about anyone famous. Like I'm just not interested. Yeah. [00:20:57] John Green: Well, there's something wrong, like fundamentally wrong with the celebrity profile, right? Which is that they're exchanging pieces of their private life for public attention and they want to be very careful about how much of their private lives they exchange because once you give that up, it's not yours anymore. Right? Like once you share X or Y about yourself, it doesn't belong to you anymore. It doesn't belong to your family. You have to call your friends and say, I'm sorry that you found out about that from a magazine. Yeah. And so you have to be super protected. I understand why it's miserable from a journalism perspective, but I also understand why Lionel Messi would want to, would want to give him on a celebic answer. [00:21:35] Pablo Torre: As somebody who spent more than a decade writing about famous athletes, you begin to realize, okay, boxers who are incentivized to be interesting as a matter of their own like capitalistic incentive structure. Sure. Um, they are very different from the most famous soccer player on the planet for whom popularity. Is not an issue. Is, is, is so not an issue that they exist behind walls that are protected by other walls. Right. Like it's just, they have no incentive to give you a second of their time. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm always staggered by the numbers on these soccer player social media accounts. Yeah. Wow. Cristiano Ronaldo has 666 million Instagram followers. That's the mark of the beast for a reason, Pablo. I mean, I'm just reading numbers, but I think it's up for the interpretation you provided. 666 million. Yeah. Amazing. Messi has 507 million. Yeah. Which is all to say that if you are a writer who wants access to these athletes, you literally need to sponsor the liminal area that Jon described. [00:22:43] Daniel Alarcone: If I had a million or 6 million or any number of like anything remotely, I would just never tweet or post again. It would just be so much pressure. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how you have a million or so followers. [00:22:59] John Green: I love that you have no idea how many Instagram followers I have. Well, it's beautiful. I'm one of them. Stay golden, Tony boy. Yeah. [00:23:06] Daniel Alarcone: Thank you. Doesn't that feel like too much pressure? [00:23:08] John Green: 2.2 million. That's a lot. It is a lot of pressure, but I just tell myself they're all bots. Hmm. Yeah. I'm not a bot. I follow you. I appreciate that. I follow you, Pablo. I don't follow Daniel. [00:23:20] Pablo Torre: I mean, I don't think Daniel loves it enough. Yeah. He doesn't love the Instagram game like we do, man. No. We're posting. We're true posters. [00:23:29] John Green: That's right. [00:23:30] Daniel Alarcone: Internet natives. [00:23:31] John Green: I post. [00:23:32] Pablo Torre: Definitely. I get the vibe that Daniel's just mostly flopping his hair in front of us one of his eyes. The question of what should the World Cup feel like as soccer is, as we've now described it, potentially a liberal arts education for someone. If you wanted to treat it like that. It is also though, outside of the United States, something that is, I think, worthy of explanation. How would you explain the World Cup to countries that are not this one? [00:24:11] Daniel Alarcone: Yeah. I mean, I'm currently living in Bogota in Colombia. And I can say the World Cup is a national obsession. Every bar, every restaurant, people are getting together to watch games. People are talking about games. People for the last two months, you know, all over the city, people have been trading panini, you know, the stickers. Trading cards. Trading cards. Trading cards. Yeah. The kids talk about it. You know, when we moved to Bogota, my son liked soccer, but didn't love it. And over the course of this one year in Bogota, now he's like, has opinions about, you know, the defensive frailties of New Zealand. You know, like, I mean, he's just like gotten obsessed because it's just osmosis in the culture. And, um, like I'm flying back tonight in part because Colombia plays tomorrow night. Um, and I don't want to be here when I can be there. I mean, it is how we mark time in Latin America. And I, and I know that it's how, you know, people in, in, in Europe and, in, in African Asia mark time as well. Every four years, it's like, okay, we're going to pause, celebrate this beautiful spectacle and, uh, and then go on with our lives. And, you know, people were saying like, you know, if you, even if you play three games and you're out, it's three moments of, of communion for a nation. It's three moments when you're visible. You know, I was watching the Cape Verde game with a good friend of mine who's Cape Verdean. You know, when they played the national anthem, she gave me a hug and she was like, we did it before the ball had even been kicked. And then they went on and did something extraordinary. [00:25:45] Speaker 7: That is it. Cabo Verde with a result of a lifetime. And this will be remembered for a long, long time. [00:25:55] Daniel Alarcone: But just the visibility, just being there, especially from a small country, it's like, no one ever thinks about Cape Verde. No one ever thinks about Peru where I'm from. And usually they think about Peru when something bad happens, you know, or we get another president or whatever happens. And so just to be visible and just to be, see yourself, you know, people talk a lot about, you know, sort of this idea of like, you know, what it means to be seen. And I think the World Cup for a lot of people from small countries, from obscure countries or countries that people don't think about much in the United States, when we appear on the world stage, you know, on this particular world stage, it's so emotional. And that's the one thing that I think Americans take for granted. [00:26:34] Pablo Torre: The excess of attention paid upon America has left us numb to the idea that being in a tournament like this in which the world is paying attention. [00:26:45] Daniel Alarcone: There's one other thing that I think that Americans don't get because we don't have a diaspora. Diasporas come to us. National teams for diasporic peoples are so important because they are the simplest way to express your love for a country. Even if that love can be very complicated, even if your parents left because they had to. You still love that place and it could be a complicated love. And the national team for 90 minutes allows you to simplify. You throw on the jersey. You forget about the politics. You forget about your crazy family. You forget about the reasons why you emigrated. And you just express this very simple love for the place that you come from. [00:27:26] John Green: Yeah, there's that great line in Ulysses where someone asks Bloom what a nation is. And he says a nation is the same people in the same place. And then he pauses and says, or in other places. And how do you understand yourself as part of the same people if you're in other places? And I think football is one of those ways. Yeah, I mean, you just got back from Norway, right? Yeah, it was great. I had a great trip to Norway and- Noted World Cup participants in Norway. Absolutely. Everybody was talking about Erling Haaland and how many goals he's going to score. And it's an absolute obsession. It is the only thing that's happening. That's the only way I can describe it. It's the conversation that everyone has. And so instead of talking about the weather, you talk about the World Cup. There's so little that human beings can pay attention to together that is even moderately positive. And I don't want to minimize the corruption of FIFA, which is horrific. Of course. Yeah, it's a given. It's a given. But the corruption is contingent on the power that you guys are describing. Absolutely. And so this is all inseparable, right? So that's a great point that you can't have that corruption unless you have this incredibly powerful thing. That in some ways, I mean, most people on this earth are at some point going to pay attention to this World Cup. And that's not true for any other thing. [00:28:45] Daniel Alarcone: FIFA doesn't own the World Cup. We do. You know, they might own the brand thing and the, you know, they make all the money, but and they might have successfully weaponized our love of the game against us. But for me, you know, the reason that I'm flying back to Bogota to watch. I'm not a Colombian. My wife is, our family is, our friends are. But flying back to Bogota to see the game with that community is because it means something that FIFA can't touch. [00:29:11] Pablo Torre: Yes. And I don't know what you guys talk about when you talk about nation building. But the thing I think about all the time here domestically is how an understanding of sports and soccer at the most extreme end of the spectrum in terms of its ability to galvanize, you know, millions upon millions, nine figures worth of people all the time. But the ability to understand sports so that you are not caught blindsided by its power is also really important. Yeah. Because it is in this era in which everything is siloed and broken apart. It's the thing that resembles the big tent, as I often say on this show. And so being surprised and naive to its power is also at this point just a massive liability if you're trying to do anything resembling organizing. [00:30:00] John Green: Right. One of the things I love about AFC Wimbledon as opposed to Liverpool, which I love, I've loved since I was a kid, as opposed to any, you know, modern football club or modern sports team is that, you know, the Knicks, that's an incredible story. It's amazing what they accomplish, what those players accomplish. [00:30:18] Speaker ?: Yeah. [00:30:18] John Green: But ultimately, like, that's a billionaire's asset that's being used by that billionaire. And it's true for almost every soccer team in England, even the, like, lower league teams. I was in a meeting once with a guy and I was like, so who owns your football club? He was like the managing director. And he was like, oh, the Saudis. And I was like, you're in the fourth division. Wow. Like, you guys are terrible at this. And so I think, like, we have to find ways to build different structures and different systems where the fans actually do have the power. And the New York Knicks can't become the Los Angeles Knicks next year if somebody decides that they want to. The city would burn to the ground. No, I know. Yeah, that wouldn't. But see, that wouldn't happen because there is power in the people. Like, there is power in the fandom. Right. And so I think that's important for everyone to understand. Like, you have more power as a fan than you maybe think you do. [00:31:14] Pablo Torre: And I think about that whenever I watch European football. Yeah. You know, I talk about this on the show, but, like, the Super League as this eye-opening thing of, like, that was a populist, that was Occupy Wall Street. [00:31:26] John Green: Yeah. But somehow more effective. They just rejected it out of hand and the football clubs had to say, like, okay, I guess we're gonna back off. [00:31:33] Daniel Alarcone: Within, like, 72 hours. Yes. [00:31:35] Pablo Torre: Amazing. Yes. Within three days, everyone was like, I guess the fans decided that we can't do this. And they couldn't. I think about, we've done episodes about the Bundesliga. I mean, in German football, there's the 50 plus one rule. Yeah. Yeah. Could you explain just the very basic premise of that? [00:31:50] John Green: Yeah, so all German football clubs are ultimately owned by their fans. 50 plus one percent of the club has to belong to the members. And the members are, with very rare exceptions, a pretty large community. And so it's very difficult for a corporation to come in. Now, it has happened occasionally. Red Bull has done it successfully, where they come in and kind of flood the membership of a small club and then build it up to become Red Berg Salzburg or whatever. But in general, those clubs are owned by their communities. And that's the way it's always been. And they're very successful. I mean, you could argue that maybe German football hasn't been as successful in the last 20 years as English football or Spanish football. But Bayern Munich is still a huge club and they're owned by their fans. Yep. [00:32:36] Pablo Torre: We did an episode about Schalke 04. Yeah. Which is within the 50 plus one model in which it's, you know, 51%, just a majority. That's the concept of 50 plus one. Yeah. They, they finished first in their division. Yeah. And they're getting promoted. They're going up to the Bundesliga. To the Bundesliga. [00:32:52] John Green: Yeah. [00:32:53] Pablo Torre: I guess my point is the large American sporting machine is not the only way that this has to be. Yeah. And that's what soccer always reminds me of. It's like, oh, wait a minute. You guys have lots of money. You guys have all of these competing oligarchs and interests and incentives. And you've figured out that there's a different way. Again, FIFA being the apex predator of corruption. Yes. But at the team level, there are different ways you could own and operate these things. Yeah, absolutely. I will say I had the experience of covering the World Cup in Brazil for five weeks in 2014. Right. [00:33:27] John Green: I was there for Brazil playing Germany. Ooh. One of the great catastrophes of human history. [00:33:33] Speaker 6: He raises his arm. Boo's ring around the Stadio Mineral in Belo Horizonte. The only word you can think of is total disbelief right now. [00:33:45] Pablo Torre: Germany blew out Brazil seven to one. And at no point in that entire game was it even close to uncertain. No. What was happening. It could have been worse than seven one. And it could have really been worse. I just remember feeling like, oh, yeah, this is this is like this is a 90 minute funeral. Yeah. And people are not leaving because it's the World Cup in Brazil. Right. And of course, like, you're not going to get up and go. But I just don't know of a feeling that's quite like, what's the analogy for that? Like, there is something that's really hard to define about the mixture of pride in your team, despite an unbelievably embarrassing showing pride in being the host country. This thing that you've been waiting for your whole life and just knowing that you're being dunked on over and over again. It's a particular kind of like, there should be a German word for that, I guess. [00:34:45] Daniel Alarcone: It probably is. And it has like 14 syllables. I mean, I think you could argue that Brazilian soccer hasn't recovered from that. Yeah. And they won't recover until they win another World Cup. Because the, there's just kind of no way to overstate the trauma of, yeah. Brazilians go into any tournament thinking that they can win. They think that there's this magical power associated with that jersey. And it's the, the team of Pelé. It's the team of Romario. It's the team of Ronaldinho and Ronaldo. It's the team of like, joy. It's a team of joy. I was, I was talking about this with a Brazilian friend. This, it's like a sad Irishman. We can get that. And like a sad German. Yes. Even like a sad Mexican, like, but like a sad Brazilian. There's something really like, it's, it's traumatic as an outsider to even view Brazilian sadness. Because, because we associate the country, the music, the culture with a kind of joy that has always been expressed on the pitch with the way they play. [00:35:43] Pablo Torre: Right. Stylistically, in every way, culturally. It, it kind of, it was like watching, it was like watching this person you knew be lobotomized. [00:35:53] John Green: Oh God, it was brutal. It was just like, this isn't what you're like. You could tell that they felt that on the pitch. Like they were looking at each other. Like what is happening? Who are we? What, what, what has occurred? And I think what people sometimes forget about that game is that Neymar was really badly injured. Like within a, within a, am I wrong, Daniel, that he was within a couple of centimeters of being paralyzed? [00:36:14] Daniel Alarcone: Yeah. In the previous game by a Colombian defender. Yeah. [00:36:17] John Green: Yeah. And so he was really badly injured in a scary way. And he was their. Talisman. And their expression. The vast majority of them are there to like be in the right place at the right time and kick the ball to the right place. Right. But then you need someone like Neymar or Lamine Jamal. Yeah. Or Messi. Who, who does have that, that genius, that understanding of, of space, that understanding of passes. Yeah. And, um, and without that, they were just hopeless. [00:36:43] Daniel Alarcone: Right. I, I was in a cab yesterday going to the fan zone in Philly and our, our, our Uber driver was Haitian. And we were just talking about the world cup. Um, and he guaranteed me that Haiti would beat Brazil. Wow. Yeah. So when you talk about the long tail of that seven, one, can you imagine, uh, like here we are, you know, three world cups later, four world cups later. And there's a Haitian fan who is telling me with a hundred percent confidence that Haiti can beat Brazil. That imagine that before the seven, one it's, it's unthinkable. Right. [00:37:19] Pablo Torre: Okay. Look, we're, this is a sports show. Allegedly. Uh, who's winning the world cup? John Green. I have no idea. [00:37:25] John Green: And all predictions are stupid and they're, they, they feed the betting machine that terrifies me. Um, Spain. [00:37:35] Pablo Torre: Why are you laughing so heartily at that? [00:37:39] Daniel Alarcone: I'm laughing because I think I put Spain too. And then after seeing them sort of flounder around and get bossed by Cape Verde, I'm, I'm, I'm doubting myself. I'm going to go with my heart and I'm going to say Columbia, even though. That's very unlikely. It's very unlikely. Fine. I'll say the U.S. [00:37:56] John Green: The U.S. There you go. The U.S. is going to win the world cup raids. It's going to be a U.S. Canada final after, after the U.S. beats Columbia in the semis and we're going to beat Canada. [00:38:05] Pablo Torre: This is a lot of pressure to put on you, John. Can you give the U.S. men's national team a pep talk? Wow. I want to see this. You've stepped in for those who are just listening. John Green. Yeah. Okay. Best-selling, young adult, author, novelist. [00:38:18] John Green: Right. Get in the zone. You either have to love something together or you have to hate something together. And the great thing about the 26 players sitting in front of me right now is that you all hate your coach. And you're going to use that. You're going to use that. You're going to use that hatred to bring yourselves together. And you're going to express an American football identity that we've never seen before. That shifts the world so profoundly that they will no longer call football in America, football. They'll call it American football. If that makes sense. That's great. That's great. I could see the eagle appearing on your shoulder. [00:39:00] Pablo Torre: Yeah, we're going to put music underneath there. [00:39:01] Daniel Alarcone: Yeah. The flag wave. That's great. [00:39:04] Pablo Torre: Yeah, I was hoping you would go with, "And then she wrapped her hand around it and put it into her mouth." [00:39:09] John Green: Oh my God, are you reading from my novel? And waited. [00:39:12] Pablo Torre: We were both very still. She did not move a muscle in her body. Oh, I gotta go. And I did not move a muscle in mine. I knew that at this point something else was supposed to happen. Yeah. But I wasn't quite sure what. [00:39:21] John Green: Pablo, I'm just going to stop you right there and tell you that there are no adjectives in that entire scene. That's how unerotic it is. It's literally an adjective-less scene. I think the only adjective on that entire page is nervous. I could go on, but I think— [00:39:35] Pablo Torre: This is one of the worst things that ever happened to me. I could go on, but I think the U.S. men's national team gets the drift. [00:39:40] Daniel Alarcone: Wow. That reads like a medical textbook. Thank you. It was unerotic. [00:39:45] Pablo Torre: No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. What that sounds like is freedom. [00:39:53] John Green: That's right. An essential American value. [00:39:55] Pablo Torre: Thank you. USA. [00:39:57] John Green: Yeah. USA. [00:40:07] Pablo Torre: This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production. And I'll talk to you next time. [00:40:25] Speaker ?: I'll talk to you next time. I'll talk to you next time. I'll talk to you next time. I'll talk to you next time. I'll talk to you next time. Bye.