Today, Explained - World Cup: How 2 B a legend

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

Pelé. Maradona. Ronaldo. Soccer’s greats are so good, they’re typically known by one name. Men in Blazers soccer journalist Roger Bennett explains how winning the World Cup can turn a player into a legend.  This episode was produced by Hady Mawajdeh and Haleema Shah, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Efim Shapiro, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here's Mbappé! Oh my word! Maradona turns like a little eel and comes away from trouble. Little squat man, comes inside, leaves him for dead. Pele just seemed to hang in the air. A majestic header for 1-0. Mbappé, Pele, Maradona. Try to put into words what makes them legends. The Uruguayan poet Eduardo Gale, used to say about Maradona that he dribbled as if the ball was stuck to his foot. And Messi?

He told me Lionel Messi played as if the ball was actually inside his boot, between the shoe and his skin. Are you kidding me? This man is absolutely man-like. The pure footballing magic. Coming up on today's Explained World Cup edition, how to become a soccer god. Astonishing, jaw-dropping genius. Bet MGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long.

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to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Halima Shaw passes to Hadi Mawaddi. Hadi passes to Noel King. She cuts. Oh my! It's today! are you going to be offended if i call it soccer i can also say football i do not care they're all the same to me i don't human beings kicking a football I would watch horses kick a football. It's all honestly

incredibly moving. Roger Bennett, founder of the Men in Blazers media network and co-author of Gods of Soccer. This World Cup is a complicated one. There are some positives, there are some negatives. Where's your mind at? You're asking a gent who's just spent the last five months of my life working on a podcast series called World Corrupt. This is a strange World Cup. No, I am not going to lie. The winner to organize the 2022 FIFA World Cup is Qatar. Allegations of vote buying and human rights abuses have marred the run up to the competition. Some fans are even threatening a boycott. Moving it to November, which has forced football to rip up its entire season and kind of jam this thing in.

From May to September, the conditions will be unbearable. So with two consecutive months needed, November and December have been identified as the only feasible option. Normally the teams have a couple of weeks to train and play a couple of essentially pre-season games and work out their kinks. These are going to be akin to all-star teams flung out onto the field with very little chemistry. There's a lot of games that are compressed, over-compressed in a very short period of time. So I think it would be a world cup of deep uncertainty

you recently co-wrote a book in which you catalogued this sport's 100 greatest players in your view which sounds like a very divisive and dangerous thing to do. Tell me about your book. Oh, it's a ridiculous thing to do. Can we just be candid? It's a ridiculous thing to do in that the joy of sports isn't so subjective. We form our opinions, we call them scientific, and then we know how ridiculous they are even as we hold them up. But then we prepare to defend them with the heat of a thousand suns. What makes a soccer player a legend? What is greatness is something that can be awarded by football fans in a variety of different ways. And also the game of football is a wonder because as Albert Camus said,

once a great goalkeeper before he became an even greater writer he's alleged to have said that everything he knows about morality and humankind he learned through football football is ultimately about decision making in the crucible of pressure and so you do see the whole of humanity reflected and to me, greatness can come from goals scored within a context of politics, of culture, of history. Saturday, September 6, a historic day for Armenia. For the very first time, a Turkish president travelled to Armenia to attend a football game. Inside the stadium, some fans seized this opportunity to ask for the reopening of their shared border. It can be conferred by moments of humanity themselves that are revealed. And so greatness can also come from tenacity, from perseverance, from endurance. There are greats who come from

the body of work. There's greats who come from the innovation, the way they've changed the game. There's greats who can come in a moment of symbolism for their nation. There's been unrest in Iran since the death of Massa Amini in the custody of the morality police. Iran's football World Cup-bound team has dared the establishment with a public act of defiance. The entire squad covered their official jerseys with black jackets ahead of a friendly with Senegal in Austria. So ultimately, it's about action, but it's also about context. Do you believe that legends are made at the World Cup? They undoubtedly are. You asked me about greatness. And when you think of greatness, you think as a football fan of the true greats like Pele. An almighty leap by the famous

Brazil number 10. Pele just seemed to hang in the air. A majestic header for 1-0. And Maradona, the Argentinian wonder who inflicted agony and trauma on the English nation after the Falklands War. Maradona on the ball, always danger, lays it outside and finds Valdana, he can't turn, Maradona's there, rises above Schutt, and is that goal going to be allowed? Schutt came out, Maradona challenged him, Peter Schutt is claiming he was fouled, and that goal is going to be allowed. Which, as a kid, when he handled the ball into the net against my English heroes and then minutes later scored one of the single greatest goals I've ever seen, destroying the whole team, running through the whole team, slaloming through them.

Maradona turns like a little eel and comes away from trouble. Little squat man comes inside Fudger, leaves him for dead. Outside Fennec leaves him for dead and puts the ball away. And that is why Maradona is the ball home deliriously. As a kid, I went outside into my backyard and smashed a football through my own lounge window. And my father, who was quite a strict bloke, just popped his head out as the glass tinkled around him and said,

I understand your pain, Roger. I understand. And now I have a photograph. I'm looking at you from my office of Maradona handling the ball, which he signed over my English series, to remind me of the memories in sport, which often feel the most traumatic, are often the ones that you carry with you in life.

And they ultimately turn into the most wonderful. And the World Cup is the greatest stage. It's the most watched. They're estimating 5 billion people. I don't know how they actually work that number out. We'll be tuning in to this thing. I always think about it like a soccer-themed bar mitzvah to which the whole world is invited. people. I don't know how they actually work that number out. We'll be tuning in to this thing. I always think about it like a soccer-themed bar mitzvah to which the whole world is invited.

It's stopped wars. It's created heroes. And the greats are always inextricably connected to it. But so are human beings who came out of nowhere. This is the power of the World Cup. There's a 1990 World Cup. I remember a footballer, Tuto Scalacci, who was a minor, minor character in world football. No one outside of Italy probably understood this kind of balding, wild-eyed striker. The 27-year-old was the last man to be named in the Italian squad on the back of one good season at Juventus. And out of nowhere, he just came off as a substitute off the bench and scored six goals

in seven games. This has got to be a chance, and it's a goal for the Italians. And Schilacci, within moments of coming on the pitch, has given Italy the goal they so desperately, desperately needed. By the way, barely made the blip again. I mean, Scalacci was just a random bloke who was almost last starfighter, plucked out of obscurity to become a world great.

But there are now, you know, thousands of babies named after Tuto Scalacci. Many years have passed, but what I did is still fresh in people's minds, and I hope it will be for many years to come. And that is the power of the World Cup. The heroes will be forged in the next month, whose name we never even breathed before.

Tell me about one who's playing in this World Cup. Tell me about a contemporary legend. Watch out, world! There's a new number 10. Kylian Mbappé's star is shining now. Kylian Mbappé was a 19-year-old French phenom, just a gentleman who grew up outside of Paris in the French suburbs,

which are revered as just a melting pot of footballing. It's like a Petri dish too. Just the number of people packed in there, the amount of coaching that's dropped in in a few square miles and just the number of football obsessives. It just produces a strain of incredible footballers. None more impressive than this human being who is a blur of speed. I've never seen something like this in my life.

This guy, he started to run, but it looked like everybody was walking. To his Mbappé! Oh, my word! And he led France to a World Cup win of wonder and became a Goliath that stood resplendent over the entire world. Of course you have to work, of course you have to do, like you said, sacrifice, of course there is a lot of things but the most important thing is you have to dream and that's something

free and that's something give you the power and the patience to do the things after. And it was magnificent to see someone that young, that skill-soaked, that confident, almost essentially in an American term, point at the bleachers and just hit home run after home run after home run and lifting a delirious nation on his back and carrying it to glory. Then it's this stage where there's just an instantaneous global heroism forged and kids all over the world will try and mimic and mime and make believe that they are doing the overhead kick that propelled the netherlands to glory in the semi-final shouting out the name of the goal scorer whose name is still to be revealed. It's like a telenovela that's being played out live, unscripted, with the whole world watching. It makes a Marvel comic blockbuster movie seem small in comparison.

Tell me, who are the heroes or the legends who will be on the field beginning next week? Brazil are very much the favourites. That technicolour, yellow and green, golden, shining giant, a collective fist. Neymar, Vinicius Junior, Richarlison's done well at Spurs. We know Rodrigo was brilliant this weekend for Real Madrid. It is just a wealth of options for Brazil. England, as ever, overly expectant of their nation. They got into the semi-final at the last World Cup

and are dreaming of going further. Self-sabotage and doom is no doubt their national fate. England are not in good form going into this World Cup without a win in any of their last six matches, which included a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Hungary, who didn't even manage to qualify for this World Cup. But I think the story going into the World Cup is that of Argentina, who will have Lionel Messi, an ageing Lionel Messi,

a Lionel Messi who late in his career has found a new joy, almost a new freedom, is playing as he did as a kid. Messi! Messi with a record-breaking goal to another Argentina number 55. When he's played in the light blue and white of Argentina, the jersey, there's almost been too much pressure. It's almost weighed of chain mail and dragged him down. He's disappointed

the nation. The sight of Lionel Messi leaving the field, having been defeated at the World Cup with tears running down his face. I always think that's what Prince meant when he sang, this is what it sounds like when doves cry. This Argentinian team though, fifth World Cup for Messi, he's actually playing in a cohesive, collective, joyous way. And that notion of Messi, to me, undoubtedly the greatest footballer that there's ever been. To haters, they'll say, yes, but he never won a World Cup, like Pelé did, like Maradona did. That's really the storyline going into this World Cup

that everybody's looking at. Can Lionel Messi ascend to his rightful throne by winning it all? Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp, you're able to issue cards to every employee with limits and restrictions and automate expense reporting so you can stop wasting250 when you join Ramp. You can go to ramp.com slash explained, ramp.com slash explained, r-a-m-p.com slash explained.

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Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. I didn't think I'd ever need to tell you this, but I would be a bad parent if I didn't think I'd ever need to tell you this, but I would be a bad parent if I didn't. Soccer was invented by European ladies to keep them busy while their husbands did the cooking. Why do you have to hate what you don't understand? I don't hate you, Bobby.

I meant soccer. Oh, oh yeah, I hate soccer, yes. It's today's Explained World Cup edition. We're back with Roger Bennett of the Men in Blazers media network. And Roger, I want to switch gears to talk about your adopted home, the United States. Are there any Americans in your book of soccer legends? There are so many Americans in the book of soccer legends. Book of Soccer Legends. Listeners who are hearing my accent, I am from Liverpool, but do not be thrown by my accent. I adore America in the same way Kenny Powers loves America.

I grew up in a time of economic turmoil for the city of Liverpool during the Thatcher era, just worshipping all things American. The John Hughes movies, the music of Run DMC, Tracy Chapman, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island,

The Chicago Bears. The Bears. All of them made me want to move here at the earliest opportunity, which I did. And arriving here before the 1994 World Cup in Chicago, it was a horror to realize that the game I love really didn't have much of a footprint in my adopted nation. But watching the rise of football in the United States since then has been the joy of my life. In Men in Blazers, the growth of my media network, which focuses purely on football, we feel like we are a surfer on a very large wave. And that wave is the American

fan base moving towards men's and women's football. We are living in incredible days. And so the book is littered with incredible American heroes. Yemir Hamz. Here's Yemir Hamz. In the box. The shot. Goal. She's got the record. And also Yabriana Scurries, the African-American goalkeeper

who grew up in Minnesota. The cross inside and Scurry comes out. Good grab for Yabriana Scurry. goalkeeper who grew up in Minnesota. She was the only African-American girl on almost every team she ever played for. You see photographs of her on youth teams, always the only other African-American face. And she propelled herself through force of will to play for the United States national team, became a World Cup winner, and the first African-American woman to be in the National Soccer Hall of Fame. Through all the teams that I was on, living in a rural town in Minnesota, I was the only black player on every team. I just knew that I was on my way and it really didn't hinder me at all. I may be a different person,

looking different, have different preferences, but this is what makes a team great, all the differences. These are the stories that Pat the Bort, that I hope our young audience really engage with, learn from, and feel inspired by. Are there any American men legends or do the women have the edge here? Our women are one of the greatest drivers of the growth of the game in the United States. Americans love the best. We love the best. The NFL is the best football league in the world. Take that Canadian football league. The major league baseball is the best baseball league in the world. And the confounding thing about football is we have a league that's flourishing here

on the men's side, MLS. But everyone knows the best football in the world is played in Europe. So that was, in the early 90s, very confounding for Americans. Why is the best not here right now? And the women's game, Americans are not only the best,

but the perpetual best. 1991, 1999, 2015 and now 2019 for the fourth time the United States of America are crowned champions of the world. They have defined the field. Title IX does not exist in other parts of the world. And they have grown the field, pioneered the field in this recent fight for equality, really led other nations to reconsider how they've structured their football. And they've been incredible pathfinders.

And we often joke that if our men's team was half as good as our women's team, they could be world beaters and the lovely part of this moment in time though as we approach a world cup on the men's side there is hope there is wonder we have a young team filled with talent soaked young kids who have all moved en masse to Europe to define their skills against the best for the best. Of the 48 players called up to the US men's national team over the last year, 38 are under 25 and 19 are under 21, while over a third are on the books of sides in Europe's top five leagues.

Football is flourishing. As I said, I feel like a surfer on a massive wave of Americans falling in love with the game I love. I'm almost like Kelly Slater, but a bald Kelly Slater. And it's all down really to the growth of football in the United States. And when this World Cup comes here in 2026, it will finish the job that 1994 was meant to do, which is to make America a football-loving nation,

a normal football-loving nation, and no longer like space to Captain Kirk, football's final frontier. I played soccer as a kid, and I remember coaches saying, yeah, it's really going to take off. It's really going to take off. This is what, 1995? You're promising me that in 2026, the United States will finally develop a real, lasting, profound interest in soccer. I am vowing to you, Noel, that I will be on your podcast, wherever you are podcasting in 2026, or whatever form of technology we are doing in the metaverse, we'll always still be podcasting, who knows. But I will respond to you, Noel, and you will say,

oh my God, our cup overfloweth with football. And that's because Americans also love overnight transformation. And the 94 World Cup was meant to turn us overnight into a football-loving nation, as if football was like a yo-yo or a pogo stick or a hula hoop, but it hasn't worked like that. Instead, the growth has been slow and steady, World Cup to World Cup, and I'm almost grateful for that. Football cannot be a fad. It has to be an authentic passion, and the growth, the slow and steady growth of the sport here on the men's and the women's side has created deep roots and authentic fan culture, incredible passion, propelled by the fact that, number one, it's a perfect sport for the internet age.

Baseball's golden era was because it was so perfect for the golden era of radio. The NFL raised to prominence because it was the perfect televisual sport. All those camera angles, TV timeouts, room for commercial. It's the internet that's connected America to football. You can become as informed a fan of Liverpool from Los Angeles or Arsenal from Alabama as if you live a stone's throw away from their team's stadium. Game-changing.

The amount of football that's now broadcast on channels who are fighting for the rights because they know it will bring a devoted young audience to their streamers. EA Sports FIFA, the game, which has inculcated a sense of the crazy world of football, the characters, the teams, the tactics to dorm rooms across the United States. All of these things have combined together. Well, our women have become back-to-back world champions. Well, our men have started to play for the greatest teams in Europe and most perhaps significant in the long term over the next couple of decades. Well, American sports investors have poured over to become owners of some of the bigger Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea, all now in American hands.

And so the future of the world sport is undoubtedly incredibly American. And so American sporting appetites have changed. And finally, finally, 2026, all of the commercial investment, all of the infrastructure, all of the hype, that delirious month that we will, please God, be able to share together, that, that, no, is what will put football finally over the top in the United States. Today's show was produced by Hadi Mouagdi and Halima Shah. It was edited by Amina El-Sadi and Matthew Collette. It was engineered by Afim Shapiro.

And it was fact-checked by Laura Bullard. It's Today Explained, World Cup edition. I'm Noelle King. Bye.